Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Overcome Negativity & Find Common Ground Amongst Online Hate & Political Division to Improve Your Health, with Mindset Expert Dr. Jamil Zaki

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Is Negativity RUINING Your Health?   Are we really as DIVIDED as Online Hate would lead us to believe?   Have we got the episode for you, and just in time for a stressful U.S. Election Season!    Did you know that being a cynic might be doing serious damage to your body and mind? Dr. Jamil Zaki (Stanford psychology professor, Director of Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, author of HOPE FOR CYNICS) is here to explain the shocking ways Negativity affects your Brain, how your TRUST ISSUES are messing with your Health, and proven methods to FIGHT OFF Negativity & BOOST Empathy!   He reveals practical tips for coping with political discourse, the HIDDEN DANGERS of raising kids in a fearful world, how the news, social media, and politicians use negativity to control us, and why cynicism kills creativity and how to revive it.   Dr. Zaki also breaks down: - How our negative perceptions of people & the world can cause anxiety, depression & isolation - Why cynics feel ‘smarter’ but suffer more - The REAL reason cynicism and skepticism are NOT the same - How negative thoughts could be physically warping your brain - The dark side of mistrust in our institutions - Which jobs should NEVER hire a cynic - 3 eye-opening questions to spot if you’re a cynic - Why teachers are especially prone to cynicism - Why our perception of danger is skyrocketing even as crime drops - The impact of global suffering on young minds - Tips for teaching kids mindfulness to combat negativity   And just in case the idea of "blind optimism" makes you itchy, Dr. Zaki details the difference between "toxic positivity" and hopeful skepticism.   Don’t miss out on this eye-opening exploration of whether we’re a BROKEN SPECIES or just trapped in a BROKEN SYSTEM - TUNE IN to MBB today!   Dr. Jamil Zaki's new book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness: https://www.jamil-zaki.com/hope-for-cynics Also check out: jamil-zaki.com BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trust has plummeted in the U.S. over the last 50 years. In 1972, about half of Americans believed most people can be trusted. By 2018, it was a third of Americans. Cynics suffer a lot more from issues with mental health, depression, anxiety, loneliness. But they also suffer a lot more in terms of their physical health, shortened telomeres and cellular inflammation and aging. They tend to suffer more from things like diabetes and heart disease. Cynics die younger than non-cinics from all-cause mortality.

One of the most efficient ways to calm our nervous system is to be connected with other people. In order to feel that connection and benefit from it, you need to believe in people. If you think of social connection as a form of psychological nourishment, it's like cynics can't digest it. They can't break it down. They can't use it. And therefore, it's very hard for them to tap into this part of life. that helps to de-stress us. It helps to get us into a state

where we can stop worrying and stop our nervous system from eating itself alive. It's Myambialics Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. Hey, I just found out something astounding.

Approximately 63% of those of you listening to or watching Myambiolics Breakdown are not subscribed. We know you're listening and we know you're watching because of all of the awesome comments you leave telling us how My Ambielic's breakdown is helping you lead a happier and healthier life. We love that. But the best way to support our show is to subscribe. It's also the only way to get latest updates and to know when new episodes drops. So anywhere that you listen to podcasts and on YouTube, please subscribe, hit the bell icon so that you know when a new episode drops. Thank you so much. And on to the episode. Hi, I am Biallic. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where you break things down so you don't have to. today we're going to break down

cynicism. We're going to get hopeful. We're going to get hopeful, but first we're going to learn what cynicism actually is, how it differs from realism, how it differs from skepticism, and why being a cynic

is actually physiologically and psychologically damaging. You might be thinking, I'm not a cynic, I just see all the problems with the world. You might be thinking, I'm not a cynic, I just know more than

people who aren't cynics. We're going to figure out that that actually may not be the case. And we're speaking with Dr. Jamil Zaki. He's a professor of psychology at Stanford University. He's also the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. And he's going to talk about how our perceptions of the world, our perceptions of other people can actually overlap with aspects of anxiety, depression, isolation.

And the key is really breaking through cynicism. and understanding ways to combat it. He's going to explain that our perceptions actually lead to more perceptions. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If our perceptions are skewed in ways that we actually aren't aware of, the entire way we view the world around us, view ourselves, view other people, how much optimism we have can actually be totally off balance, creating more of that skewed perception.

