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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with Part

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Speaker 3: two in our series on cynicism, the tendency to believe

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Speaker 3: other people are selfish, untrustworthy, and immoral. In Part one,

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Speaker 3: we talked about what cynicism means in its modern usage,

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Speaker 3: and we contrasted that with similar but distinct concepts like pessimism,

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Speaker 3: and also with cynic philosophy, the latter being a school

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Speaker 3: of philosophy born in ancient Greece that emphasized moral integrity,

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Speaker 3: self sufficiency, and virtue, and achieved in part by shedding pretensions,

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Speaker 3: like ignoring the pressure to conform and living in accordance

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Speaker 3: with our nature. The word cynic comes from the Greek

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Speaker 3: word for, and so a cynic philosopher in the ancient

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Speaker 3: sense might say that we can all learn something from

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Speaker 3: watching the honest way that a dog lives according to

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Speaker 3: its nature. This, of course, is quite different from what

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Speaker 3: we mean by cynicism today in common language, which is

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Speaker 3: a disposition of low social trust, the tendency to believe,

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Speaker 3: as we put it, last time, that people are bad,

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Speaker 3: people are selfish, and morals are fake. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, ancient philosophic cynics be like a dog. Modern cynics

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Speaker 2: dog eat dog.

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Speaker 3: Yes, now, last time, we also talked a bit about

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Speaker 3: cynicism in literature, with my observation that really, like the

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Speaker 3: most cynical writing I could find anywhere was all in

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Speaker 3: the Bible, which I'm not sure exactly what to make

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Speaker 3: of that, but that is kind of surprising and counterintuitive perhaps,

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Speaker 3: But it's like, especially in the books of the prophets

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Speaker 3: in the Hebrew Bible, like Micah and Jeremiah, full of

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Speaker 3: just very eloquent, devastating condemnations of human nature. The heart

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Speaker 3: is deceitful above all things. There is none that doeth good, No,

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Speaker 3: not one, that sort of thing. We also discussed medical, psychological,

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Speaker 3: and sociological research on the correlates of cynicism, with the

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Speaker 3: overwhelming conclusion being that holding cynical beliefs about human nature

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Speaker 3: and low trust in others is quite harmful to us

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Speaker 3: in many different ways. It appears to be bad for

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Speaker 3: our health, mental and physical health. It is correlated with

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Speaker 3: all kinds of undesirable outcomes, including early death. We didn't

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Speaker 3: really get into this research last time, but you probably

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Speaker 3: won't be surprised to learn it is associated with low

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Speaker 3: quality social relationships, and despite the archetype of the ruthless,

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Speaker 3: cynical striver and achiever, it also tends, on average to

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Speaker 3: make it harder for us to reach even our material

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Speaker 3: goals like making money and attaining positions of leadership, at

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Speaker 3: least in part because cynical people waste a lot of

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Speaker 3: time and resources trying to avoid being made a sucker

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Speaker 3: and miss out on opportunities to cooperate with others for

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Speaker 3: mutual benefit. So I think it's safe to say that

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Speaker 3: believing everyone is just in it for themselves and cannot

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Speaker 3: be trusted is in so many ways bad, bad, bad

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Speaker 3: for us. It's bad for our lives. But of course,

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Speaker 3: the somewhat heartwarming implied inverse of all this is the

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Speaker 3: evidence that it really does us good to cooperate and

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Speaker 3: trust people.

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Speaker 2: Definite silver lining there to all all of this research

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Speaker 2: we've been doing here now.

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Speaker 3: In the last episode, we also raised a number of

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Speaker 3: questions that we weren't able to fully answer yet, and

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Speaker 3: we'll come back to them throughout the series. I think

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Speaker 3: we'll look at at least one study today that sheds

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Speaker 3: some light on this. But these were questions like, do

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Speaker 3: more cynical or less cynical people actually have a better

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Speaker 3: predictive model of the world, who's model of how other

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Speaker 3: people behave is more accurate? And in any given situation,

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Speaker 3: how can we know if we're being too trusting, too cynical,

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Speaker 3: or if we're striking just the most reasonable balance. And also,

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Speaker 3: given that it comes with so many clear downsides, what

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Speaker 3: if anything, is the benefit of cynicism.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure this will actually help us answer

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Speaker 2: any of these questions, but then maybe it'll give us

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Speaker 2: just a little more elbow room to work with the concept.

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Speaker 2: Reading through Anscar Allen's cynicism book Mit that I reverenced

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Speaker 2: in the last episode, and he covers several subsets of

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Speaker 2: modern cynicism, and here are a few that I thought

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Speaker 2: might help us out. So one category is insider cynics,

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Speaker 2: So the cynicism of contemporary professionals who believe that people

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Speaker 2: are ultimately selfish, and these individuals do their best to

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Speaker 2: survive in their organizations by dealing with their colleagues on

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Speaker 2: those terms. So we might think of it as a

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm not here to make friends approach, but

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Speaker 2: you know, only to work or specifically to work, with

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Speaker 2: the idea being that maybe outside of that work environment

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Speaker 2: they are less cynical.

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Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, I would certainly have questions about how

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Speaker 3: skilled people are actually are at like turning cynicism on

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Speaker 3: and off when switching between contexts. But you can certainly

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Speaker 3: see how that would be useful, maybe because you know,

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Speaker 3: it's quite reasonable to understand that, like, certain professional environments

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Speaker 3: require a lot less trust, require you to be more

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Speaker 3: doubting of people. Maybe if you are, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: investigating murders or something like that, like you you really

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Speaker 3: need to not just like trust people.

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Speaker 2: There are so many movies about murder detectives being able

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Speaker 2: to neatly separate their work life from their home life.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but so hopefully if you were in a job

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Speaker 3: like that, or if you're in just in kind of

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Speaker 3: a cutthrow business environment where everybody, you know, everybody's trying

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Speaker 3: to edge other people out in deals, you would hope

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Speaker 3: to be able to turn that off when you come

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Speaker 3: out of that and get into your relationships in life.

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Speaker 3: I guess it's questionable to what extent people can do

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Speaker 3: that very well.

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Speaker 2: I would agree with that. Yes, Another classification that he

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Speaker 2: singles out are the master cynics, so rich and powerful

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Speaker 2: contemporary cynics who hide their own cynicism by adopting the

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Speaker 2: values and beliefs of people they hold power over. In

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Speaker 2: a weird sense, system's kind of kind of a puzzle

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Speaker 2: because a person who's really cynical about politics would no

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Speaker 2: doubt assume that every politician is a master cynic, that

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Speaker 2: they're just when they're glad handing and so forth, they're

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Speaker 2: just pretending to take on these values where deep down

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Speaker 2: they know the truth, like I know that people are

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Speaker 2: just selfish and they're exploiting everyone as well.

