September 9, 2024 • 43 mins
It’s hard to stay hopeful these days. Stanford professor Jamil Zaki has been studying the incredible depth of human kindness for decades, but even he gives in to cynicism when he doubts our ability to be civil and cooperative.
That’s a shame - because shedding cynicism and grasping hope will make you happier and healthier. Jamil and Dr Laurie Santos look at the scientific evidence showing that we should be more trusting of other people and optimistic about our facility to work together.
Jamil's book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness is out now.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin as a happiness professor.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Many people assume that I'm a beacon of optimism, that
I always look on the bright side of life, to
quote the Monty Python song. But some days I feel
pretty down about things. Some days it feels easier to
look on the bleak side of life.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Good childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession
with crowd.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Size, Please stick to policy, don't get personal, they get
any personal all night long of the.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Wa limited narrow view of the world made him feel
threatened by the.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, politics and all the polarization right now, bleak, climate,
ridiculously bleak, racism, poverty, war bleak, bleak, super bleak. But
thinking about all these problems doesn't just make me feel helpless.
It also gets me super frustrated with the other members
of my species. Sometimes I just want to be like
(01:26):
fellow humans. Come on, might the only one who sees
all these problems? Might the only one who wants everybody
to stop yelling at each other on Twitter long enough
to actually start fixing things. Even just saying it out
loud makes me feel isolated and yucky and just blah.
I'm guessing that you may have felt something similar. On
your worst days, like me, maybe you've wondered if there's
(01:48):
any way to fight all the division and disillusionment and despair.
This seems to have taken over our public conversation. Well,
you're in luck, because over the next few shows, we'll
see that the science gives us lots of reasons to
be optimistic about stuff that scares us, from politics, to
human nature to our capacity.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
To change society.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
We'll even learn how to transform our despair into positive action.
So buckle up, Happiness Lab listener, because we're on a
journey to find hope. Our minds are constantly telling us
what to do to be happy. But what if our
minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
leading us away from what will really make us happy.
(02:26):
The good news is that understanding the science of the
mind can point us.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
All back in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Lauriy Santos.
I say, this is the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurry Santos.
But since this is a whole season about finding hope,
which I sometimes struggle with, I decided to ask someone
to help us on our journey.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Hey, Jamil how's it going.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
How are you feeling better?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I'm still sounding a little froggy, which hopefully won't come
off too much in the interview. Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki
is the go to guide if you want to learn
why the world is kinder than the bleak vision we
often bring to mind. Over the next four episodes, we'll
be exploring some of the ideas he sets out in
his new book, Hope Procinics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.
Hope Prosonics is literally life changing. You should buy it
(03:17):
and read it. But the cliff note summary is that
we needn't surrender to the cynical view that humans are mean, selfish,
and hostile, because a bunch of research shows that these
notions are just plain mistaken. Now, Jimmil has been steeped
in the science for a very long time, so you
might assume that he'd be the most hopeful man alive.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
For the last twenty years, I've studied and written and
spoken about human kindness and empathy, and I've sort of
become an unofficial ambassador for humanity's better angels. People often
bring me in to tell them about how great everybody
is and I love that work and I believe it
in my mind, but that doesn't mean that doesn't mean
(03:56):
that it makes its way into the rest of me.
And it's my job to think about and talk about
how great everyone is. But oftentimes I feel the exact opposite.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Any specific examples that have come up lately, like of
just the opposite of the milk of human kindness as
you look at that of.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
The world, I feel cynical and hopeless about I'd say
six times a day thinking about current events. All I
have to do to feel terrible about myself or humanity
is just look at any of the screens in my life,
my laptop, my TV, my phone, even my watch does
the trick on occasion, and.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You're not alone. But this is something that I can
kind of reflect on a lot. As you know, I've
been kind of sick lately. I've like had a cold
and somehow like my main form of activity has just
been like peeking at my phone or like I'll just
go on Reddit, or I'll just see like what's you
know on my favorite news channel, and it just makes
me hate the world and hate other people.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It just makes me feel really terrible.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But it feels shocking that you could go through the
same thing you're supposed to know better.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
I am supposed to know better, but so many of
us who are psychologists or behavioral scientists, we live with this.
We study part of the world. We try to understand it.
But again, just understanding something isn't the same as feeling it.
And I guess for me, over the last few years,
I became really curious about this cynicism. I was experiencing
(05:21):
feeling like the world was getting worse, like people were terrible.
And I thought, Laurie, about you, and about the themes
of the Happiness Lab and this idea that sometimes our
minds played tricks on us, and I thought, well, maybe
my mind is playing tricks on me as well. I
decided to figure out whether my cynicism was warranted, or
whether it might be wrong, whether it might be a
(05:42):
story that I was telling myself, and what that might
be doing to me and to the rest of us
who might be feeling cynical. I guess I learned a
lot in the process over the last few years that
led me to write this book.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Jamil decided to call the book Hope for Cynics. I
do sometimes feel scared about society and worry that there
are people out there who don't exactly have my best
interest at heart. But does that make me a cynic?
It feels like a strong word. In his book, Jamil
argues that is a disease of social health, a disease.
Wasn't I just basing my ideas on realism?
Speaker 6 (06:15):
So cynicism is the theory that in general, humanity is greedy, selfish,
and dishonest, And like any other theory, this guides what
we do and what we don't do. So Cinics, for instance,
if they see somebody act kindly, they'll suspect that maybe
they're not genuine, maybe they're doing that for some ulterior motive.
(06:36):
They also act differently. So this is especially true when
it comes to trust. Trust is our willingness to be
vulnerable to somebody else on the expectation that they'll do
right by us. You are putting your well being in
their hands. Loaning somebody money or let somebody babies ait
your kids. It's a gamble, a social gamble, and cinics
(06:57):
think it's for suckers, so they're much less likely to
trust strangers, but even their own friends, families, and romantic partners.
So Cynicism is a theory, but it doesn't stay in
our minds. It leaks into the way that we live
and the way that we treat other people.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I know, when I first started thinking about cynicism, I
often thought it was really synonymous with skepticism. But you've
argue that these are actually really different. So what's the
difference between cynicism and skepticism.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Yeah, this is really important because I think your sense
that these two are the same is really common. A
lot of people, I think, view these terms as interchangeable,
but they are not at all. As I've said, cynicism
is a theory that people aren't that great. Skepticism isn't
a theory about the world or about people. It's a mindset,
an openness to new ideas, and a kind of restlessness,
(07:48):
an unwillingness to just sit with our assumptions. I often
think that cynics are a little bit like lawyers in
the Prosecution against Humanity, you know, the sort of they're
really keen on whatever evidence supports their theory, whatever clues
they can find that people are actually terrible, and they're
really dismissive of any evidence to the contrary that people
(08:10):
might be actually pretty great in some circumstances. Skeptics think
less like lawyers and more like scientists. They test their assumptions,
they look for data, and because of that, skepticism is
a much more agile way of viewing the world and
a much better way to learn about people and situations.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And so in some ways they're almost more like opposites
the way you describe it, right, the skeptics are really
kind of questioning their assumptions, whereas the cynics are really
set in their theories that, like, know, people are terrible.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Actually, I think that's right.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
And in fact, if cynics have a lot in common
with anybody, it's with the naive rubes that they love
to make fun of. You know, Cynics think that if
you are not like them, you must just naively believe
that everybody's great, even if they betray you. And that's true.
Some people do have rose colored glasses on. Some people
(09:02):
do see only the best in others, even to their
own detriment. Those people, I would say, are also thinking
like lawyers. Lawyers in the defense for humanity's trials. So
I think that cynics and naive trusters are really both
thinking and looking at only one side of the evidence.
And again, skeptics are really different than both of them
(09:23):
because they don't trust their assumptions. They look for evidence.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It feels like these days that a lot of us
have joined the side of the prosecution. Like it seems
like a lot of us are feeling pretty cynical about humanity.
Are are there actually data about that? Do we know
if cynicism is getting worse?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
There are, and cynicism has been skyrocketing over time. The
best proxy that we have for it is how much
people agree with the statement most people can be trusted.
This is a question that scientists have been asking Americans
and people around the world for many, many years, and
the best data we have are from the US, and
those data are pretty bleak. So in nineteen seventy two,
(10:00):
about fifty percent of Americans believed that most people can
be trusted. By twenty eighteen, that had fallen to about
a third of a Mayora Mrians. The size of that
drop is comparable to the amount of money that the
stock market lost in the financial collapse of two thousand
and eight. So we are experiencing, in a real way
a trust deficit and a cynicism boom. In our country
(10:24):
and actually around the world as well.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, that's terrifying that as a huge drop. I
mean the other questions like what's that deficit doing to us?