The book is Hope for Cynics that he wrote about this, surprising science of human goodness. And what I especially love about Jamil is that he himself is pretty cynical. He actually has a real understanding of all the different sides of the lenses that we put on when we're faced with injustice in the world, with things that are confusing, with relationships that are difficult. And he really helps tease it apart. There are practical ways to change our perception in this episode. It is so powerful, not just for the ways that you can connect with other people, but actually for regulating your nervous system,

for getting what you want in the world, for being successful at work. How about just enjoying the day more? Such a pleasure to welcome Dr. Jamil Zaki to the breakdown. Break it down. Thank you so much for having me. I usually say, it's so nice to have you here, but I'm a cynic. So I wanted to be like,

I think this is going to be a terrible interview. I mean, she has said that about, interviews before we've met with people. She doesn't say it's going to be terrible. She goes, what am I going to talk to them about? I have no clue. But this is the person that we need to talk about this with. Here's why, actually.

Go ahead. He's like, they're not prepared to start this conversation. Not everyone has me. When you bring me your cynicism. Actually, no one but me has you. And I'm the antidote to your cynicism. You say, because you're Canadian. Why are we talking to anyone?

No one wants to talk to me. This is going to be a really. strange interview and I say, no, it's not. We're going to have a great time and that balances it out. And then we manifest a positive experience most of the time. I love this already. This is incredible. We're your best, like your best case study right here. Yeah, I don't even need to explain the book. You all are acting it out for me. Well, okay. But this is the question is for people who don't have a Jonathan to help them see the positive or the potential in things, what do they do? And why is it important? to see the positive in things.

Not to be cynical, but that's too general of a question. I think where we'd like you to sort of start, and you know, you're coming at this not from a purely philosophical perspective and not from a purely, you know, kind of altruistic perspective. You're like an actual scientist, right? Yeah.

And so what I think Jonathan and I would like you to first explain is why is cynicism bad for my health? Yeah, it's unfortunately very easy to explain that because the data are really clear and they're a little bit sad. So let's start by... But look how he says it. It's a little bit sad. It is. It is. I'm always happy when things are clear and when there's a solution, right? But first, we have to understand the problem. And so let's start by defining what cynicism is. Right? You can think of

of cynicism as a theory about people. The theory that in general, humanity is selfish, greedy, and dishonest. A cynic doesn't necessarily think that no person will ever do something kind, but they might question the person's motives. They might say, even when somebody's treating them well, I wonder what this person is trying to get out of me, for instance. And you can be cynical, not just about people, but places, things, ideas, the universe. I'm just guessing. Yes. Yeah, cynicism is in general a bleak perspective, but I would say it's generally oriented towards other human beings. So you could think of pessimism as a broader philosophy, a broader theory that the future will turn out poorly. Synicism is more oriented towards, can I trust people? What are their

intentions? What is their nature? It's, you know, this kind of perennial debate about whether people are, at our core, kind or cruel, compassionate or cow. it's good or bad. And cynics put their thumb on the scale for bad. They are sort of like prosecutors in the trial against humanity. And would you agree that a lot of people think this way, have the feelings associated with thinking this way, but rationalize it so that they're actually thinking they're operating from hard-won data that they're so smart and actually anyone who thinks differently is kind of an idiot? So they don't realize that they're being cynical.

I've met so many cynics in the last few years while working on this project. And the vast majority of them wouldn't define themselves as cynics. They would say that they are realists. Realists. Yes. I'm not cynical. I'm just realistic. And you know, it's not just cynics who think that. In surveys, 70% of people think that cynics are smarter than non-synics. And 85% of people think that cynics are.

socially smarter, that they would be better at detecting liars than non-synics, for instance. So as a culture, whether you're cynical or not, we put a lot of faith in people who don't have a lot of faith in people. Well, and I think also the, I think where the sort of like smart piece comes from is, you know, cynics are are very happy to share all of the information, right? All of the data that they have collected, either from experience or from, you know, reading or whatever. And for them, like, it's almost an indefensible defense because it's like, I have all the information and the implication, just guessing how a cynic might think, the implication is if you knew what I knew, now I'm going to cry. If you knew what I knew, you would think the same thing.