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Speaker 3: We're going to have to come back to the question

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Speaker 3: of cynicism in politics and political participation because I think

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Speaker 3: that raises all sorts of interesting questions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's been a lot of research, a lot

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Speaker 2: of writing just on that area alone. Now, the third

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Speaker 2: of the categories that I'm going to reference here. There

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Speaker 2: are some additional ones that I'm not getting into, but

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Speaker 2: the third one I want to reference here is paternalistic cynicism,

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Speaker 2: and in this one holds a cynical view of human

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Speaker 2: motivations and seeks to capitalize on those motivations, but not

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Speaker 2: for personal gain, but for the greater good. And that one,

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Speaker 2: you know, made me think a little bit more and

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Speaker 2: maybe gives us a little more room to play when

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Speaker 2: considering the effectiveness or possible effectiveness of cynicism. I was thinking, like,

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Speaker 2: let's say you wanted to encourage a certain behavior in

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Speaker 2: the general public, and you're presented with two messaging options,

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Speaker 2: one that works based on a cynical view of human motivations,

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Speaker 2: you know, greed and self interest, while the other appeals

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Speaker 2: to the higher angels of their nature. Well, which is

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Speaker 2: more likely to work. It's going to depend on the messaging,

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Speaker 2: of course, and the exact details of the target audience,

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Speaker 2: you know, general audience versus you know, some narrow or audience.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, which worldview is a better starting place? I

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Speaker 2: feel like this might work as a good sort of

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Speaker 2: practical thought experiment because it entails making a choice about

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Speaker 2: how you're going to model the motivations of a given population.

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Speaker 2: But on the other hand, we kind of come back

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Speaker 2: to that sliding scale of cynicism. If one is cynical

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Speaker 2: enough about the intended audience, then would any messaging seem

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Speaker 2: like it would work, like why are you even bothering?

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Speaker 2: If you're just assuming that everyone out there is just selfish,

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Speaker 2: you might not be able to get them to stop littering,

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Speaker 2: or to recycle or to I don't know where seat belts.

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Speaker 3: But maybe the paternalistic cynicism model is like, you must

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Speaker 3: stop littering and you must be kind to your fellow

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Speaker 3: human being or you will go to hell something you know,

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Speaker 3: like appealing to your base personal interest in order to

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Speaker 3: get you to do something that the messager sees as good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, bring it back to fear right. Maybe I'm just

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Speaker 2: muddying the waters. But there's so many different areas you

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Speaker 2: can get into in discussion of modern cynicism. Rob.

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Speaker 3: One thing you said in the last episode that I

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Speaker 3: thought was really insightful and I have kept thinking about

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Speaker 3: ever since we recorded that is that you said maybe

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Speaker 3: one of the appeals of cynicism is that expressions of

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Speaker 3: cynicism are cathartic statements, like people suck. They when you

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Speaker 3: say things like that, or when somebody else says that

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Speaker 3: and you get to agree with them, it feels like

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Speaker 3: a psychological pressure release valve by like making a statement

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Speaker 3: of that sort you're sort of blowing off steam. And

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Speaker 3: of course this can be true even for people who

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Speaker 3: are not especially cynical on average, having these little moments

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Speaker 3: of situational cynicism. But I was thinking more about the

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Speaker 3: Catharsis element, and I wonder if this association of cynicism

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Speaker 3: with cathartic relief also tells us something about how people

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Speaker 3: can acquire generalized dispositional cynicism. Like what if the person

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Speaker 3: who is very cynical on average gets to be that

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Speaker 3: way by creating by like habituating themselves to a desire

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Speaker 3: for that momentary catharsis that you get from saying people suck?

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Speaker 3: Does that make any sense?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you dip your hand into the cynicism cookie

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Speaker 2: jar a few times too often and the crumbs begin

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Speaker 2: to stick. Yeah. I was thinking about this when I

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Speaker 2: was looking at some material related to cynicism in the workplace,

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Speaker 2: which is its own huge area of consideration that we're

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Speaker 2: not really going to get into in this episode per se.

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Speaker 2: But I was just thinking about, Okay, if one's really

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Speaker 2: cynical regarding one's employers, one's corporate overlords, you might excuse

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Speaker 2: any amount of inaction or slacking based on the view that, well,

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Speaker 2: they don't really care about me, they're not invested in me,

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Speaker 2: they're not paying me enough, and so forth, all any

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Speaker 2: grievance you might imagine. And maybe, just maybe in small doses,

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Speaker 2: this gives you space to let things glide in ways

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Speaker 2: that ease your work burden or create space for something

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Speaker 2: else you want to do. And yeah, maybe it's a

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Speaker 2: situation where if you stick your hand into that cookie

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Speaker 2: jar too often, it does become your default view, at

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Speaker 2: least of your work situation. And maybe it bleeds over

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Speaker 2: into other areas as well.

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Speaker 3: That is an interesting possibility. So you're in a kind

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Speaker 3: of a pressure inducing scenario and you, for whatever reason,

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Speaker 3: you can get little moments of relief from that pressure

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Speaker 3: by resorting to cynical evaluations. And so does that create

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Speaker 3: a kind of addiction, Like you associate the moment of

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Speaker 3: cathartic cynicism with relaxation of the pain, or with pleasure

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Speaker 3: even or something like that, and you just kind of

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Speaker 3: keep pressing the pleasure button until that's just what your

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Speaker 3: personality is. Yeah, I don't have research to back up

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Speaker 3: that interpretation of where cynicism comes from, but I think

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Speaker 3: that is an interesting possibility or if it ever sets

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Speaker 3: in that way.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I also was thinking, you know, in terms

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Speaker 2: of dealing with this a corporation or a company, like

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Speaker 2: it's one thing to sort of initially think cynically about,

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Speaker 2: like this faceless thing, this organization. But of course organizations

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Speaker 2: are made up of people, and so I wonder how

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Speaker 2: the cynicism might spread where you might generally have cynical

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Speaker 2: ideas about a company, but then those cynical ideas end

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Speaker 2: up applying to certain heads of that company. But then

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Speaker 2: it could potentially trickle down and then where does it stop?

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Speaker 2: Like who stops being the face of the company. I

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Speaker 2: guess they have to be cynical enough. They have to

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Speaker 2: share your cynicism in order to be like your your

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Speaker 2: brothers in arms against the company, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, Actually this sort of gets a

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Speaker 3: little bit into something I'm gonna talk about in the paper.

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Speaker 3: I'm about to explain. But there are different environments. There

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Speaker 3: are different sort of environments and contexts that encourage and

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Speaker 3: or different levels of cynicism. And so there can be

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Speaker 3: very like cynicism positive organizations, like if you are within

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Speaker 3: a company that is very cruel and in which you

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Speaker 3: know you don't do very well by placing trust in people,

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Speaker 3: it can be quite reasonable to end up responding with

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Speaker 3: the generalized cynicism about interactions within that company. Organizational culture

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Speaker 3: is a thing. So anyway, So I want to turn

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Speaker 3: to a concept in psychological research on cynicism that I

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Speaker 3: found really interesting, and that is the so called cynical

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Speaker 3: genius illusion. So I was reading about this in a

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Speaker 3: paper by a couple of researchers that I cited in

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Speaker 3: part one of the series. These scientists are Olga Stavrova,

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Speaker 3: a professor of psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands,

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Speaker 3: and Daniel Illbracht at the University of Cologne in Germany.