Like how is it affecting us as individuals?
Speaker 6 (10:33):
So I went through decades of data on this and
discovered that in essence, cynicism hurts us in every way
psychologists and social scientists and even physicians can measure. Cynics
tend to live much less healthy lives. They are more
prone to depression, loneliness, and unhappiness. They're also much more
(10:55):
likely to get physically sick, with everything from diabetes to
cellular inflammation to heart disease. They even die younger than
non cinics. Their relationships are also damaged by their cynicism.
So if you can't trust people, it's harder to connect
deeply with them, and you end up more isolated. It's
(11:15):
really tragic. If cynicism were appeal, it'd be a poison.
And Thomas Hobbes, one of the most famous cynical philosophers
in history, wrote that we needed laws to rain us
in because left to our own devices, human nature is nasty, brutish,
and short. I think that's the best cynical encapsulation. That's
like cynicism in one sentence, But ironically that phrase, that
(11:40):
sentence really captures the lives of cynics themselves better than
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I mean, it sounds like it's terrible for individuals, but
my guess is it's also probably bad for society if
we're all going around thinking that everybody is, you know,
nasty and brutish.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Are their data there too.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Yeah, there's tons of data showing that at the level
of communities, whether those communities are families, companies, counties, or countries,
at all of these levels, a lack of trust a
general sense of disconnection and suspicion and harms the ability
of that unit large, small, enormous, whatever to thrive. So
(12:15):
I'll give you the example at the national level. So
countries that are higher in trust tend to grow economically,
Their people tend to be more civically engaged, voting more
for instance, they tend to donate more to charity and
help strangers more, and they tend to be less politically
polarized as well. If that's what trusting nations do, you
(12:38):
see where we're going what cynical nations do is exactly
the opposite. They shrink or stagnate economically, people bow out
or leave civic engagement and civic duties, and they're less
likely to engage with one another in pro social ways
as well. If you think of trust as a kind
(12:58):
of glue that bonds communities together, cynicism erodes that glue
and leaves us all feeling more alone.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And it also seems like that alienation must become a
vicious cycle, right. You know, if you live in a
cynical society, then you're getting more data that everybody's cynical.
It becomes easier to believe that everybody's brutish and hates you,
and that you shouldn't trust them. So these things must
get worse for communities over time too.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I totally agree.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
And you see this self fulfilling prophecy all over the place.
It's not just at the level of large communities, but
even you see this in individuals' lives. So, for instance, cynics,
because they don't trust people, they'll treat them in all
sorts of ways that show that mistrust. For instance, if
they loan somebody money, they'll call them every day and
(13:48):
follow up with them or if they interact with friends,
they'll worry that their friends will disrespect them, so they'll
disrespect their friends preemptively. And these actions that cynics take
end up basically pissing other people off and making other
people feel angry and disrespected, and because of that actually
(14:09):
bring out the worst in other people. They say, I
bet these other folks will be selfish. I'll treat them
like their selfish. Then other people act selfishly and cynics
decide they were right all along.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I'm guessing you agree that this sounds awful. A lot
of us just assume we're approaching the world with a
healthy amount of suspicion, making sure people don't take advantage
of us. I never considered that I could be poisoning
myself or those around me. Why are we attracted to
cynicism and why are we so very blind to its dangers.
We'll explore these questions when the Happiness Lab returns in
(14:42):
a moment. Doctor jimil Zaki has likened cynicism to a
harmful disease. And what's worse, cynicism is spreading like a pandemic.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
We've got this experience that is growing and it's creating
like this fractal of pain and dysfunction across our lives.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And as I.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Researched this subject, I found that they there are really
three myths about cynicism that I think promoted and propagated
things that we believe that make us think we have
to be cynical if we want to succeed in life
that turn out in many cases to be exactly the
opposite of the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're totally speaking my language at this, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
On the Happiness Lab, we love any case where our
minds are lying to us, and it seems like that's what's.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Going on too.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, exactly. Yes.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
So the first of these myths is that cynicism is smart.
So a lot of people I've talked with since working
on this project will tell me that they are cynics,
and they'll tell me this with a sort of bitter pride.
They say, well, yeah, I'm cynical and it might not
be fun, but hey, that's the price of being right,
you know. I don't get to just believe whatever I
(15:53):
feel like. I have to be a realist. And there's
this sense that in essence, by having this dim view
of other people, cynics are expressing a sort of hard
fought wisdom.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And it sounds like you're going to argue that this
hard fought wisdom is wrong.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Yes, But before that, I think it's worth saying that
cynics are not the only ones who think cynics are smart.
There's a bunch of research that finds that if you
ask people who do you think would do better on
a bunch of different tasks a cynic or a non cnic,
about seventy percent of people believe that cynics are smarter
(16:30):
than non cynics in general, that they would do better
at analytic tasks, for instance, and about eighty five percent
of people think that cynics would be socially smart, for instance,
better at spotting liars. So most people put a lot
of faith in people who don't have a lot of
faith in people. Say that three times fast, but it's true,
(16:51):
and it turns out that most people are wrong. Cnics
in fact, do less well on cognitive tests than noncnics,
and they're also worse at spotting liars. It turns out
that if you think everybody is on the take, you
don't engage in skepticism, you don't take the energy and
time to actually learn about people. So you end up
(17:13):
with blunt and often incorrect, black and white views of humanity.
So cynicism ends up being way less smart and wise
than we think it is.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And so that's kind of the first myth about cynicism.
It's not nearly as smart as we think. What's the
second one.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
The second is that cynicism is a way of staying safe.
Is a quote from the comedian George Carlin that I love,
where he said, scratch a cynic, and you'll find a
disappointed idealist. I think a lot of cynics, whether they
seem like they have a lot of bluster in their
sneering attitude or not, actually are in recovery from some
(17:49):
type of hurt or betrayal.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I understand that.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
I feel like, if people are cynical and they're listening
to this, I don't want them to feel like I'm
calling them out. I think a lot of us have
been disappointed and hurt in our lives, and it's actually
pretty natural to say, well, gosh, I was really hurt
before because I trusted somebody. I don't want to get
hurt again. The only way that I can avoid that
further pain is to close myself off to stop trusting others.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
But you've argued that this isn't the right approach. You've
argued that this winds up causing a term that I love,
which is pre disappointment.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
What's pre disappointment?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
So if you think of disappointment as somebody hurt me,
and so my expectations of that person are now lowered,
pre disappointment is somebody hurt me, so my expectations of
the entire world are now lowered. It's like a sort
of psychological armor, or at least people believe it's a
psychological armor. They say, if I have no faith in anybody,
(18:47):
then they can't possibly hurt me. It's like a thick
skin of sorts. But I actually think that predisappointment is
less like armor that protects us and more kind of
like armor that suffocates us. Because when you don't have
any openness to other people, yeah, you probably won't get
hurt again, but you also won't be able to connect
(19:08):
with people. You'll miss out on so many opportunities for friendship, love, collaboration,
you name it. That all depend on our willingness to
be open. So I feel like cynicism and pre disappointment
are safe kind of in the way that house arrest
is safe. You probably won't get hurt, you won't get
(19:28):
run over by a truck, but you also won't ever
experience so many things that you might want to if
you just stay at home trying to be safe in
this really shallow way.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And this act of being safe seems like it's contributing
to this self fulfilling prophecy. If I'm cynical and I'm
kind of disappointed in everybody, and I assume that that's safe,
maybe it's safe, but it winds up never giving me
any opportunities to learn that that, hey, this is a myth.
People won't disappoint you as much as you think. You're
kind of prevented from any learning opportunities that might change
your mind.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
That's right.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I mean, in nerdy terms. In the world of learning science,
this is called a wicked learning environment, where we expose
ourselves to evidence that supports one perspective, but don't ever
or get chances to see the evidence that would go
the other way. And I think that our minds also
are built to focus a lot on negative things that
(20:17):
have happened to us. There's all this work that I
think you all have talked about on what's known as
negativity bias. Bad events, bad people take up a lot
of our attention and we remember them more clearly as well.
I don't know if you feel this, Lorie. I feel
like any time that somebody's betrayed me or hurt me,
I can come up with a list of those events
from my teenage years at the.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Drop of a hat.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
But if you ask me to tell you all the
nice things that people did for me when I was ten, twelve, fourteen,
I draw completely.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Mine is always course evaluations, right, like you know you
did class with you know, over thousand students. A lot
of people say nice things, but the class, right, But
those two kids who said really terrible things. I could
quote it right now. I choose not to, but I
could quote it right now. Yah Know, the negative stuff
sticks in your brain in this terrible way.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I have the same thing.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
It's always like one person out of five hundred his
that shirt was too much. But it's natural, it's really understandable,
and it's tragic.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Right.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
So again, I really feel for and resonate with people
who have been hurt and don't want to get hurt again.