It's a very isolating and alienating perspective to have because that is how I function. Unless you find other cynics to agree with you. Yeah. Those are my favorite kinds of people. They hang out on the edges of parties. Yep. Sometimes they're outside smoking, you know? Kind of rolling their eyes at everybody else.

Well, a lot of times it could be sad. Yeah. So, you know, I think that you're uncovering something really deep here, right? Which is that there's the exterior of what cynics say, which is I'm smart, I'm wise, I've burned this. I figured it out. Yeah. And then there's the inside, which is a little bit sad, right?

And George Carlin once said, scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist. That's right. And I do think, I mean, first of all, I struggle with cynicism enormously. So I'm not here to tell people, hey, it's all sunshine and roses. I started writing this book because I wanted to figure out what was going on with me, all the trouble that I had trusting people. And I think that comes from a lot of experiences that I had early in life. Talk about the link.

And then I actually, I want you to also explain some of the science of it. talk about the link between cynicism and trust because plenty of people don't trust people. That doesn't mean that like not all people who don't trust are cynics, but I would imagine that a hallmark feature of a cynic is a lack of trust. Absolutely. And so if you believe that most people are a selfish, greedy, and dishonest, why the hell would you put your faith in anybody? Why would you make yourself vulnerable on the expectation?

Proving my point. Yeah. So you're right. cynics generally don't trust. But you're also right. And I love the precision here that not trusting doesn't mean that you're cynical. You can think of, I think a really important distinction is between cynicism and skepticism. Right. So skepticism is, I would say, an actually data-driven approach to the world where you're saying, let me figure out, should I trust this person or not? And interrogating, well, what evidence do I have about them? What have they shown me in the past? What signs are they giving off, right? So you can think of it as an open-minded perspective. Cynicism and cynics

generally don't trust, even if they have no reason to not trust. Right. Right. So you can think it, I always think of cynics as not just disappointed, but pre-disappointed, basically having extremely low expectations of people, even if they don't have any evidence to back up those bleak expectations. So what is going on in terms of the nervous system? What is going on? Do we know kind of what the footprint, you know, or the brain print of a cynic is? And what are some of the implications for nervous system function when you view the world like this? It's not good to feel this way. It's not good for our health. So the macro data, the public health data are really clear. Cynics suffer a lot more from issues with mental health, depression, anxiety, loneliness.

But they also suffer a lot more in terms of their physical health, shortened telomeres, for instance, and cellular inflammation and aging. They tend to suffer more from things like diabetes and heart disease. Cynics die younger than non-cinics from all cause mortality. But you asked a more specific question about why? What is the mechanism here? And I think that in terms of the brain print, I love that term, by the way, of cynicism, one thing that I always go to is that one of the most efficient ways to calm our nervous system is to be connected with other people, right?

That true, open, vulnerable connection really puts us in a state of the opposite of fight or flight, right? It really brings us out of this high cortisol sort of sympathetic nervous system state. But in order to feel that connection and best, benefit from it, you need to believe in people. And so there's one study that for me really brings it home. People were brought into the lab and forced to give an extemporaneous speech on a subject that they didn't know about in front of a panel of judges. It's my favorite thing to speak about this thing I don't know about it. See, you're good at it though. You've got a special skill here, but for most people, this is, of course, a terrifying experience. And it raises people's blood pressure.

And it did in this study as well. But here, half of the... the people had an advantage. They had a cheerleader, a stranger who sat with them while they prepared saying, I believe in you. I think you can do this. They had a Jonathan. They had a Jonathan. Exactly. What we all need in life, really. If you knew more, you'd say something. Well, what I need in life, I'll say, from my perspective. But so they had a Jonathan and non-cinics, when they had a Jonathan in their corner, their blood pressure didn't rise as much as when they were alone. But cynics, their blood pressure rose just as much, whether there was a Jonathan in the room with them or not. So help us read between the lines. What does that mean? If you think of social connection as a