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Speaker 3: These two published a paper in the year twenty eighteen

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Speaker 3: in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and the

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Speaker 3: paper was called the Cynical Genius Illusion, Exploring and Debunking

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Speaker 3: lay beliefs about cynicism and competence. Now they begin by

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Speaker 3: acknowledging a lot of the things we talked about in

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Speaker 3: the last episode. They define cynicism as you know, the

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Speaker 3: main cognitive component of hostility. They're talking about it pretty

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Speaker 3: much in the same terms we are a belief that

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Speaker 3: other people you know, you should be suspicious of their motives,

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Speaker 3: that they that they are primarily motivated by self interest,

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Speaker 3: that they can't be trusted and will harm you. And

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Speaker 3: then they run through the long list of ways that

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Speaker 3: cynicism appears to be bad for us, bad for our

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Speaker 3: lives in health, in relationships, and ability to attain goals

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Speaker 3: and so forth. However, the authors complicate that picture by

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Speaker 3: noting that if you just look at popular culture and

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Speaker 3: literature and folk wisdom, cynicism does not not seem to

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Speaker 3: have and on the whole negative reputation. To read from

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Speaker 3: their introduction here quote, Among nineteenth and twentieth century writers

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Speaker 3: in popular figures, cynicism has often been seen as a

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Speaker 3: sign of intelligence and wit. American writers Ambrose Bierce and

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Speaker 3: Lillian Hellman praised cynicism as an art of seeing the

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Speaker 3: true nature of things. Bernard Shaw referred to cynicism as

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Speaker 3: a quote power of accurate observation, and John Stuart Mill

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Speaker 3: noticed that quote it is thought essential to a man

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Speaker 3: who has any knowledge of the world to have an

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Speaker 3: extremely bad opinion of it. And as for the other

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Speaker 3: authors they named, I looked up some of the cynical quotes.

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Speaker 3: I can't believe I didn't think of Ambrose Bierce as

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Speaker 3: a good source of literary cynicism in the last episode.

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Speaker 3: But in The Devil's Dictionary, Bierce defines a cynic as

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Speaker 3: someone quote whose faulty vision sees things as they are,

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Speaker 3: not as they ought to be. They all so cided

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Speaker 3: Lillian Hellman. Her version of this was, quote, cynicism is

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Speaker 3: an unpleasant way of saying the truth. And I do

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Speaker 3: think there's something interesting in Hellman's phrasing here, because of

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Speaker 3: the emphasis on tone. It is an unpleasant way of

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Speaker 3: saying what is true. So what is the difference between

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Speaker 3: somebody just quote being real and somebody being cynical. It

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Speaker 3: might be in the substance of what they say and

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Speaker 3: how they think. It might be like you know, material

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Speaker 3: substantive differences. But I think sometimes we make that distinction

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Speaker 3: based on whether there is negative emotion in their expression,

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Speaker 3: Like if they are counseling us against trust, did they

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Speaker 3: deliver that council with anger or contempt? But anyway, so

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Speaker 3: you've got all this literature that equates cynicism with the

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Speaker 3: kind of wisdom and you know, like the power to

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Speaker 3: see what is really going on. Also, the authors here

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Speaker 3: point out that if you draw up a list of

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Speaker 3: like cynical characters in popular culture, they don't tend to

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Speaker 3: be pitiable wretches dealing with setbacks imposed by their lack

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Speaker 3: of faith in humankind. More often, cynicism in fictional characters

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Speaker 3: is presented as gruff hard one realism and wisdom. The

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Speaker 3: cynical character has knowledge, insights, and powers of deduction not

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Speaker 3: available to their more trusting peers. So think of Sherlock

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Speaker 3: Holmes or the authors give the example of House from

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Speaker 3: how simd. I'm not a watcher of House, but I'm

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Speaker 3: familiar with the character.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you could do a full stop after Sherlock,

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Speaker 2: because Sherlock, of course influences so many different similar characters

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Speaker 2: and cast a long shadow across across the English language

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Speaker 2: and fiction and other languages, but cast a long shadow

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Speaker 2: across our media. Yeah, and yet at this and it

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Speaker 2: is interesting to think about Sherlock Holmes in these terms,

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Speaker 2: because yes, Sherlock Holmes is presented as being, you know,

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Speaker 2: somewhat emotionally detached, but not you know, certainly he's fighting

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Speaker 2: the good fight. He is on the side of the

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Speaker 2: good guy, and will sometimes even you know, break the

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Speaker 2: rules a little bit or bend them in order to

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Speaker 2: make sure that justice is served. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 2: I think if you, if you look closely enough at Sherlock,

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Speaker 2: I mean he's also a character who at times admits

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Speaker 2: that he's never loved anyone or has certainly never had

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Speaker 2: a romantic love in his life. He also struggles horribly

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Speaker 2: with addiction at one point. You know, so you know,

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Speaker 2: he's he's not an angel. But again, I guess this

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Speaker 2: part of his presentation, he's he's hard boiled. It's it's

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Speaker 2: it's it's hard one cynicism that he uses in order

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Speaker 2: to solve the crimes that he's presented with.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that is actually generally true.

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Speaker 3: Cynical characters are often presented as suffering as a result

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Speaker 3: of their own cynicism, but not wrong because of it,

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Speaker 3: Like that their cynicism is something that hurts them and

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Speaker 3: it makes them sad and lonely, but it also gives

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Speaker 3: them cognitive superiority. It gives them intelligence and wisdom and

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Speaker 3: power to see through the facade and see what's really happening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, so based on this background of the cynical

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Speaker 3: geniuses in fiction, and the sort of cynical wit and

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Speaker 3: wisdom from literature. The author is conducted a number of

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Speaker 3: different studies. They did four studies to explore common beliefs

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Speaker 3: about the link between cynicism and cognitive superiority and competence,

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Speaker 3: and then three more studies to look at whether there

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Speaker 3: actually is a link. So, do people in general think

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Speaker 3: that cynicism is a sign of knowledge, intellect, and competence.

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Speaker 3: Do cynics actually seem smarter? And are they actually smarter

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Speaker 3: and more competent than the rest of us?

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Speaker 2: Well Sherlock is above reproach, but I'm curious to hear

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Speaker 2: how it lights to real people.