I live that way. I have in the past. The
problem is that it's so easy to remember betrayals and
allow them to shape our lives. And when we do that,
we're actually letting the people who betrayed us retain their
(21:34):
power over us. We're kind of letting those negative experiences
win in a way. And again, I understand why that happens,
but I feel terrible when it happens to me, and
especially when it happens to other people.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So that's myth number two.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
We assume cynicism is kind of safe, but it's the
sort of false safety that winds up hurting us.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
What's myth number three.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Myth number three is the idea that cynicism is moral.
And I get this all the time. When I tell
people that I'm writing a book about hope, they often
have this knee jerk response, which is some version of, well, yeah,
you can write that you're this privileged professor at this
fancy university. You have this charmed life, which is, first
(22:16):
of all, you don't know me, but you have all
this privilege. And that's what hope is. Hope is a
privilege that is only reserved for people who are very lucky,
and in fact, that the world is pretty rough, especially
for people, for instance, who come from marginalized backgrounds or communities,
and that those people have to see the world for
(22:38):
what it is. They don't have the luxury of being
hopeful because they're affected by all of these larger structural
forces and positive thinking isn't going to fix any of that.
And in fact, there's this term hopewashing that when we
even talk about hope, we are telling individuals, through the
work of their own minds, to fix the world, even
(23:01):
though the world has historically hurt them in all of
these different ways.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But in your research you found that there's actually work
on this, like whether or not cynicism can help us
overcome it? You know, what does this work find.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
That again, cinics see in real ways problems with the world.
I think if cinics, for instance, mistrust politicians, Gosh, that
actually seems pretty reasonable, right, if they think of things
like inequality or climate change and feel cynical about our species,
that's completely understandable. But the issue is that cynicism doesn't
(23:35):
inspire us to do anything about these problems. In fact, cinics,
for instance, are less likely to take part in social
movements or protests. They're less likely to engage civically than
non cynics, and I think because of this, cynicism actually
is a tool of the status quo. People like propagandists
(23:56):
and authoritarian leaders love it when people don't trust because
sure they might not trust me, the authoritarian leader, but
they also don't trust each other enough to get together
and do anything about it. This, so I think cynicism
might be moral in the sense that cinics see the
harm that is being done, but it's not helpful in
(24:18):
addressing any of those problems.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So it seems like we're getting cynicism all wrong, and
the fact that we have all these misperceptions about cynicism
winds up hurting us a lot. But yet cynicism does
seem to still be going up. Everybody is going through
this right now, and so what's the alternative? How can
we break out of this?
Speaker 6 (24:35):
I've been asking myself that for this entire decade, I
feel like the twenty twenties, between COVID and so many
terrible events around the world, conflicts, and now this election season,
I feel like cynicism is like the mood of the
decade so far, and I've been wondering can we.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Do anything about it?
Speaker 6 (24:56):
And it turns out that we can that there are
lots of tools at our disposal when we think more
carefully and act differently to beat back cynicism. And in particular,
there's an e idea that I've been trying to work
on in my own life and that I want to
suggest to people who are struggling with cynicism, which I
(25:16):
call hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And so what's hopeful skepticism? It seems like it starts
with hope, So maybe we should start there. You know,
what is hope? And how does it differ from cynicism,
or maybe even how does it differ from something like optimism.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
This is another great distinction. So a lot of people
think that hope and optimism are the same thing.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
They're not.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
Optimism is the idea that things will work out well.
It can lead sometimes to complacency. You know, if I
think that things are going to turn out great, I
don't have to do anything. That's actually pretty similar, by
the way, to cynical hopelessness. If I think things are
going to turn out terribly, I don't need to do
anything either.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Hope is different.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It's the idea that things could go well, that even
in the face of terrible problems, there is a version
of the world where things improve, and it's a sense
that I can do something about it. It's a sense
of a agency that there's meaning to our actions. So
hope is not optimism because hope is uncertain, just like
(26:17):
the future actually is, and in that uncertainty lives our
opportunities to act and live differently in ways that make
positive change.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I forget if you're a Marvel fan, Jamil, but it
makes me think of Doctor Strange, who's this like Marvel
character who can like do this thing where he like
simulates all the possible worlds and he's like, there's like
seven billion worlds where everything's really terrible, but there's one
world in which would you do the right thing, like
things are going to be okay. It feels like hope
is kind of like pulling a Doctor Strange, where you
like at least find some worlds where through your own
(26:49):
agency you can like fix stuff.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I was literally thinking about Doctor Strange, and I thought,
should I say Doctor Strange. No, it's too nerdy. It's
too nerdy. So thank you Laurie for this validation I can.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But yeah, but it's like it's like just like coming
up with some possible worlds in which things will be okay,
but then realizing that you can contribute to that, not
just like, well if I just sit on my but
that wonderful possible world will come up. It's like you
got to say, take some action to go there.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I think of hope as this magnet where there are
billions of possible worlds. I hope, unlike the Avengers, we
have more than a one in seven billion chance of
achieving a positive outcome. But you see this panoply of
worlds and possible futures, and hope sort of attracts you
to the ones that you want and pulls you and
(27:37):
your actions towards those positive outcomes. Right, And again, I
think that because of this, hope isn't just something that
we can turn to when things are going well. In fact,
research shows that hope is especially useful for people who
are dealing with major problems. Cancer patients, people towards the
end of their lives, students in lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In
(28:00):
all of these cases, hope pulls people toward the future
that they want and helps them live happier and healthier lives.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And you've advocated not just for hope, but a particular
brand of hope that you've called hopeful skepticism. Why does
the skepticism part need to be there too well?
Speaker 6 (28:16):
I think that as we've talked about, skepticism is this
scientific perspective on the world. And as we've talked about,
there's this pervasive negativity bias that lives in our minds
that means that most of us pay much more attention
to cruelty than kindness, selfishness than generosity, and because of that,
(28:38):
we have this systematically warped view where we underestimate how trustworthy,
open minded, warm, and compassionate people are. What that means
to me is that when we are skeptical, when we
instead leave behind our assumptions and give people a chance
to show us who they are, then naturally we might
(28:59):
become more hopeful because we'll find pleasant surprises everywhere. We'll
realize that most people are better than most people think
they are.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Right in that, I think is a natural source of hope.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Later in this season, you'll get to meet some very
hopeful folks, people actively working to make their communities and
workplaces better. They'll share what they've learned about rejecting cynicism,
and they'll have plenty of ideas about how you can
become skeptically hopeful too. But when we get back from
the break, we'll talk to a scholar who's inspired plenty
of people to work towards a better common future.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I grew up when America was the maximum of we
society that we've ever seen, and my whole life has
been going downhill, and I really wish I could figure
out a way to reverse that, or at least pause it.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
The book that I have on my desk in my
office remains bowling alone like me.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Jamil is a big fan of the political scientist Robert Putnam.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
It's one of the books that affected me the most
over the course of my career, and I think captured
this massive trend in our society to feel more alone
and to lose our sense of connection.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
We spoke to Robert in our season about the importance
of connecting better. Robert grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio.
We're in the years after World War Two. People's lives
crossed and intercrossed every day. The richest and poorest people
in his town ate at the same diner, and teenage
Robert joined a bowling team with members from every neighborhood
in his community.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
We did pretty well, we were not great. And there's
a picture that shows the team three white guys, one tall,
gangly guy in the middle, which was me, and two
black guys. And we did not think that was strange.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But when Robert grew up and began studying politics, he
realized the way of life he'd taken for granted in
Port Clinton was disappearing.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I didn't know it was special, and I don't think
it was all that special in America.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
In the middle of nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Robert discovered that many of the spaces where people regularly
met were closing. People were no longer taking part in
bowling leagues as he had. They were, as the title
of his book explained, bowling alone. Robert's book painted a
bleak picture of communal life in the late nineties. It
argued that if we continued to shun social contact, we'd
become sadder, lonelier, and less trust it.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
It's a book that I keep on my desk that
also makes me depressed all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
But are we destined for this depressing? Lonelier?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Path.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
That's the question Robert explored in his most recent book,
The Upswing, How America came together a century ago and
how we can do it again. The Upswing argues that
America in the eighteen nineties looks a lot like it
did today. Think inequality, conflict, and division. But people back
then hated feeling so divided, so they joined the very charities,
clubs and societies that peaked in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Things in America were getting better and better.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
We were economically growing, we were equal, we were taking
care of each other, we were attending PGA meetings, we
were focused on the Wii.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
We were like this amazing country.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The Upswing was a revelation for Jamil. It showed him
that hope could prevail.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
When I started working on Hope for cynics, I was
talking with a mentor of mine and bemoaning the rise
in cynicism and how it's hurting all of us. And
he challenged me, He said, you know what you need
to find is figure out is there any place in
the world, or any time in history where things have
gone the opposite way where trust has increased instead of decreased,
(32:32):
where people were able to form more coalitions and better,
stronger communities than they had in the past. And I thought, oh, gosh,
that's going to be hard, but I'll try. And when
I read the Upswing, I had this sort of epiphany
that wait a minute, that did happen. It happened right
here in the US. It just happened before I was born.