form of psychological nourishment, it's like cynics can't digest it. They can't break it down. They can't use it. And therefore, it's very hard for them to tap into this part of life that helps to de-stress us. It helps to get us into a state where we can stop worrying and stop our nervous system from eating itself alive. And so that chronic stress, I think, of aloneness, even when you're among other people, even when other people are trying to be there for you, is to me a probable mechanism for why cynicism eats away at our health so much. Can you also explain a little bit about how it can actually prevent us from seeking opportunity or connecting with other people and can really limit our lives in a significant way. I think cynics often feel like they need to

stay safe. The only way to stay safe is to not take any social risks, to not trust people, to not open up to people. That cynicism almost becomes like a suit of armor, but it's actually a suit of armor that suffocates them instead of protecting them because connecting, finding opportunities, collaborations, friendship, love even, require putting risk up. And so when we refuse to do that, kind of shrinks the circumference of our life over time and leads to things like loneliness, isolation, poor performance at work, you name it. I mean, these are strategies that we use that end up doing the opposite for us that we were hoping for. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't

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Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, They'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what we think about brain structures or chemistry? That's something that I think a lot of our listeners would probably be very interested in. What are we talking about when we talk about sort of what goes on when a cynic versus a not cynic is sort of processing information? There's a bunch of things that we could start with. I mean, one, and just to stick with this theme of stress would be the HPA axis, right?

So hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which is sort of processes a lot of our stress hormones. And so again, I would say that we are many of us in a state of high HPA access activity all the time. And we use things like meditation or socializing to bring that down. And so for cynics, basically the switch that allows that HPA access to be driven down by social connection is broken. Right? You pull on that. You say, I want to be connected. But if you don't trust, if you can't open. yourself to people, that's hard for you to access. The second is that when we trust and when other people trust us, we experience a sense of reward. So the brain's dopaminergic system, for instance,

kicks into gear when you trust somebody and they show up for you, when they meet that trust, when they honor it, it's an extremely rewarding experience at the level of the brain. And cynics by not trusting people also deprive themselves of that form of social reward. So you can think of them as basically not being able to tone down their stress and not being able to access a certain type of pleasure. Is there, I mean, I know this is kind of like the million dollar question, especially in neuroscience. You know, you could take two people in, you know, in the same home, right?

And with essentially, you know, a similar DNA profile, right? And you can have very different reactions to the same situation. I'm wondering if, you know, some of cynicism, you know, how much of this is learned and how much of it is environmental and how much of it is just like, you know, sometimes you see a baby and they're just like a cranky shitty baby. It's like, maybe that's just like it's going to be a cynical grown up. No, but it could just be like that, no, no, I wasn't talking about my cynical perspective of babies. I was saying like, are some people just born this way? Like, are some people just born like with the profile and because of the, environment? Like, are they just kind of born to...

That baby probably has food allergies. They're just gassy. Well, but, you know, inflammation will do that. Yeah. No, but are some of us just born this way? There, so you're right. This is the million dollar question about so many features of who we are. And temperament is a real thing. You know, you can, I have two kids and I could see from when they were three months old, the ways that they were different. And they continue to be different in

those ways. when it comes to cynicism and trust, there is a heritable component. So the way that this is typically studied, as you know, is comparing fraternal twins to identical twins. They love a twin study. Yeah. So mono-zygotic or identical twins are more similar in their levels of cynicism than disiagotic or fraternal twins, even if they're all raised in similar environments. That heritable component is pretty small, though.

It's around a quarter of synchism. So not every set of identical twins will be equally cynical. Not at all. No. No. And, you know, the estimates, I mean, in that nature and nurture question, which is unanswerable, but we can gesture towards, the best way to describe it is there's probably something in you that drives you towards a particular level of cynicism. But it's not doing most of the work. Most of the work is coming from your experiences and your reactions. Right. The way that you've done. interpret them. Can we talk a little bit about how cynicism versus skepticism manifests before we get into

what do we do about it? Yeah, I was actually going to ask, like, would you like to give me a quiz? Absolutely. You get to figure out if I fall into, you know, the cynical bucket or not. Tell me whether in general you agree or disagree with these statements. She'll answer, then I'll answer what I think she should answer. And then will you answer for yourself as well? Sure. Okay. Valerie will keep score. Okay. People are honest primarily because they're worried about being caught if they're dishonest. Say it again, please.