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Speaker 3: So the authors begin by acknowledging some existing research that

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Speaker 3: touches on these questions. For example, there was a study

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Speaker 3: by Evans and Venda Caalceda published in Personality and Social

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Speaker 3: Psychology Bulletin in twenty eighteen called the Reputational Consequences of

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Speaker 3: Generalized Trust. And this study looked at what we was

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Speaker 3: just sort of a survey of what we tend to

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Speaker 3: think of people when we know that they are high

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Speaker 3: in trust or low in cynicism. The findings were that

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Speaker 3: high trust, individuals are seen as moral and seen as sociable,

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Speaker 3: but also seen as less competent. And this kind of

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Speaker 3: makes sense as a familiar personality archetype, right like, Johnny

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Speaker 3: is so trusting, he's a good guy, he's friendly, but

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Speaker 3: he doesn't know what he's doing. So, if showing generalized

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Speaker 3: trust makes people think we're less competent, does that imply

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Speaker 3: that showing generalized distrust makes people think we're more competent. Perhaps? However,

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Speaker 3: the authors also found here that people see you as

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Speaker 3: more competent if you display what they call discriminate ability,

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Speaker 3: which is the ability to tell the difference between a

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Speaker 3: situation in which you should trust and situations in which

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Speaker 3: you should not. And this takes us back to the

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Speaker 3: question we mentioned in part one. Obviously, nobody either trusts

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Speaker 3: or distrusts in every situation, So how do you determine

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Speaker 3: how cynical it is reasonable to be in this situation?

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Speaker 3: And how do we know if we're off balance?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: The authors also discuss reasons that people might think it

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Speaker 3: is wise to be cynical. One is pretty familiar better

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Speaker 3: safe than sorry reasoning. They write, quote in many domains,

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Speaker 3: the consequences of false negative errors e g. Believing that

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Speaker 3: someone is trustworthy when they really are not have often

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Speaker 3: been more costly than false positive errors e g. Believing

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Speaker 3: that someone is untrustworthy when they really are trustworthy. Over

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Speaker 3: human evolutionary history, making the cognitive system of modern humans

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Speaker 3: biased toward false alarms, which is hard to argue with, right, Like, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: in this series, we are showing lots of evidence that

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Speaker 3: it is bad for you to be highly chronically cynical,

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Speaker 3: and yet it's true that more often if you distrust

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Speaker 3: a trustworthy person, the immediate consequences are fairly limited, but

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Speaker 3: if you trust an untrustworthy person, the consequences can be disastrous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about this a little bit in the

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Speaker 2: last episode. Type one Eras and Cognition. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: like you've got to make your way across an open field,

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Speaker 2: and you know there's going to be a time cost

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Speaker 2: and probably like you know, an anxiety cost to checking

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Speaker 2: every bush along the way to make sure there's not

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Speaker 2: a tiger in there to jump out and get you.

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Speaker 2: But you know, the way our brains work and the

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Speaker 2: way we're hardwired, it's like we know that that's one

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Speaker 2: sort of risk I'm going to lose some time, and

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Speaker 2: I might you know, feel horrible the whole way versus

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Speaker 2: getting eaten by a tiger. Yeah, like one of those

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Speaker 2: is like a mutt like looms far larger in our

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Speaker 2: short term threat analysis.

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Speaker 3: One side of the balance has an infinite cost on it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's like kind of hard to outbalance that, even though,

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Speaker 3: like wasting all your time and resources checking every bush

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Speaker 3: that really does matter, like over time, that hugely impacts

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Speaker 3: your quality of life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially of course, you know when you get

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Speaker 2: into not only real tigers, but all the paper tigers

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Speaker 2: in one's life, you know.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, they say that a general appreciation for the

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Speaker 3: merits of the better safe than sorry framework could lead

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Speaker 3: to the widespread notion that cynics are smarter people. They're

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Speaker 3: more knowledgeable and more competent. Now, continuing the background review,

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Speaker 3: the authors also get into existing research on whether there

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Speaker 3: is an actual link between cynicism and competence. So now

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Speaker 3: we're asking not about how cynics are perceived, but about

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Speaker 3: what their relative competence level actually is. And this, I

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Speaker 3: guess comes back to another question we brought up in

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Speaker 3: Part one. Do cynics or nonsnics have a better predictive

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Speaker 3: model of the world. And one very interesting way of

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Speaker 3: studying this is the so called trust game. So here's

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Speaker 3: an example of a type of trust game. This was

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Speaker 3: described in a paper called why so cynical asymmetric feedback

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Speaker 3: underlies misguided skepticism regarding the trustworthiness of others. This was

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Speaker 3: by Debt Left, Fetchenhawer, and David Dunning in the journal

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Speaker 3: Psychological Science in twenty ten and it describes this what

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Speaker 3: is sometimes called an investing game. They call it a

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Speaker 3: trust game, and it goes like this quote. In the game,

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Speaker 3: the trust is given money that can be kept or

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Speaker 3: handed to a completely random and anonymous stranger, the trustee.

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Speaker 3: If the trust hands his or her money over, the

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Speaker 3: amount of money is quadrupled eg. Five dollars becomes twenty dollars,

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Speaker 3: and trustees have two options. They can either split the

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Speaker 3: money evenly between themselves and the truster, eg. Give ten

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Speaker 3: dollars back and keep ten dollars for themselves, or they

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Speaker 3: can keep all the money for themselves. So the way

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Speaker 3: the game works is I'm the truster. I'm the person

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Speaker 3: who gets to make the first decision. If I trust

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Speaker 3: you and you are trustworthy, we both benefit and I

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Speaker 3: double my money. If I trust you and you are

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Speaker 3: not trustworthy, I get nothing. So the authors did this

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Speaker 3: experiment lots of times and some interesting patterns came out.

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Speaker 3: They found that trusters estimate the rate of trustworthiness of

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Speaker 3: anonymous strangers in the game. They estimate it will be

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Speaker 3: between four forty five and sixty percent. So it seems

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00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 3: that most people think it's a little better than a

434
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 3: coin flip chance that the other person will honor their

435
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 3: trust and split the money for mutual benefit. In reality,

436
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 3: the trustees honored the trust and split the money around

437
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 3: eighty to ninety percent of the time. So people in

438
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 3: this game massively underestimated how trustworthy random strangers would be.

439
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 3: At least in the context of this game, anonymous strangers

440
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 3: were something like twenty to fifty percent more trustworthy and

441
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 3: cooperative than people expected them to be. Isn't that interesting?

442
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 3: That's crazy?

443
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighty to ninety percent of the time. That's higher

444
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 2: than I would have guessed. But then again, it's like,

445
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 2: I'd like to think that if someone offered me the

446
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 2: scenario and I was not too cynical and trusted that

447
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 2: it was not some sort of a scam, I would

448
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 2: be as trustworthy.

449
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 3: Can I offer. I think maybe one thing that could

450
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 3: be working in this particular scenario is that it makes

451
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 3: sense to be wary of people who are offering to

452
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 3: double your money in financial transactions. But I think that

453
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: makes sense when like people come to you and they

454
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 3: say like, hey, you know, you give me some money

455
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 3: and I'll double it, you should. I mean, if somebody

456
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 3: says that they're not telling you the truth, almost always,

457
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 3: so like there's a good reason to be wary there.

458
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: This is a different thing because the trustee in this

459
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 3: game is not somebody who is coming out of nowhere

460
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 3: to offer you money if you just give them some first.

461
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 3: They're a random stranger who is who has been pulled

462
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 3: into this experiment designed by somebody else. And so I

463
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 3: think what this shows is most of the time, if

464
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 3: given the opportunity to be trustworthy and cooperate, most people will.