(32:54):
The first half of the twentieth century was this tectonic
shift where the country, because of all these progressive social movements,
became more interconnected, and trust rose to ritible levels, way
higher than they have been at any other time that
we've been measuring.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And so with that, hope you've put together this kind
of three part idea for how we can do it again,
for how we can reduce our cynicism and get back
to this hopeful skepticism that allows us to trust one another.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What are those three steps?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:25):
The first step is to think differently, to try and
adopt this mindset of hopeful skepticism. And I think of
that as happening in a couple of different ways. By
the way, I work on this all the time myself.
I try to do this through some tools that are
drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy. So one of them is
(33:48):
known as reality testing, but I just think of it
as fact checking my cynical feelings. Right, I personally often
find myself thinking things that are very uncharitable, you know,
about people who cut me off in traffic, or influencers,
not you, Lori, but other influencers. No, not you, of course,
(34:10):
and just people in general. And oftentimes that type of
chatter just goes on unchecked and drives our lives. And
lately I've tried to hit the pause button on it
much more frequently and ask myself, wait a minute, you're
having this thought, You're having these contemptuous feelings. Where are
(34:31):
they coming from? What do they mean? And I try
to basically use my life as a scientist in this way.
I say, well, if this was a hypothesis and you
had to defend it in a scientific paper or at
a conference, what is the evidence that you would marshal
in defense for this terrible thought that you're having about humanity?
And oftentimes I realized, wait a minute, I don't have
(34:53):
good evidence for this at all. So I try to
be more open minded, and I guess skeptical of my
own cynicism when.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I can a different thought pattern.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You've encouraged is one that you've called a reciprocity mindset.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
What's that?
Speaker 6 (35:06):
So we talked about these self fulfilling phes that when
I'm cynical, I treat other people in cynical ways, which
then brings out the worst from them, makes them more
selfish and untrustworthy. Well, it turns out that we often
don't realize that when other people act badly, it's because
of how we've treated them, right, We don't realize how
(35:28):
influential we are on other people. So a reciprocity mindset
is teaching people about the power that they have over others.
In fact, in my lab, we've tried to adopt this approach.
We taught some people in a set of studies that hey,
you know, if you trust others, they'll act more trustworthy,
and if you don't trust them, they'll act more selfishly.
(35:51):
And we find that when we teach people that they
think differently about others, they talk and write about more
of their responsibility in social settings to treat people the
way that they would want to be treated, and then
they do it more so. For instance, in our studies,
when we teach people about this cerprosity mindset, they're more
willing to trust strangers. And when people trust strangers, strangers
(36:16):
act in more trustworthy ways, for instance, paying back investments
more than if they're not trusted. So we find that
teaching people about their own power causes them to wield
it more responsibly in ways that are kinder and less cynical,
and that turns these sort of vicious, self fulfilling prophecies
into more virtuous ones.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And so that's a nice transition to the second step
that you've advocated, which is to act differently. Right, once
we start thinking differently, we can start doing stuff differently.
Any specific strategies you have for people to start acting
differently to engage their hopeful skepticism, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
There's a bunch of ways to do this. So if
thinking like a hopeful skeptic means having to consider your
beliefs as hypotheses almost scientific predictions, then acting differently is
a matter of testing those predictions out in the real
world world. And there's a couple of ways to do this.
One that I've tried to do a lot more is
(37:14):
what I call leaps of faith, that is, taking small,
calculated risks on other people. Ernest Hemingway once wrote the
best way to find out if you can trust somebody
is to trust them, and I think that that's a
really powerful idea. I often, in situations where normally I
would be really guarded, have tried to be more open,
(37:35):
whether that's trusting somebody with a task in my lab
that maybe you know is a challenge for them, or
just opening up to somebody I don't know that well
about a struggle that I'm going through, And my cynical
mind often screams at me while I'm doing this, what
the hell are you thinking you're doing?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You're about to.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Be betrayed, And basically I just try to say, shut
up for a second.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I need to do this.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
And I'm often shocked by the results by how much
people are honored when you trust them, how much it
strengthens relationships, how it's a fast track to a more
connected life. And I guess it's shocking to me how
shocking this is to me, given that I study this,
But I think that that's I'm trying to do it
(38:20):
more so that it can come more naturally. Because in science,
of course, when we test a hypothesis and find something out,
it updates our beliefs and our theories, so we can
use this real world social data to slowly incrementally update
our theories about the world away from cynicism.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
And a final way to update our theories about the
world is to help other people update their theories about
the world. And that gets to your third step, which
is to share differently.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
What do you mean there?
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yeah, I think it's again important to understand our influence
on other people. We can do that in understanding that
when we trust others, they're more likely to step up.
But we can also do that in understanding that what
we talk about also influences the way that other people
see the world. And if we talk in cynical ways,
if we only share information about the worst people doing
(39:11):
the worst things, we're sort of like the news. We're
giving people all the material they need to become more cynical.
It's a real instinct, just like we think so much
about bad things in the world to talk about those things,
and it's again an instinct that we can fight. I've
tried to do this, especially with my kids. I sort
(39:32):
of noticed that, even though I try to be positive
around them, when my wife and I are talking about,
you know, some corporation or something in the news or
even inconveniences that we face in our day to day lives,
we end up being pretty negative. And so I started
trying to do this thing with my kids that I
call social savoring. That is, if I notice somebody doing
(39:55):
something positive, I try to pause and recognize it and
then tell them, hey, look, did you see that this
person helped a stranger who was struggling? Can you see
these people picking up litter on the streets? And in
all of these cases, social savoring has a I hope,
(40:15):
helped them plug into this more positive view of people.
But it's also helped me, because of course, what you
say to other people changes what you think about. In
looking for examples of positivity that I could share with
them in this sort of positive gossip, that sort of
popped an antenna out of my mind that caused me
to look for and really quite easily find many people
(40:39):
acting in positive ways myself.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And so have all of these things helped you?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I mean it sounds like you're putting all this stuff
into practice, which is awesome, Like has it actually changed
your level of cynicism?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Has it changed how happy you feel? Generally?
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I think of this as really quite connected to how
you have experienced a lot of these happiness interventions. I
know you do a lot of these things to try
to tap into the science, and I know for you
it works a lot of the times. And that doesn't
mean that it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Right, Yeah, it's helped a lot, but that doesn't mean
I'm like happy all the time. Right, I'm guessing that's
exactly what's happening with cynicism for you, that less an
isth goal but not a perfect hopeful skeptic just.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yet you're guessing correctly. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I mean I think of myself as a recovering cynic
you know. I don't think of myself as some person
who's figured it all out and here to share. I'm
in the struggle with so many other people, and these
are instincts there, knee jerk responses, and we need to
fight them actively.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
You know.
Speaker 6 (41:42):
I think of cynicism as a sort of being on
a treadmill. If you stand still, you're going to get
pulled backwards. So it's this kind of constant effort to
move forward against the grain of what our minds tend
to do. It's a struggle. It's something that I work
on all the time and probably will for the rest
of my life.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
But it's such an important struggle.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I feel like, especially right now, everything we see in
the news is something that just like pulls me into
this like hopelessness spiral because it just feels like the
kind of ad that we all need so much right now.
So would you be willing to help us out even more?