People are honest primarily because they fear being caught if they're dishonest. I also think it's a no that she would answer and I would also say no. Okay. I mean, I also think most people are dishonest, but that's not what you're asking me. People are kind primarily because they want to get something out of it. Yes, I agree. Most likely. And you agree as well?

Yeah. Okay. I don't want to agree, but that's my tendency. My tendency is to mistrust compliments. Yeah. Trusting people is generally a mistake. 100%. That's an accurate answer for her.

And I would say no. I would say trusting people. Look who thinks he's better than me. With a high level level of. of skepticism. Skepticism. Yeah. So those three items...

Oh, that's it. Oh. I mean, there are 47 more, but I don't have them all memorize us. And that would be a long quiz for us to go through. Those are sample items from a questionnaire that two psychologists developed in the 1950s to test teachers. And these teachers answered whether they agreed with 50 statements like the ones that you just answered. And the more that they agreed with those statements, the worst they got along with their students.

So I was just going to say, yeah, what jobs do you not want cynics to have? I would say a therapist seems like a terrible job for a cynic teacher, social worker. Well, a social work might make somebody cynical. And that's another angle on the same question, right? One is, what jobs do you not want cynics in? And another is what jobs will turn you into a cynic. Okay. But what I would say is that it's because the truth of humanity is being revealed to you when you work in certain fields.

That, I mean, my parents were teachers, right? My dad and my mom were public school teachers. And, you know, yeah, the system will break you. Yeah. And to me, I mean, obviously, it's not, it wasn't the kids. Like, that's the last thing. But, yeah, I think some of the, a lot of the cynicism I have does revolve around, um, bureaucracy, the people in bureaucracy and people in power.

I feel the exact same way. And I think one of the things that is so tragic is when we take legitimate mistrust of systems and elites of various sorts and then broadcast that mistrust towards the rest of the population, right? I completely understand my mother was a school psychologist in the public school system where I went to school for, you know, she was worked there for 35 years. And she was extraordinarily cynical

about the way that students, especially students who were immigrants, were treated in this public school system. But she worked super hard to not let that spread to her feelings about the children or parents. Right. And so she was like Jonathan, like you're talking about skeptical, right?

Pointing mistrust at the system, but not at people in general. But it's so tempting to generalize, right? To extrapolate. Is the antidote then to find examples where people are good, they can be trusted to counterbalance the skepticism? Like, how do we move beyond? If we know it's so bad for us.

If we know it has all these health implications, if we also know that it's somewhat insidious and it's probably creeping into our thought process even without us realizing it. And we're defending it with, oh, I have this evidence now. Now, how do you go about sort of resetting the scale? Yeah, I've been working on this myself for the last three years with middling success.

But one of the things that I try to practice is to use skills from cognitive behavioral therapy on myself. Right. So I find myself feeling extraordinarily mistrustful or suspicious of people in lots of situations. And what I try to do when I feel those experiences, those feelings bubbling up in me, it to say, well, wait a minute, let me fact check this. What is the basis for my suspicion right now?

Is this coming from the right place? Or am I just hungry or sleep deprived or am I just having a bad day? And sometimes I will conclude, no, I'm right to mistrust this person. If I'm dealing with, I don't know, a health care company or a public school system or a bureaucracy, I end up thinking, yeah, there's no reason for me to trust this machinery. but if I'm dealing with an individual who I don't know, I say, well, wait a minute, I'm feeling all these bad vibes towards this person and I don't have any justification for it. So that little audit of my own cynicism is where I start. It's what in CBT you would call reality testing,

basically thinking of... It's like Byron Katie. Is it true? Right? Yes. Yes, exactly. I have an example of how impactful this is. I had a... This was my early 30s, I had a boss who was a property manager. I was managing underneath him a 50-unit apartment complex. And I had a manager who was just the calmest guy. And there was a lot of different people with complicated personalities in this apartment complex. It was 50 units. And we would always have problems with tenants. Right. And my first reaction is they're laid on the rent for this or they're lying. And like, my stress level at that time of my life was very, very high and my go-to response was always, when I look back at it, very, very cynical.