465
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: But also it makes sense to be wary of people

466
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 3: who are claiming they're trying to help you cooperate, you know,

467
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 3: from mutual benefit. If they're coming out of nowhere with this,

468
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 3: you know, that's often going to be a scam. Does

469
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 3: that make sense?

470
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think so.

471
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 3: But anyway. So yeah, in the trust game, most people

472
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 3: are very trustworthy and players are on average way too

473
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 3: cynical about their fellow human being. They are missing out

474
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 3: on lots of opportunities to double their money. And this

475
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 3: is consistent with research by Miller in nineteen ninety eight

476
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 3: and ninety nine finding that people just tend to grossly

477
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 3: overestimate the selfishness and underestimate the trustworthiness of strangers. In

478
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 3: this particular paper, the authors note that cynicism might grow

479
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 3: from what they call asymmetric feedback. And the way that

480
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 3: works is this, when you trust somebody and you get betrayed,

481
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 3: you get very clear feedback that it was wrong to trust.

482
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: The downside of granting your trust is very apparent to you.

483
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 3: They walk away with the money, you get nothing, and

484
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 3: you know it's clear to you happened. But when you

485
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 3: refrain from trusting people, the downsides are often invisible to

486
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 3: you because you don't actually see the lost opportunity as

487
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 3: a scenario that plays out in front of you. You

488
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 3: have to like imagine it as a counterfactual. It's not

489
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: concrete and in your face, like being betrayed is, so

490
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 3: you don't really get conditioned by feedback from instances where

491
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 3: you harmed yourself by withholding trust. Does that make sense?

492
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of like ive, like, here's a scenario.

493
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 2: Let's imagine that you're just really pedantic when looking at

494
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 2: the checks when you go out to eat with friends.

495
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 2: You know, you're like, all right, I want to see

496
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 2: everybody's work. I got to make one hundred percent sure

497
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 2: this is fair. And maybe it's because at some point

498
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 2: someone really did stick you, yeah, over one of these situations,

499
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 2: and so it maybe that is more apparent. You like,

500
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 2: you're never going to forget that that you were wronged

501
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 2: in this way. But if you're if you're just overly

502
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: pedantic when it comes to the bills, eventually people might

503
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: stop asking you to join them for dinner. Yeah, And

504
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 2: that might be very invisible to you that that's happening.

505
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 3: Yes, you don't realize. Yeah, it's just like things are

506
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 3: not as good now, and I don't know why I'm

507
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 3: feeling lonely. Yeah, Or is a more direct comparison, If

508
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 3: you're not looking at the checks all the time, you

509
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 3: might not notice the times when somebody made a mistake

510
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 3: in your favor that just passed You never even noticed

511
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 3: that it just goes right by you. That is a

512
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 3: good comparison. But anyway, what the study found is that

513
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 3: if you give subjects symmetric feedback about the trustworthiness of others,

514
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 3: it tended to reduce the subject's cynicism. So, like, let's

515
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 3: say you play the trust game, symmetric feedback would be

516
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: rob whether or not you decide to hand somebody the

517
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,239
Speaker 3: five dollars and try to cooperate to quadruple it. You

518
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 3: get to find out what they would have done either way,

519
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 3: so you know, you get to keep playing the game

520
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 3: that way, And it turns out if you play it

521
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 3: that way, where people keep seeing, oh, I kept the money,

522
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 3: but they I saw that they would have doubled my

523
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 3: money if I just trusted them, and you get to

524
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 3: see that happen over and over. That actually does decrease

525
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 3: people's cynicism, which also is interesting and that it gives

526
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 3: you at least a little bit of an idea where

527
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 3: some elements of cynicism could be coming from. It could

528
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 3: be related in part to this asymmetric build up of information.

529
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 3: We get to see where trust fails very clearly, but

530
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 3: the opportunities we lose out on by not granting trust

531
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 3: are often just like, we don't even realize what's happened.

532
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 3: We don't even realize anything. We don't even know what

533
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 3: we're missing. Yeah, so this research does not give us

534
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 3: a complete picture. But I think some evidence is starting

535
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 3: to accumulate that the cynic does not have a highly

536
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 3: accurate internal model of the world. They might in some scenarios,

537
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: but generalized cynicism is not like as some of these

538
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 3: writers were saying, seeing things as they really are. In fact,

539
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 3: cynicism often causes us to incorrectly predict the behavior of

540
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: other people, assuming they will be more selfish and treacherous

541
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 3: than they really are. Now coming back to the main

542
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 3: paper I was talking about, but Stavrova and elibract they

543
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 3: note some other research on the link between cynicism and competence. Again,

544
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 3: contrary to the cynical genius archetype, the authors are able

545
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 3: to cite a long list of studies looking at links

546
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 3: between cynicism and various types of cognitive performance and ability,

547
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 3: and they find it's exactly the opposite of what you

548
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 3: might guess from the Sherlock Holmes example. Higher performance on

549
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 3: various types of cognitive academic and IQ tests is negatively

550
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:54,719
Speaker 3: correlated with cynicism. It is instead positively correlated with increased

551
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 3: tendency to trust. There are a few confounding results here.

552
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 3: It's not like every single study has found this, but

553
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 3: the vast majority have. Some of the confounding results are

554
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 3: For example, they cite a twenty thirteen study that found

555
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 3: that higher IQ does not, on average improve a person's

556
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 3: ability to correctly predict who will be trustworthy and who

557
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 3: will not. So like you do better on cognitive tests,

558
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that if we pair you up with,

559
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 3: you know, Johnny and Billy in the in the Trust

560
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 3: Game experiment, you can predict whether Johnny or Billy you'll

561
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 3: be more likely to help you out. It just it

562
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 3: doesn't help us in that regard.

563
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the compass is already pulling you in

564
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 2: one direction or another, and however higher IQ is, I mean,

565
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 2: that's just that's just the kind of mental energy that

566
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 2: ends up being wrapped around the initial impulse.

567
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 3: Another thing to keep in mind here is that, of course,

568
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 3: while like various cognitive and IQ and academic tests can

569
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 3: tell you, they can tell you a lot of things

570
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 3: about cognitive ability, they don't tell you everything. So you know,

571
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 3: they can tell you about certain kinds of skills with

572
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 3: reasoning certain kinds of intelligence, but there are always going

573
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 3: to be elements of intelligence that are not perfectly captured

574
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: by these sorts of tests. So the authors begin to

575
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 3: develop a possible hypothetical model to explain what's going on here.