Maybe we could take a hopeful Skeptics lens to so
much of what's going on on the planet right now.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Would it be gamed to come along?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I thought you'd never ask. Of course I would love
that awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Well, on the next episode of the Happiness Lab, we
will continue tackling what we can do to reduce our
painful cynicism and develop a hopeful skeptics Lens. We're going
to be doing a deeper dive across three more episodes
where we'll be talking about this and all that will
happen next time on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor
Lauriy Santos.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
And me doctor Jamal Zaki.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You sounded kind of skeptical.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Oh really, okay, let me do it again. Let me
do it again.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
All that next time on the Happiness Lab would be
doctor Lauriy Santos.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And me doctor Jamial Zaki. Okay, okay, that was better.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
No no, we did we did it. We did it,
we did it. Yeah,
Pushkin as a happiness professor.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Many people assume that I'm a beacon of optimism, that
I always look on the bright side of life, to
quote the Monty Python song. But some days I feel
pretty down about things. Some days it feels easier to
look on the bleak side of life.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Good childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession
with crowd.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Size, Please stick to policy, don't get personal, they get
any personal all night long of the.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Wa limited narrow view of the world made him feel
threatened by the.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, politics and all the polarization right now, bleak, climate,
ridiculously bleak, racism, poverty, war bleak, bleak, super bleak. But
thinking about all these problems doesn't just make me feel helpless.
It also gets me super frustrated with the other members
of my species. Sometimes I just want to be like
(01:26):
fellow humans. Come on, might the only one who sees
all these problems? Might the only one who wants everybody
to stop yelling at each other on Twitter long enough
to actually start fixing things. Even just saying it out
loud makes me feel isolated and yucky and just blah.
I'm guessing that you may have felt something similar. On
your worst days, like me, maybe you've wondered if there's
(01:48):
any way to fight all the division and disillusionment and despair.
This seems to have taken over our public conversation. Well,
you're in luck, because over the next few shows, we'll
see that the science gives us lots of reasons to
be optimistic about stuff that scares us, from politics, to
human nature to our capacity.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
To change society.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
We'll even learn how to transform our despair into positive action.
So buckle up, Happiness Lab listener, because we're on a
journey to find hope. Our minds are constantly telling us
what to do to be happy. But what if our
minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
leading us away from what will really make us happy.
(02:26):
The good news is that understanding the science of the
mind can point us.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
All back in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Lauriy Santos.
I say, this is the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurry Santos.
But since this is a whole season about finding hope,
which I sometimes struggle with, I decided to ask someone
to help us on our journey.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Hey, Jamil how's it going.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
How are you feeling better?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I'm still sounding a little froggy, which hopefully won't come
off too much in the interview. Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki
is the go to guide if you want to learn
why the world is kinder than the bleak vision we
often bring to mind. Over the next four episodes, we'll
be exploring some of the ideas he sets out in
his new book, Hope Procinics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.
Hope Prosonics is literally life changing. You should buy it
(03:17):
and read it. But the cliff note summary is that
we needn't surrender to the cynical view that humans are mean, selfish,
and hostile, because a bunch of research shows that these
notions are just plain mistaken. Now, Jimmil has been steeped
in the science for a very long time, so you
might assume that he'd be the most hopeful man alive.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
For the last twenty years, I've studied and written and
spoken about human kindness and empathy, and I've sort of
become an unofficial ambassador for humanity's better angels. People often
bring me in to tell them about how great everybody
is and I love that work and I believe it
in my mind, but that doesn't mean that doesn't mean
(03:56):
that it makes its way into the rest of me.
And it's my job to think about and talk about
how great everyone is. But oftentimes I feel the exact opposite.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Any specific examples that have come up lately, like of
just the opposite of the milk of human kindness as
you look at that of.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
The world, I feel cynical and hopeless about I'd say
six times a day thinking about current events. All I
have to do to feel terrible about myself or humanity
is just look at any of the screens in my life,
my laptop, my TV, my phone, even my watch does
the trick on occasion, and.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You're not alone. But this is something that I can
kind of reflect on a lot. As you know, I've
been kind of sick lately. I've like had a cold
and somehow like my main form of activity has just
been like peeking at my phone or like I'll just
go on Reddit, or I'll just see like what's you
know on my favorite news channel, and it just makes
me hate the world and hate other people.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It just makes me feel really terrible.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
But it feels shocking that you could go through the
same thing you're supposed to know better.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
I am supposed to know better, but so many of
us who are psychologists or behavioral scientists, we live with this.
We study part of the world. We try to understand it.
But again, just understanding something isn't the same as feeling it.
And I guess for me, over the last few years,
I became really curious about this cynicism. I was experiencing
(05:21):
feeling like the world was getting worse, like people were terrible.
And I thought, Laurie, about you, and about the themes
of the Happiness Lab and this idea that sometimes our
minds played tricks on us, and I thought, well, maybe
my mind is playing tricks on me as well. I
decided to figure out whether my cynicism was warranted, or
whether it might be wrong, whether it might be a
(05:42):
story that I was telling myself, and what that might
be doing to me and to the rest of us
who might be feeling cynical. I guess I learned a
lot in the process over the last few years that
led me to write this book.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Jamil decided to call the book Hope for Cynics. I
do sometimes feel scared about society and worry that there
are people out there who don't exactly have my best
interest at heart. But does that make me a cynic?
It feels like a strong word. In his book, Jamil
argues that is a disease of social health, a disease.
Wasn't I just basing my ideas on realism?
Speaker 6 (06:15):
So cynicism is the theory that in general, humanity is greedy, selfish,
and dishonest, And like any other theory, this guides what
we do and what we don't do. So Cinics, for instance,
if they see somebody act kindly, they'll suspect that maybe
they're not genuine, maybe they're doing that for some ulterior motive.
(06:36):
They also act differently. So this is especially true when
it comes to trust. Trust is our willingness to be
vulnerable to somebody else on the expectation that they'll do
right by us. You are putting your well being in
their hands. Loaning somebody money or let somebody babies ait
your kids. It's a gamble, a social gamble, and cinics
(06:57):
think it's for suckers, so they're much less likely to
trust strangers, but even their own friends, families, and romantic partners.
So Cynicism is a theory, but it doesn't stay in
our minds. It leaks into the way that we live
and the way that we treat other people.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I know, when I first started thinking about cynicism, I
often thought it was really synonymous with skepticism. But you've
argue that these are actually really different. So what's the
difference between cynicism and skepticism.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Yeah, this is really important because I think your sense
that these two are the same is really common. A
lot of people, I think, view these terms as interchangeable,
but they are not at all. As I've said, cynicism
is a theory that people aren't that great. Skepticism isn't
a theory about the world or about people. It's a mindset,
an openness to new ideas, and a kind of restlessness,
(07:48):
an unwillingness to just sit with our assumptions. I often
think that cynics are a little bit like lawyers in
the Prosecution against Humanity, you know, the sort of they're
really keen on whatever evidence supports their theory, whatever clues
they can find that people are actually terrible, and they're
really dismissive of any evidence to the contrary that people
(08:10):
might be actually pretty great in some circumstances. Skeptics think
less like lawyers and more like scientists. They test their assumptions,
they look for data, and because of that, skepticism is
a much more agile way of viewing the world and
a much better way to learn about people and situations.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And so in some ways they're almost more like opposites
the way you describe it, right, the skeptics are really
kind of questioning their assumptions, whereas the cynics are really
set in their theories that, like, know, people are terrible.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Actually, I think that's right.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
And in fact, if cynics have a lot in common
with anybody, it's with the naive rubes that they love
to make fun of. You know, Cynics think that if
you are not like them, you must just naively believe
that everybody's great, even if they betray you. And that's true.
Some people do have rose colored glasses on. Some people
(09:02):
do see only the best in others, even to their
own detriment. Those people, I would say, are also thinking
like lawyers. Lawyers in the defense for humanity's trials. So
I think that cynics and naive trusters are really both
thinking and looking at only one side of the evidence.
And again, skeptics are really different than both of them
(09:23):
because they don't trust their assumptions. They look for evidence.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It feels like these days that a lot of us
have joined the side of the prosecution. Like it seems
like a lot of us are feeling pretty cynical about humanity.
Are are there actually data about that? Do we know
if cynicism is getting worse?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
There are, and cynicism has been skyrocketing over time. The
best proxy that we have for it is how much
people agree with the statement most people can be trusted.
This is a question that scientists have been asking Americans
and people around the world for many, many years, and
the best data we have are from the US, and
those data are pretty bleak. So in nineteen seventy two,
(10:00):
about fifty percent of Americans believed that most people can
be trusted. By twenty eighteen, that had fallen to about
a third of a Mayora Mrians. The size of that
drop is comparable to the amount of money that the
stock market lost in the financial collapse of two thousand
and eight. So we are experiencing, in a real way
a trust deficit and a cynicism boom. In our country
(10:24):
and actually around the world as well.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, that's terrifying that as a huge drop. I
mean the other questions like what's that deficit doing to us?
Like how is it affecting us as individuals?