Yeah. And his response was always, there's probably another reason for someone acting this way that I don't know about. And he always gave people the benefit of the doubt, which sometimes is called the charitable interpretation. Yeah. And his stress level was way down here. And my stress level for every incident was way up here. and I began to try to adopt some of that.

And you know, you and I have talked about this. The notion of holding out, even when things seem to be really a skew, notion of a charitable interpretation that the person that didn't call you back, maybe their cell phone died. Yeah. Maybe they didn't meet you for some reason. Maybe there's something else going on. And until you really know not to trip and make up all these ideas, because the brain can move so quickly into attack mode and to.

to projecting and labeling, this person is this, and that's the reason they did this. I felt myself like, oh, I can be so much calmer if I don't go down that path. I love that. And there's a lot of evidence that if we, in essence, treat people with what you're talking about sounds to me like empathy, right?

So you're seeing somebody act in a way that you don't love. But instead of drawing the conclusion that they're just a terrible person, you try to look deeper for an explanation. of why they might be behaving that way. You try to understand where they're coming from. It's a very difficult thing to do when we are under stress and threat,

but it's a powerful way to connect with people. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about depression and cynicism because for anyone who's experienced, you know, kind of proper clinical depression, I don't just mean situational depression or someone died and you're legitimately, obviously, grieving and depressed.

I'm talking about sort of the very, you know, pervasive, like proper, you know, depression that kind of can go up and down with, quote, no reason. Yeah. You know, I think a large feature of that depression is cynicism. Yeah. Meaning I, is that, is there a situational cynicism? Is that something that, you know, for me, when I'm in a depressive episode, what my brain

tells me is that every other time I've been lying to. to myself. And now the truth is being revealed. And look what I found. Yeah. I've experienced the same thing. And it's, I think that there's a lot of parallels here. I really appreciate you drawing this out. A couple of thoughts. One is both depression and cynicism have this really sad set of self-fulfilling prophecies associated with them. Right. When I feel, when I'm at my lowest with my own depression, I will forecast, I'll create all these hypotheses that if I were to try to interact with people right now or try to have energy for something,

it's just going to fail because I'm a failure or I'm terrible at doing whatever I want to do. And so I don't do it. And then I don't receive any data to disconfirm my bleak expectations. And likewise, cynics imagine if I put faith in somebody, they're going to betray me. So the only way for me to be safe is to not put faith in anybody But guess what? Then you don't get any of the data that you would need to disconfirm your hypothesis.

Right. It's the loop. Yes, exactly. It's this loop. It's this kind of vicious cycle that people get stuck in in both cases. I would say that the stories of depression, not always, but in many cases, feel so true, but they're often directed towards the self. You could think of cynicism almost as an other focused form of depression, where instead

of I'm worthless, I can't be trusted, you point those same assumptions towards other people. You touched a little bit on this notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We talk about spirituality here. And so I think there's a few questions in this, but I want to start by talking more about the notion of how we think as a self-fulfilling prophecy. What's happening in the brain that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy? It's not only that if I don't trust people, then of course no one is trustworthy. And that's the loop.

There's another component. into it. I think so too. And, you know, the world is so complicated. We could exist in a million different universes depending on what we pay attention to, right? I mean, us sitting in this same room, you could be having a completely different experience than I am, all three of us having a fundamentally different experience because of our histories and what that makes us pay attention to what that makes us take in. And I think that self-fulfilling prophecies often have to do with, okay, I've got this lens through which I'm seeing the world.

That's the lens of my expectations. And that lens will reshape what I see, literally, what I hear, what I feel, and then how I interpret all of those sensory experiences. So a self-fulfilling prophecy I think of as, I know this sounds dramatic, but really our brains are constructing our reality for us. So self-fulfilling prophecy changes the way that our brain constructs reality and thus changes the reality that we experience. Do you have stories about this?