576
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 3: They say, what if intelligence, knowledge and competence don't really

577
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 3: help you very much in identifying who to trust in

578
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,800
Speaker 3: a given scenario. They don't tell you really if Johnny

579
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 3: or Billy, both of whom you've just met, is more trustworthy,

580
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 3: But instead they help you evaluate the scenario itself to

581
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 3: decide whether to deploy a more cynical or a more

582
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 3: trusting framework given the environment and the circumstances. The authors

583
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 3: rit quote high levels of competence might allow individuals to

584
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: correctly identify the corruptness of their environment and adjust their

585
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 3: level of cynicism to match it. Following this reasoning, high

586
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 3: competence individuals might hold adapt attitudes and recur to cynicism

587
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 3: only when it seems warranted, while they're less competent. Counterparts

588
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 3: might show more cognitive rigidity and relying on the better

589
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 3: safe than sorry heuristic tend to endorse cynicism indiscriminately. So

590
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 3: if this model is correct, they're saying it can be

591
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 3: efficient to just remain in better safe than sorry mode

592
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 3: when you lack the ability to tell whether you're dealing

593
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 3: with a corrupt, untrustworthy environment or not.

594
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this makes sense. We can all think of

595
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 2: examples where the scenario is very clear, like, Okay, even

596
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 2: if someone is out to get me, this is not

597
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 2: the environment where they can just really take me for

598
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 2: all I'm worth. I'm literally handing somebody a five dollar bill.

599
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 2: What are they going to do. They're going to run

600
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 2: away into the woods and keep my dollar fifty and

601
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 2: change that the risks seem low.

602
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 3: So onto Stevrova and Illebrect's actual experiments, and I'll start

603
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 3: with the very short version of their findings. First of all,

604
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 3: they find yes on average across multiple experiments. Regular people

605
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 3: tend to believe that cynicism is a sign of cognitive

606
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 3: superiority in others, if you think people are bad, you

607
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 3: think people are selfish and morals are fake. On balance,

608
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 3: people will tend to assume you are smarter and more competent,

609
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 3: especially at certain types of cognitive tasks. Things involving logic

610
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 3: and numbers and stuff. They're more likely to assign you

611
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 3: important cognitive tasks like doing mathematical calculations and logical analysis

612
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 3: of documents if they think you're cynical. And on the

613
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 3: other hand, the authors found in their experiments no, on average,

614
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:46,360
Speaker 3: cynicism is not associated with cognitive superiority or greater competence.

615
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 3: They had three studies based on data from about two

616
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:53,399
Speaker 3: hundred thousand subjects across thirty different countries and showed that

617
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 3: on average, cynicism was negatively correlated with tests of cognitive

618
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 3: ability and tests of academic nolede and competency. So this

619
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 3: included all kinds of things like reading, comprehension, mathematical skills,

620
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:11,320
Speaker 3: scientific literacy, technological literacy, and so forth. And this negative

621
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 3: association between cynicism and cognitive tests was true even after

622
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 3: controlling for confounding variables like age, gender, household income, wealth, test,

623
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 3: language proficiency, and Big five personality traits. Now, one major

624
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 3: distinction here is that they found that people who tested

625
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 3: higher incompetence tended to have attitudes of contingent trust. They

626
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 3: might be trusting by default, but we're not rigid in

627
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,319
Speaker 3: that regard and would become more cynical if it was

628
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 3: warranted situationally or based on the environment and cultural context,

629
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 3: whereas people scoring lower incompetence tended to accept an unconditionally

630
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 3: cynical worldview. In the words of the authors quote suggesting

631
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,240
Speaker 3: that at low leane levels of competence, holding a cynical

632
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:06,400
Speaker 3: worldview might represent an adaptive default strategy to avoid the

633
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 3: potential costs of falling prey to others cunning. Now, I

634
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: wanted to expand on these findings with a few notes.

635
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 3: One of the things about the early tests of people's

636
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,799
Speaker 3: perceptions of cynicism a control they had here, is that

637
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,439
Speaker 3: the authors didn't just ask about cognitive competence. They also

638
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 3: asked about social and moral competence, and quite along the

639
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 3: lines you might expect. People tended to think that low

640
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:35,240
Speaker 3: trust individuals would be better at cognitive things like math, logic,

641
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 3: and critical thinking, but they thought that high trust individuals

642
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 3: would be better at social tasks like cheering up a

643
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 3: depressed friend or taking care of a stray animal. So

644
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 3: it wasn't just like across the board we think cynics

645
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 3: are great. We think cynics are better at everything. It's

646
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 3: that people tend to think cynics are better at certain

647
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 3: types of intelligence based skills, things like math and logic

648
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 3: and so forth.

649
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 2: This this is sounding kind of like when you see

650
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 2: somebody smoking a cigarette. You know, they can look pretty cool,

651
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 2: especially in movies, like but we all we know deep

652
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 2: down that like, well, the smoking a cigarette doesn't actually

653
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 2: make you cool, but we can't help it. And likewise

654
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 2: you might think, well who you know. You might say, okay,

655
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 2: doctor smoking a cigarette. I have questions. Maybe this is

656
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 2: not the doctor for me, but private detective smoking a cigarette, Well,

657
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 2: obviously that's the guy I want looking after my interests.

658
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 3: Oh do you mean like the smoking of the cigarette

659
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 3: implies like a rejection of the consensus about the health

660
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 3: effects of it, or just that it I mean, I

661
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 3: guess that often is suggested. It's like, I don't think

662
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 3: it's hurting me. I don't care what people say. I

663
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 3: guess there are two ways of going It's like it

664
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 3: would be cynical. I think it's part of a cynical

665
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 3: worldview to say, like, ah, these doctors who say it

666
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 3: causes cancer or heart disease, they don't know what they're

667
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 3: talking about. I can just smoke it's fine. Or there's

668
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 3: the version that's like I don't care what happens to me,

669
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 3: which I think is a little bit different than cynicism.

670
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 3: Maybe though could go along with cynicism.

671
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but.

672
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 3: I follow you in general because yeah, there's like, apart

673
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 3: from thinking that cynical people are smart, there is also

674
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 3: a tendency to think that cynical people are cool.

675
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

676
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 3: That's in fact, I've got a section where maybe we'll

677
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 3: get more into that in just a minute.

678
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 4: Here.

679
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 2: Scientific analysis of the coolness.

680
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 3: Of another thing here is that they tried different like

681
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 3: wordings and types of questions across multiple replication attempts to

682
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:39,800
Speaker 3: make sure that like the cynical genius effect was robust,

683
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 3: And it was robust, but the effects were modulated a

684
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 3: little bit by changes in phrasing, such as whether you

685
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 3: describe the opposite of cynicism as an idealistic versus a

686
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 3: positive view of human nature. Apparently people think being idealistic

687
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 3: about human nature is a little bit dumber than being

688
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 3: positive about human nature. It's always funny how just changing

689
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 3: the swapping a word out can have some effects there.

690
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 3: They also replicated these findings in different samples, so they

691
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 3: did some online surveys, international online surveys, and they did

692
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 3: some in person tests of university students in Germany. They

693
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 3: did some with British adults, and the cynical genius effect

694
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 3: appeared to varying degrees in all the groups tested here. However,

695
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 3: in some of these experiments, respondents got to rate essentially

696
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 3: how cynical they would like a person assigned to a

697
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 3: cognitive task to be, and the breakdown, to be clear,

698
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 3: was not toward a preference for extreme cynicism, but for

699
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 3: higher than average cynicism. So one example here is that

700
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 3: in a group of British adults selecting between hypothetical candidates

701
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 3: to solve intellectual problems, participants quote desired mix of cynical

702
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 3: and non cynical tendencies was fifty six percent cynical to

703
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 3: forty four percent non cynical. So on average, the group

704
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 3: they thought, we need somebody smart. We want somebody who

705
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 3: is a little bit more cynical than the median.