Speaker 6 (10:33):
So I went through decades of data on this and
discovered that in essence, cynicism hurts us in every way
psychologists and social scientists and even physicians can measure. Cynics
tend to live much less healthy lives. They are more
prone to depression, loneliness, and unhappiness. They're also much more
(10:55):
likely to get physically sick, with everything from diabetes to
cellular inflammation to heart disease. They even die younger than
non cinics. Their relationships are also damaged by their cynicism.
So if you can't trust people, it's harder to connect
deeply with them, and you end up more isolated. It's
(11:15):
really tragic. If cynicism were appeal, it'd be a poison.
And Thomas Hobbes, one of the most famous cynical philosophers
in history, wrote that we needed laws to rain us
in because left to our own devices, human nature is nasty, brutish,
and short. I think that's the best cynical encapsulation. That's
like cynicism in one sentence, But ironically that phrase, that
(11:40):
sentence really captures the lives of cynics themselves better than
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I mean, it sounds like it's terrible for individuals, but
my guess is it's also probably bad for society if
we're all going around thinking that everybody is, you know,
nasty and brutish.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Are their data there too.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Yeah, there's tons of data showing that at the level
of communities, whether those communities are families, companies, counties, or countries,
at all of these levels, a lack of trust a
general sense of disconnection and suspicion and harms the ability
of that unit large, small, enormous, whatever to thrive. So
(12:15):
I'll give you the example at the national level. So
countries that are higher in trust tend to grow economically,
Their people tend to be more civically engaged, voting more
for instance, they tend to donate more to charity and
help strangers more, and they tend to be less politically
polarized as well. If that's what trusting nations do, you
(12:38):
see where we're going what cynical nations do is exactly
the opposite. They shrink or stagnate economically, people bow out
or leave civic engagement and civic duties, and they're less
likely to engage with one another in pro social ways
as well. If you think of trust as a kind
(12:58):
of glue that bonds communities together, cynicism erodes that glue
and leaves us all feeling more alone.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And it also seems like that alienation must become a
vicious cycle, right. You know, if you live in a
cynical society, then you're getting more data that everybody's cynical.
It becomes easier to believe that everybody's brutish and hates you,
and that you shouldn't trust them. So these things must
get worse for communities over time too.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I totally agree.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
And you see this self fulfilling prophecy all over the place.
It's not just at the level of large communities, but
even you see this in individuals' lives. So, for instance, cynics,
because they don't trust people, they'll treat them in all
sorts of ways that show that mistrust. For instance, if
they loan somebody money, they'll call them every day and
(13:48):
follow up with them or if they interact with friends,
they'll worry that their friends will disrespect them, so they'll
disrespect their friends preemptively. And these actions that cynics take
end up basically pissing other people off and making other
people feel angry and disrespected, and because of that actually
(14:09):
bring out the worst in other people. They say, I
bet these other folks will be selfish. I'll treat them
like their selfish. Then other people act selfishly and cynics
decide they were right all along.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I'm guessing you agree that this sounds awful. A lot
of us just assume we're approaching the world with a
healthy amount of suspicion, making sure people don't take advantage
of us. I never considered that I could be poisoning
myself or those around me. Why are we attracted to
cynicism and why are we so very blind to its dangers.
We'll explore these questions when the Happiness Lab returns in
(14:42):
a moment. Doctor jimil Zaki has likened cynicism to a
harmful disease. And what's worse, cynicism is spreading like a pandemic.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
We've got this experience that is growing and it's creating
like this fractal of pain and dysfunction across our lives.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And as I.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Researched this subject, I found that they there are really
three myths about cynicism that I think promoted and propagated
things that we believe that make us think we have
to be cynical if we want to succeed in life
that turn out in many cases to be exactly the
opposite of the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're totally speaking my language at this, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
On the Happiness Lab, we love any case where our
minds are lying to us, and it seems like that's what's.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Going on too.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, exactly. Yes.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
So the first of these myths is that cynicism is smart.
So a lot of people I've talked with since working
on this project will tell me that they are cynics,
and they'll tell me this with a sort of bitter pride.
They say, well, yeah, I'm cynical and it might not
be fun, but hey, that's the price of being right,
you know. I don't get to just believe whatever I
(15:53):
feel like. I have to be a realist. And there's
this sense that in essence, by having this dim view
of other people, cynics are expressing a sort of hard
fought wisdom.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And it sounds like you're going to argue that this
hard fought wisdom is wrong.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Yes, But before that, I think it's worth saying that
cynics are not the only ones who think cynics are smart.
There's a bunch of research that finds that if you
ask people who do you think would do better on
a bunch of different tasks a cynic or a non cnic,
about seventy percent of people believe that cynics are smarter
(16:30):
than non cynics in general, that they would do better
at analytic tasks, for instance, and about eighty five percent
of people think that cynics would be socially smart, for instance,
better at spotting liars. So most people put a lot
of faith in people who don't have a lot of
faith in people. Say that three times fast, but it's true,
(16:51):
and it turns out that most people are wrong. Cnics
in fact, do less well on cognitive tests than noncnics,
and they're also worse at spotting liars. It turns out
that if you think everybody is on the take, you
don't engage in skepticism, you don't take the energy and
time to actually learn about people. So you end up
(17:13):
with blunt and often incorrect, black and white views of humanity.
So cynicism ends up being way less smart and wise
than we think it is.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And so that's kind of the first myth about cynicism.
It's not nearly as smart as we think. What's the
second one.
Speaker 6 (17:28):
The second is that cynicism is a way of staying safe.
Is a quote from the comedian George Carlin that I love,
where he said, scratch a cynic, and you'll find a
disappointed idealist. I think a lot of cynics, whether they
seem like they have a lot of bluster in their
sneering attitude or not, actually are in recovery from some
(17:49):
type of hurt or betrayal.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I understand that.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
I feel like, if people are cynical and they're listening
to this, I don't want them to feel like I'm
calling them out. I think a lot of us have
been disappointed and hurt in our lives, and it's actually
pretty natural to say, well, gosh, I was really hurt
before because I trusted somebody. I don't want to get
hurt again. The only way that I can avoid that
further pain is to close myself off to stop trusting others.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
But you've argued that this isn't the right approach. You've
argued that this winds up causing a term that I love,
which is pre disappointment.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
What's pre disappointment?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
So if you think of disappointment as somebody hurt me,
and so my expectations of that person are now lowered,
pre disappointment is somebody hurt me, so my expectations of
the entire world are now lowered. It's like a sort
of psychological armor, or at least people believe it's a
psychological armor. They say, if I have no faith in anybody,
(18:47):
then they can't possibly hurt me. It's like a thick
skin of sorts. But I actually think that predisappointment is
less like armor that protects us and more kind of
like armor that suffocates us. Because when you don't have
any openness to other people, yeah, you probably won't get
hurt again, but you also won't be able to connect
(19:08):
with people. You'll miss out on so many opportunities for friendship, love, collaboration,
you name it. That all depend on our willingness to
be open. So I feel like cynicism and pre disappointment
are safe kind of in the way that house arrest
is safe. You probably won't get hurt, you won't get
(19:28):
run over by a truck, but you also won't ever
experience so many things that you might want to if
you just stay at home trying to be safe in
this really shallow way.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And this act of being safe seems like it's contributing
to this self fulfilling prophecy. If I'm cynical and I'm
kind of disappointed in everybody, and I assume that that's safe,
maybe it's safe, but it winds up never giving me
any opportunities to learn that that, hey, this is a myth.
People won't disappoint you as much as you think. You're
kind of prevented from any learning opportunities that might change
your mind.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
That's right.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I mean, in nerdy terms. In the world of learning science,
this is called a wicked learning environment, where we expose
ourselves to evidence that supports one perspective, but don't ever
or get chances to see the evidence that would go
the other way. And I think that our minds also
are built to focus a lot on negative things that
(20:17):
have happened to us. There's all this work that I
think you all have talked about on what's known as
negativity bias. Bad events, bad people take up a lot
of our attention and we remember them more clearly as well.
I don't know if you feel this, Lorie. I feel
like any time that somebody's betrayed me or hurt me,
I can come up with a list of those events
from my teenage years at the.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Drop of a hat.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
But if you ask me to tell you all the
nice things that people did for me when I was ten, twelve, fourteen,
I draw completely.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Mine is always course evaluations, right, like you know you
did class with you know, over thousand students. A lot
of people say nice things, but the class, right, But
those two kids who said really terrible things. I could
quote it right now. I choose not to, but I
could quote it right now. Yah Know, the negative stuff
sticks in your brain in this terrible way.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I have the same thing.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
It's always like one person out of five hundred his
that shirt was too much. But it's natural, it's really understandable,
and it's tragic.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Right.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
So again, I really feel for and resonate with people
who have been hurt and don't want to get hurt again.