Because this is for me the most interesting part. I believe strongly that we do construct our realities. It's the exercise of think about all the things in the room that are blue. You know, and you look around and you spend the exercise, okay, track all the things that are blue, all the things that are blue, all the things that are blue. Then you have to close your eyes. And you're like, where are all the red things in the room? And you have no idea, right? Like that's the most simple version of this. But it moves beyond that, right? It goes into relationships, into work opportunities. What email do I send? Am I open and interested enough to

start a conversation when I am out at a coffee shop who that person, happens to lead to something else. Like there's so many synchronistic moments in our life that we can't even imagine how opportunity will unfold for us, whether that be love, career, creative ideas, even physical well-being. Yeah. Do you have some more concrete examples of like ways in which we're priming ourselves to either have success, opportunity, optimism, connection, or limiting ourselves based on this type of

cognitive priming. Absolutely. I mean, there's all sorts of examples of this. One of my favorite studies in this regard is an incredible field study that occurred in southeastern Brazil. So in this part of Brazil, there are two fishing villages, and they're really similar in socioeconomic status, religion, and so forth. But one of them is on the ocean and another one is on a lake. And it turns out that ocean fishing requires cooperation because you can't go out alone. You need a large boat and heavy equipment.

The fish are just big, and so are the waves. And on the lake, you need to go out alone. So fishermen work solo. And economists visited these villages about 10 years ago and measured how these people approach trust, how fishermen in these villages approach social experiments, social experiences. And they found that people were literally shaped

by their workplace environment. Fishermen who worked on the, ocean were trusting, generous, and compassionate, even towards strangers. And fishermen who worked on the lake were suspicious, more selfish, and less trusting, and less trustworthy as well. If you trusted them, you were more likely to be taken advantage of. But that wasn't true when these people were born, or even when they started their career. It was being in these environments that shaped their expectation.

You can think of being on a lake fisherman. And every time you see somebody else, they're trying to beat you. They're trying to defeat you while you try to earn a living. Imagine how that would reshape your expectations. Every time you saw a person, you would see a threat. And that's exactly what happened to these folks. And if you're working on the ocean, the vast majority of the time when you see somebody, they're helping you survive and thrive.

And so that retunes the way that you see not just those individuals, but people in general. Well, and there's also a component of sort of, I don't want to say survival of the fittest, but there is an evolutionary advantage, like, depending on what community you're in, you know, to have some of these traits. So, like, we talk about, you know, like, I'm Eastern European. And so, like, there's a hypervigilance that is really, really favored in the genetic pool that I come from. And of course, it can generalize, and that's very funny, but also inconvenience sometimes. No, but the notion is you will be taken advantage of, and you may not survive if you do not have. So again, from a cynics perspective, I'm kind of thinking like,

if I don't have that distrust of other people and I'm a lake person, you know, what's going to happen is I'm going to get taken advantage of and I'm likely not going to be able to support my family. And likewise, if I'm an ocean person, that's what's going to be favored. Yes. Yes. So you sort of have this like mini genetic bottlenecking, right, that is sort of falling on these lines. What about in our current society, North America, big city or small town? What's the sea fisherman version of that for, you know, everyday people? You know, it's really interesting. I feel as though we live in a lake town of historic proportions right now. Our culture has driven up things like individualism, competition, inequality.

And basically, I think exactly to your point, we've built an environment where almost from an evolutionary and survival perspective, people feel like they have to be in zero-sum competition with one another. And trust has plummeted in the U.S. over the last 50 years. In 1972, about half of Americans believed

most people can be trusted. By 2018, it was a third of Americans. That's a really interesting. statistic because the question is not so much, is the country more dangerous? The question is what's the perception? Because even as crime rates decrease, which they have for several decades now, even as crime rates go down, people's distrust and people's perception of danger has actually gone up. And, you know, I was alive. You were younger. I think you're younger. No, but I remember when you started seeing kids on the back of milk cartons, which was a tremendously

interesting and significant, you know, aspects, right, of our understanding of abduction and, you know, and a huge time in our culture. But it also increased a whole set of conversation where, yeah, I mean, I used to be allowed to play outside in a very different way than many of us were later in the 80s. I remember the milk carton kids. I remember Stranger Danger rising in the 1980s and 90s.