706
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 2: That makes sense, you know, if you were able to

707
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 2: move the slider on your so like your android doctor,

708
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 2: your android lawyer, or whatever it happens to be. Yeah,

709
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 2: you want the right mix of cynicism. A little more

710
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 2: than the average person, but not not too much. This

711
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 2: will be interesting to get into later when we start

712
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 2: talking about like absolute cynicism and what what that is

713
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 2: and where we stand in relation to it.

714
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, as for the actual inverse link between cynicism

715
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 3: and competence, when broken down by test domain, I was

716
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 3: interested to see that the effect was strongest in reading

717
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 3: skills and weakest in information processing speed. So in these tests,

718
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 3: apparently highly cynical people holding up relatively okay with speed

719
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 3: of reasoning, doing a lot worse in like reading comprehension,

720
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 3: and finally getting to the element of the paper comparing cynicism, competence,

721
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 3: and environment. The author's tested levels of cynicism cross referenced

722
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 3: with these cognitive tests in subjects across thirty different countries,

723
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 3: and they found that in countries that scored low in

724
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 3: corruption and high in rule of law according to an

725
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 3: international database called the World Governance Indicators, the effect we've

726
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 3: been talking about did hold true, but in countries with

727
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 3: high corruption and eroded rule of law, the effect was

728
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 3: greatly diminished.

729
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 2: Quote.

730
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 3: The harsher the social climate, the more these high competence

731
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 3: people embraced a cynical worldview. So kind of along the

732
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 3: lines of results we talked about in the last episode,

733
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 3: it hurts you materially to hold cynical views unless those

734
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 3: views are correct in the environment where you operate. Along

735
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 3: these lines, the authors discuss ways that cynicism might be

736
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 3: learned directly from personal experience. Despite the fact that they

737
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 3: tried to control for the influence of variables like age, gender,

738
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 3: and wealth, it's still possible that quote higher levels of

739
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 3: cognitive ability, academic competence, and education might protect from adverse

740
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,240
Speaker 3: life experiences, not only as they allow discovering potential fraud,

741
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 3: but also as they increase the chances of living in

742
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 3: a safe and friendly environment, providing more evidence for a

743
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 3: positive than for a negative view of human nature, and

744
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 3: consequently preventing cynicism development. So that's talking about the idea that,

745
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 3: like that education and cognitive skills, they might not just

746
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 3: be about how accurately you're seeing the world around you.

747
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 3: They might actually, over time, influence what the world around

748
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 3: you is like. On the other hand, since cynicism entails

749
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 3: generalized distrust quote cynical versus less cynical, individuals might be

750
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 3: more distrustful of the opinions and knowledge of others, a

751
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 3: behavior that can eventually prevent them from expanding their knowledge

752
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 3: and understanding.

753
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 2: Well, that that seems like it tracks the idea that

754
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:12,839
Speaker 2: if you're cynical about about potential information sources, and you're

755
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 2: more likely to sort of back your way into a

756
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: corner where you have very few informational sources coming in

757
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 2: and they're the only the only ones you're going to

758
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: accept are the ones that back up your existing cynicism.

759
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:27,959
Speaker 3: Yes, but they say, of course, there is more work

760
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 3: to do exploring the different possible causal mechanisms here. So

761
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 3: this paper does find good robust evidence for the cynical

762
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 3: genius illusion, that the illusion is widely present, and it

763
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 3: is in fact an illusion, but the questions about why

764
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 3: are still largely open. One thing, I wonder about a

765
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:51,760
Speaker 3: lot of the cognitive tasks that subjects said they would

766
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 3: entrust to a cynical person more than a non cynical person.

767
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 3: I was looking through the inventory, and a lot of

768
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:03,720
Speaker 3: these tasks involved screwy of details, like crunching numbers, following

769
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 3: complex logic, analyzing scientific results, things like that, And I

770
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:13,240
Speaker 3: wonder if the same pattern would hold for cognitive tasks

771
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 3: that people associate less with scrutiny of details and instead

772
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 3: with things like creativity and imagination. And to be clear,

773
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 3: the cynical genius effect would be an illusion even if

774
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 3: it were only applied to scrutinizing cognition. But I wonder

775
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:32,240
Speaker 3: if the illusion is actually more specific to certain kinds

776
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 3: of cognition.

777
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that very much, that Sherlock Holmes scenario.

778
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 3: But also coming back to this question, we've asked several

779
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 3: times now, are there any benefits to generalize cynicism. It

780
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 3: comes with tons of harms for the cynic it hurts

781
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,479
Speaker 3: you to be cynical, But are there any benefits? Well,

782
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 3: first of all, this paper does find if you're in

783
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 3: a really corrupt, untrustworthy environment, obviously it does make more

784
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 3: sense to be more cynical. That's just like a correct

785
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 3: understanding of how your environment operates. Number Two, even if

786
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 3: you're not in a more corrupt, untrustworthy environment, if you

787
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 3: don't understand your environment and you're basically out of your depth,

788
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 3: cynicism may protect you from catastrophic outcomes. It's like, I

789
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 3: don't really know what's going on here, don't know if

790
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 3: I can trust or not, so by default I'm not

791
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 3: going to trust. That's better safe than sorry. And then third,

792
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 3: I think this is going to be mainly related to

793
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 3: the cynical genius illusion. Having a reputation for cynicism may

794
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 3: have the effect of convincing people around you that you

795
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 3: are very smart and intellectually savvy, even though on average

796
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 3: the opposite is more likely to be true. So there's

797
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 3: a kind of social premium incentive to appear to be cynical.

798
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 3: It's in a lot of cases it's going to make

799
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,439
Speaker 3: people think that you know something they don't, and you're

800
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 3: a wise and world weary and intelligent person.

801
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 2: Yes, is often kind of a safe gambole at, like

802
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:07,280
Speaker 2: a cocktail party or a mixer. Right if politics should

803
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 2: come up, which of course is bad manners anyway, but

804
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 2: if it were to come up, you might say something

805
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: that is just kind of a you know, a blanket

806
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 2: statement of cynicism, like aoh, well, politicians are all the same.

807
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: And then what people are gonna have to double down.

808
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 2: They're gonna have to come back and try to convince

809
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 2: you no, no, not all politicians. Some are great, and

810
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 2: they're going to look like the person who's naive where

811
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 2: you've already you know, mounted your cynicism high horse.

812
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,879
Speaker 3: We've talked about this before. Yeah, the the like all

813
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 3: politicians are the same as the kind of statement that

814
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:42,280
Speaker 3: I think is just facially untrue. It could not be true,

815
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 3: obviously wrong, but you feel foolish trying to argue with it. Yeah,

816
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 3: and I think that goes beyond politics. I mean, just

817
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 3: generally trying to argue with the cynic is so difficult.