I live that way. I have in the past. The
problem is that it's so easy to remember betrayals and
allow them to shape our lives. And when we do that,
we're actually letting the people who betrayed us retain their
(21:34):
power over us. We're kind of letting those negative experiences
win in a way. And again, I understand why that happens,
but I feel terrible when it happens to me, and
especially when it happens to other people.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So that's myth number two.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
We assume cynicism is kind of safe, but it's the
sort of false safety that winds up hurting us.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
What's myth number three.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Myth number three is the idea that cynicism is moral.
And I get this all the time. When I tell
people that I'm writing a book about hope, they often
have this knee jerk response, which is some version of, well, yeah,
you can write that you're this privileged professor at this
fancy university. You have this charmed life, which is, first
(22:16):
of all, you don't know me, but you have all
this privilege. And that's what hope is. Hope is a
privilege that is only reserved for people who are very lucky,
and in fact, that the world is pretty rough, especially
for people, for instance, who come from marginalized backgrounds or communities,
and that those people have to see the world for
(22:38):
what it is. They don't have the luxury of being
hopeful because they're affected by all of these larger structural
forces and positive thinking isn't going to fix any of that.
And in fact, there's this term hopewashing that when we
even talk about hope, we are telling individuals, through the
work of their own minds, to fix the world, even
(23:01):
though the world has historically hurt them in all of
these different ways.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But in your research you found that there's actually work
on this, like whether or not cynicism can help us
overcome it? You know, what does this work find.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
That again, cinics see in real ways problems with the world.
I think if cinics, for instance, mistrust politicians, Gosh, that
actually seems pretty reasonable, right, if they think of things
like inequality or climate change and feel cynical about our species,
that's completely understandable. But the issue is that cynicism doesn't
(23:35):
inspire us to do anything about these problems. In fact, cinics,
for instance, are less likely to take part in social
movements or protests. They're less likely to engage civically than
non cynics, and I think because of this, cynicism actually
is a tool of the status quo. People like propagandists
(23:56):
and authoritarian leaders love it when people don't trust because
sure they might not trust me, the authoritarian leader, but
they also don't trust each other enough to get together
and do anything about it. This, so I think cynicism
might be moral in the sense that cinics see the
harm that is being done, but it's not helpful in
(24:18):
addressing any of those problems.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So it seems like we're getting cynicism all wrong, and
the fact that we have all these misperceptions about cynicism
winds up hurting us a lot. But yet cynicism does
seem to still be going up. Everybody is going through
this right now, and so what's the alternative? How can
we break out of this?
Speaker 6 (24:35):
I've been asking myself that for this entire decade, I
feel like the twenty twenties, between COVID and so many
terrible events around the world, conflicts, and now this election season,
I feel like cynicism is like the mood of the
decade so far, and I've been wondering can we.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Do anything about it?
Speaker 6 (24:56):
And it turns out that we can that there are
lots of tools at our disposal when we think more
carefully and act differently to beat back cynicism. And in particular,
there's an e idea that I've been trying to work
on in my own life and that I want to
suggest to people who are struggling with cynicism, which I
(25:16):
call hopeful skepticism.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
And so what's hopeful skepticism? It seems like it starts
with hope, So maybe we should start there. You know,
what is hope? And how does it differ from cynicism,
or maybe even how does it differ from something like optimism.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
This is another great distinction. So a lot of people
think that hope and optimism are the same thing.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
They're not.
Speaker 6 (25:34):
Optimism is the idea that things will work out well.
It can lead sometimes to complacency. You know, if I
think that things are going to turn out great, I
don't have to do anything. That's actually pretty similar, by
the way, to cynical hopelessness. If I think things are
going to turn out terribly, I don't need to do
anything either.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Hope is different.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
It's the idea that things could go well, that even
in the face of terrible problems, there is a version
of the world where things improve, and it's a sense
that I can do something about it. It's a sense
of a agency that there's meaning to our actions. So
hope is not optimism because hope is uncertain, just like
(26:17):
the future actually is, and in that uncertainty lives our
opportunities to act and live differently in ways that make
positive change.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I forget if you're a Marvel fan, Jamil, but it
makes me think of Doctor Strange, who's this like Marvel
character who can like do this thing where he like
simulates all the possible worlds and he's like, there's like
seven billion worlds where everything's really terrible, but there's one
world in which would you do the right thing, like
things are going to be okay. It feels like hope
is kind of like pulling a Doctor Strange, where you
like at least find some worlds where through your own
(26:49):
agency you can like fix stuff.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I was literally thinking about Doctor Strange, and I thought,
should I say Doctor Strange. No, it's too nerdy. It's
too nerdy. So thank you Laurie for this validation I can.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
But yeah, but it's like it's like just like coming
up with some possible worlds in which things will be okay,
but then realizing that you can contribute to that, not
just like, well if I just sit on my but
that wonderful possible world will come up. It's like you
got to say, take some action to go there.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I think of hope as this magnet where there are
billions of possible worlds. I hope, unlike the Avengers, we
have more than a one in seven billion chance of
achieving a positive outcome. But you see this panoply of
worlds and possible futures, and hope sort of attracts you
to the ones that you want and pulls you and
(27:37):
your actions towards those positive outcomes. Right, And again, I
think that because of this, hope isn't just something that
we can turn to when things are going well. In fact,
research shows that hope is especially useful for people who
are dealing with major problems. Cancer patients, people towards the
end of their lives, students in lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In
(28:00):
all of these cases, hope pulls people toward the future
that they want and helps them live happier and healthier lives.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And you've advocated not just for hope, but a particular
brand of hope that you've called hopeful skepticism. Why does
the skepticism part need to be there too well?
Speaker 6 (28:16):
I think that as we've talked about, skepticism is this
scientific perspective on the world. And as we've talked about,
there's this pervasive negativity bias that lives in our minds
that means that most of us pay much more attention
to cruelty than kindness, selfishness than generosity, and because of that,
(28:38):
we have this systematically warped view where we underestimate how trustworthy,
open minded, warm, and compassionate people are. What that means
to me is that when we are skeptical, when we
instead leave behind our assumptions and give people a chance
to show us who they are, then naturally we might
(28:59):
become more hopeful because we'll find pleasant surprises everywhere. We'll
realize that most people are better than most people think
they are.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Right in that, I think is a natural source of hope.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Later in this season, you'll get to meet some very
hopeful folks, people actively working to make their communities and
workplaces better. They'll share what they've learned about rejecting cynicism,
and they'll have plenty of ideas about how you can
become skeptically hopeful too. But when we get back from
the break, we'll talk to a scholar who's inspired plenty
of people to work towards a better common future.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I grew up when America was the maximum of we
society that we've ever seen, and my whole life has
been going downhill, and I really wish I could figure
out a way to reverse that, or at least pause it.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 6 (29:54):
The book that I have on my desk in my
office remains bowling alone like me.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Jamil is a big fan of the political scientist Robert Putnam.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
It's one of the books that affected me the most
over the course of my career, and I think captured
this massive trend in our society to feel more alone
and to lose our sense of connection.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
We spoke to Robert in our season about the importance
of connecting better. Robert grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio.
We're in the years after World War Two. People's lives
crossed and intercrossed every day. The richest and poorest people
in his town ate at the same diner, and teenage
Robert joined a bowling team with members from every neighborhood
in his community.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
We did pretty well, we were not great. And there's
a picture that shows the team three white guys, one tall,
gangly guy in the middle, which was me, and two
black guys. And we did not think that was strange.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But when Robert grew up and began studying politics, he
realized the way of life he'd taken for granted in
Port Clinton was disappearing.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I didn't know it was special, and I don't think
it was all that special in America.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
In the middle of nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Robert discovered that many of the spaces where people regularly
met were closing. People were no longer taking part in
bowling leagues as he had. They were, as the title
of his book explained, bowling alone. Robert's book painted a
bleak picture of communal life in the late nineties. It
argued that if we continued to shun social contact, we'd
become sadder, lonelier, and less trust it.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
It's a book that I keep on my desk that
also makes me depressed all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
But are we destined for this depressing? Lonelier?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Path.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
That's the question Robert explored in his most recent book,
The Upswing, How America came together a century ago and
how we can do it again. The Upswing argues that
America in the eighteen nineties looks a lot like it
did today. Think inequality, conflict, and division. But people back
then hated feeling so divided, so they joined the very charities,
clubs and societies that peaked in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Things in America were getting better and better.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
We were economically growing, we were equal, we were taking
care of each other, we were attending PGA meetings, we
were focused on the Wii.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
We were like this amazing country.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The Upswing was a revelation for Jamil. It showed him
that hope could prevail.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
When I started working on Hope for cynics, I was
talking with a mentor of mine and bemoaning the rise
in cynicism and how it's hurting all of us. And
he challenged me, He said, you know what you need
to find is figure out is there any place in
the world, or any time in history where things have
gone the opposite way where trust has increased instead of decreased,
(32:32):
where people were able to form more coalitions and better,
stronger communities than they had in the past. And I thought, oh, gosh,
that's going to be hard, but I'll try. And when
I read the Upswing, I had this sort of epiphany
that wait a minute, that did happen. It happened right
here in the US. It just happened before I was born.
(32:54):
The first half of the twentieth century was this tectonic
shift where the country, because of all these progressive social movements,
became more interconnected, and trust rose to ritible levels, way
higher than they have been at any other time that
we've been measuring.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And so with that, hope you've put together this kind
of three part idea for how we can do it again,
for how we can reduce our cynicism and get back
to this hopeful skepticism that allows us to trust one another.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What are those three steps?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:25):
The first step is to think differently, to try and
adopt this mindset of hopeful skepticism. And I think of
that as happening in a couple of different ways. By
the way, I work on this all the time myself.
I try to do this through some tools that are
drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy. So one of them is
(33:48):
known as reality testing, but I just think of it
as fact checking my cynical feelings. Right, I personally often
find myself thinking things that are very uncharitable, you know,
about people who cut me off in traffic, or influencers,
not you, Lori, but other influencers. No, not you, of course,
(34:10):
and just people in general. And oftentimes that type of
chatter just goes on unchecked and drives our lives. And
lately I've tried to hit the pause button on it
much more frequently and ask myself, wait a minute, you're
having this thought, You're having these contemptuous feelings. Where are
(34:31):
they coming from? What do they mean? And I try
to basically use my life as a scientist in this way.
I say, well, if this was a hypothesis and you
had to defend it in a scientific paper or at
a conference, what is the evidence that you would marshal
in defense for this terrible thought that you're having about humanity?
And oftentimes I realized, wait a minute, I don't have
(34:53):
good evidence for this at all. So I try to
be more open minded, and I guess skeptical of my
own cynicism when.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I can a different thought pattern.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You've encouraged is one that you've called a reciprocity mindset.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
What's that?
Speaker 6 (35:06):
So we talked about these self fulfilling phes that when
I'm cynical, I treat other people in cynical ways, which
then brings out the worst from them, makes them more
selfish and untrustworthy. Well, it turns out that we often
don't realize that when other people act badly, it's because
of how we've treated them, right, We don't realize how
(35:28):
influential we are on other people. So a reciprocity mindset
is teaching people about the power that they have over others.
In fact, in my lab, we've tried to adopt this approach.
We taught some people in a set of studies that hey,
you know, if you trust others, they'll act more trustworthy,
and if you don't trust them, they'll act more selfishly.
(35:51):
And we find that when we teach people that they
think differently about others, they talk and write about more
of their responsibility in social settings to treat people the
way that they would want to be treated, and then
they do it more so. For instance, in our studies,
when we teach people about this cerprosity mindset, they're more
willing to trust strangers. And when people trust strangers, strangers
(36:16):
act in more trustworthy ways, for instance, paying back investments
more than if they're not trusted. So we find that
teaching people about their own power causes them to wield
it more responsibly in ways that are kinder and less cynical,
and that turns these sort of vicious, self fulfilling prophecies
into more virtuous ones.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And so that's a nice transition to the second step
that you've advocated, which is to act differently. Right, once
we start thinking differently, we can start doing stuff differently.
Any specific strategies you have for people to start acting
differently to engage their hopeful skepticism, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
There's a bunch of ways to do this. So if
thinking like a hopeful skeptic means having to consider your
beliefs as hypotheses almost scientific predictions, then acting differently is
a matter of testing those predictions out in the real
world world. And there's a couple of ways to do this.
One that I've tried to do a lot more is
(37:14):
what I call leaps of faith, that is, taking small,
calculated risks on other people. Ernest Hemingway once wrote the
best way to find out if you can trust somebody
is to trust them, and I think that that's a
really powerful idea. I often, in situations where normally I
would be really guarded, have tried to be more open,
(37:35):
whether that's trusting somebody with a task in my lab
that maybe you know is a challenge for them, or
just opening up to somebody I don't know that well
about a struggle that I'm going through, And my cynical
mind often screams at me while I'm doing this, what
the hell are you thinking you're doing?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You're about to.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
Be betrayed, And basically I just try to say, shut
up for a second.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I need to do this.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
And I'm often shocked by the results by how much
people are honored when you trust them, how much it
strengthens relationships, how it's a fast track to a more
connected life. And I guess it's shocking to me how
shocking this is to me, given that I study this,
But I think that that's I'm trying to do it
(38:20):
more so that it can come more naturally. Because in science,
of course, when we test a hypothesis and find something out,
it updates our beliefs and our theories, so we can
use this real world social data to slowly incrementally update
our theories about the world away from cynicism.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
And a final way to update our theories about the
world is to help other people update their theories about
the world. And that gets to your third step, which
is to share differently.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
What do you mean there?
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yeah, I think it's again important to understand our influence
on other people. We can do that in understanding that
when we trust others, they're more likely to step up.
But we can also do that in understanding that what
we talk about also influences the way that other people
see the world. And if we talk in cynical ways,
if we only share information about the worst people doing
(39:11):
the worst things, we're sort of like the news. We're
giving people all the material they need to become more cynical.
It's a real instinct, just like we think so much
about bad things in the world to talk about those things,
and it's again an instinct that we can fight. I've
tried to do this, especially with my kids. I sort
(39:32):
of noticed that, even though I try to be positive
around them, when my wife and I are talking about,
you know, some corporation or something in the news or
even inconveniences that we face in our day to day lives,
we end up being pretty negative. And so I started
trying to do this thing with my kids that I
call social savoring. That is, if I notice somebody doing
(39:55):
something positive, I try to pause and recognize it and
then tell them, hey, look, did you see that this
person helped a stranger who was struggling? Can you see
these people picking up litter on the streets? And in
all of these cases, social savoring has a I hope,
(40:15):
helped them plug into this more positive view of people.
But it's also helped me, because of course, what you
say to other people changes what you think about. In
looking for examples of positivity that I could share with
them in this sort of positive gossip, that sort of
popped an antenna out of my mind that caused me
to look for and really quite easily find many people
(40:39):
acting in positive ways myself.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And so have all of these things helped you?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I mean it sounds like you're putting all this stuff
into practice, which is awesome, Like has it actually changed
your level of cynicism?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Has it changed how happy you feel? Generally?
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I think of this as really quite connected to how
you have experienced a lot of these happiness interventions. I
know you do a lot of these things to try
to tap into the science, and I know for you
it works a lot of the times. And that doesn't
mean that it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Right, Yeah, it's helped a lot, but that doesn't mean
I'm like happy all the time. Right, I'm guessing that's
exactly what's happening with cynicism for you, that less an
isth goal but not a perfect hopeful skeptic just.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yet you're guessing correctly. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
I mean I think of myself as a recovering cynic
you know. I don't think of myself as some person
who's figured it all out and here to share. I'm
in the struggle with so many other people, and these
are instincts there, knee jerk responses, and we need to
fight them actively.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
You know.
Speaker 6 (41:42):
I think of cynicism as a sort of being on
a treadmill. If you stand still, you're going to get
pulled backwards. So it's this kind of constant effort to
move forward against the grain of what our minds tend
to do. It's a struggle. It's something that I work
on all the time and probably will for the rest
of my life.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
But it's such an important struggle.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I feel like, especially right now, everything we see in
the news is something that just like pulls me into
this like hopelessness spiral because it just feels like the
kind of ad that we all need so much right now.
So would you be willing to help us out even more?
Maybe we could take a hopeful Skeptics lens to so
much of what's going on on the planet right now.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Would it be gamed to come along?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I thought you'd never ask. Of course I would love
that awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Well, on the next episode of the Happiness Lab, we
will continue tackling what we can do to reduce our
painful cynicism and develop a hopeful skeptics Lens. We're going
to be doing a deeper dive across three more episodes
where we'll be talking about this and all that will
happen next time on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor
Lauriy Santos.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
And me doctor Jamal Zaki.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You sounded kind of skeptical.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Oh really, okay, let me do it again. Let me
do it again.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
All that next time on the Happiness Lab would be
doctor Lauriy Santos.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And me doctor Jamial Zaki. Okay, okay, that was better.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
No no, we did we did it. We did it,
we did it. Yeah,
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