818
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:59,919
Speaker 3: Statements of cynicism often come with this a priori tech

819
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 3: mixture of factuality just feels self evidently true with it,

820
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 3: even when it's obviously wrong, when it would be absurd

821
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 3: for it.

822
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:18,239
Speaker 4: To be true.

823
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 3: One more thing before I wrap up from the Stavrovia

824
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 3: and Ilbrect study here talking about in their discussion, they

825
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 3: talk about why do we tend to assume highly cynical

826
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 3: people are smarter than the rest of us, even though

827
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 3: this is usually not the case. We touched on this earlier,

828
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 3: but the authors do offer a few ideas based on

829
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 3: common cognitive biases. In particular, they call out negativity bias

830
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 3: and loss aversion. Negativity bias is the observation that we

831
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 3: are more psychologically affected by negative things than we are

832
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 3: by positive things of equal intensity and loss a version

833
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 3: is very similar. It's the finding that we're more strong

834
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 3: motivated to avoid a loss than we are to achieve

835
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,720
Speaker 3: a gain of the same value. So here's an example.

836
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,359
Speaker 3: I find a five dollar bill on the sidewalk. Oh,

837
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 3: that's nice, quickly forget about it, Versus I drop a

838
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 3: five dollar bill down a storm drain or you know

839
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 3: why me, ah, I hate this. You know, it's like

840
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 3: the dollar value is exactly the same, but the loss

841
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 3: is more memorable, it's more salient and will cause a

842
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 3: greater emotional reaction. And I think for those reasons, like

843
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 3: we are more likely to learn something from it, to

844
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,359
Speaker 3: try to draw a general inference that we will take

845
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 3: and apply to the rest of life from these moments

846
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 3: of loss than from gains of the exact same value.

847
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'd go as far as to

848
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: say that at the very least, you're more likely to

849
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 2: remember dropping that five than finding a ten. Yeah, and yeah,

850
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 2: there's probably been an interesting thought experiment to be had,

851
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,720
Speaker 2: and just trying to determine which point the find value

852
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 2: would be equal to a much lesser loss value, I think.

853
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 3: I think work on that exact question has been done.

854
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 3: I don't have it pulled up in front of me,

855
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 3: but I think we've looked at that before. Yeah, I'm

856
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 3: sure for some reason seeing the exact numbers is going

857
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 3: to be really funny. But anyway, so you apply this

858
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 3: these biases negativity, bias, and loss aversion to the domain

859
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,439
Speaker 3: of trust and cynicism, and they could mean that the

860
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 3: pain of being betrayed is much greater than the pleasure

861
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 3: of having our trust rewarded, even given the exact same

862
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 3: original act of trust. And this is back to the

863
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 3: mental cherry picking that you mentioned last time.

864
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 2: Rob.

865
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:44,760
Speaker 3: You know, you can always like think of these really

866
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 3: sticky examples of times when you shouldn't have trusted someone

867
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 3: or something. We may trust somebody twenty times, it works

868
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 3: out great nineteen times, but the one time it did

869
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:59,720
Speaker 3: not work out is shocking and painful and we feel

870
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 3: so hurt. And so from this we form an idea

871
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 3: that people who do not trust easily have learned a

872
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 3: lot of valuable lessons. Therefore they are generally knowledgeable, wise,

873
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 3: and smart. Another explanation comes back to that study from

874
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 3: the background section that we talked about briefly about the

875
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 3: the invisibility of consequences in situations where we refrain from

876
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,399
Speaker 3: from giving trust to our detriment. So again you get

877
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:31,280
Speaker 3: to see what happens when you trust and that trust

878
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 3: is betrayed. But when you withhold trust and you just

879
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 3: miss out on an opportunity to gain, you don't really

880
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 3: get to see that loss made concrete. It's just like

881
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 3: it's another path you could have taken. You can even

882
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 3: go without thinking about it.

883
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Unless you're visited by you know, Christmas

884
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 2: spirits or something, You're just not going to have any

885
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 2: alternate views.

886
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 3: That's a really you know what. I think a Christmas

887
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 3: Carol is a great example here. That is something the

888
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:58,799
Speaker 3: ghost of Christmas past has to come and make the

889
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 3: lost oportunities concrete. And then one last point the authors

890
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 3: make that I thought was a very interesting point. They raise,

891
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 3: what if the cynical genius illusion arises in part from

892
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 3: biases of storytelling. We fill our lives with fictional stories.

893
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 3: Fictional stories need to be entertaining. Stories are usually more

894
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 3: entertaining if danger and conflict are heightened, if villains are

895
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 3: meaner and more dangerous, if the stakes are high, if

896
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 3: no one can be trusted, you can you can hear

897
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 3: all these phrases in the Don la Fontaine movie trailer voice,

898
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 3: can't you you know? It's like that's what stories are

899
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 3: made out of. Fictional storytelling selects for narratives about the

900
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 3: dangers of trust and the risk of betrayal because stories

901
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 3: like that are captivating to our attention and we want

902
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 3: to know what happens next. So hostile and treacherous worlds

903
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 3: may be more entertaining and narrative. But it's possible that

904
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 3: we draw incorrect inferences from those fictional worlds. We learn

905
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 3: too much about how life works from unrealities that are

906
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 3: specifically crafted to hack our attention. And who are the smart,

907
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 3: savvy characters in these worlds. I think very often they

908
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 3: are cynics who are very reluctant to trust.

909
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 2: That's right, That's a great point.

910
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 3: So anyway, that's all I've got in the study for now.

911
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 3: But I think the cynical genius illusion is so interesting.

912
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 3: I'm going to be thinking about this a lot in

913
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 3: the days and weeks to come.

914
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, this will be an interesting one to bring into

915
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,800
Speaker 2: our weird house cinema discussions as we inevitably come around

916
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 2: to a film that has a cynic genius in it,

917
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:44,279
Speaker 2: and I'm sure if I was to go back and

918
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 2: look at some of the titles we've covered, we've probably

919
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:50,879
Speaker 2: encountered these sorts of characters before, probably played by someone

920
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 2: like Christopher Lee. Yes, all right, well, on that note,

921
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 2: we're going to go ahead and close out this episode,

922
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,439
Speaker 2: but we're going to come back with at least one

923
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 2: more episode on cynicism. Again, this is a huge topic.

924
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 2: In the next episode, I believe we're going to get

925
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:09,839
Speaker 2: into cynicism, politics, and social media, so that should be

926
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 2: fun discussion either way. Tune in. We're looking forward to

927
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 2: getting into it. In the meantime, I'd like to remind

928
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 2: everyone that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

929
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 2: science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

930
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 2: We have a short form episode on Wednesdays, and on

931
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 2: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk

932
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

933
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

934
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

935
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,240
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

936
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

937
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:45,240
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

938
00:55:45,239 --> 00:56:01,239
Speaker 3: Your Mind dot com.

939
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

940
00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Podcasts,

941
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.