And there were surveys at the time that found that 40% of the 80s, of children believed that they would be abducted by a stranger. And if you ask people, how many kids are abducted by strangers, they would tell you 50,000 per year. Now, that would be like Gotham City style lawlessness. It's incredible. And in fact, the number was closer to 100. Now, of course, every one of those cases is a massive tragedy and we should be paying attention to it. But 100 versus 50,000 are very different numbers. And there are all sorts of ways in which, you know, we are being systematically pointed towards the worst evidence about crime and corruption. And again, these are real problems that we shouldn't ignore.

But when we over-stimulate ourselves with this type of evidence, we end up doing things that might actually be hurting people. Like Stranger Danger led to this, in my opinion, very protective style of parenting that, as you said, limited kids and also limited their trust. Jonathan Haight talks about this in his recent book. And his generation. And we overindex so much that we began to totally erode many of the natural ways that children interact, grow up, learn to play, learn to problem solve, learn to connect with one another. And like the downstream consequences of being told to be fearful.

There's this great psychologist, Jare Clifton at UPenn, and he studies what are known as primal beliefs. What are you central beliefs about the world? Is it safe or dangerous? Is it competitive or cooperative? Is it boring or alive? Alive with darkness. I really appreciate your openness about all of this. I'm the friendliest cynic you'll ever meet.

You are very friendly. Another question that I think falls into this is, is there enough success for everyone? Or is this success a finite resource? I knew that she was going to say that. So if one person's success means that there's not going to be, it takes away from life. Outcomes zero. And what Jerr finds, so he interviewed parents.

And he said, if you want your child to succeed, what primal beliefs would you like to instill in them? And most parents believe that in order to succeed, their kids should believe the world is dangerous. And that's, I think, endemic to the way that we parent these days. We parent to avoid the worst. we teach our kids to avoid threats as opposed to approaching things that they might want. And what Jair also found is that parents, by every metric that he can find, are wrong, right? That in fact, when kids believe the world is dangerous, they grow up into adults who are professionally less successful, less fulfilled in their lives, more prone to depression and more prone to loneliness.

So we're trying to protect our kids by giving them a philosophy of life that actually shrinks. their experience. So I wonder if we can talk a little bit about parenting. Yeah. And what it's like to have a cynical parent. I had one. Bless his memory. My father, like, I get it from my dad.

Like 100%. And I remember, you know, my parents would, you know, have these, like, fights. Because any movie they went to, any book, like, that she tried to, like, there was just a constant kind of like culture clash. Yes. And they were, my, my parents are both, my mother's still with us, very, very intelligent, very

analytical people, you know, both like very interested in lots of things. But it was as if he got like almost like a perverse pleasure out of taking this perspective that, you know, that was very cynical. And I didn't like that. Like as a kid, I didn't enjoy that. But like, here we are, you know. And so I wonder, you know, when I, I'm raising children and they're 15 and 18 now. And their dad is much more, much less cynical. But I wonder, you know, how much am I being a realist when I explain, especially to the 18-year-old, like how the world works, how power works, how getting ahead works, you know, how people's, you know, people's intentions work. Like, I want him to be prepared.

Yeah. I want to be prepared. But if I'm coming from a cynical perspective, I'm actually preparing him from a skewed perspective. And he's very, like, hopeful. And like, I just think he's foolish sometimes, you know? Can you talk a little bit about sort of being a parent, you know, and how you kind of navigate that?

I think about this all the time. My children are eight and seven. And I am not. very cynical, although I'm fighting hard against it, but I find it permeating the way that I explain the world to them all the time. And their mom always says, why are you so negative around? Because I'm like,

because I read the news and because I want them to understand that the world is a really tough place for many people, and it's unfair. Like, you know, my daughters will talk about it. It's not fair that, you know, it's not fair that my sister got two cookies and I got two cookies. You want to know what's really unfair. Exactly.

And honestly, that is my knee-jerk response. I'm like, what's not fair is that you're in a house and another kid isn't? I did it. I did it. And I think I'm being sort of justice-oriented and brutally honest. Yeah. But what am I? And my wife is like, yeah, you're not being, it's just not as sharp as you think it is.

Because kids aren't at this age, maybe aren't processing that information. I'd like you to meet my children because you'll see what happens 10 years later. It's a look into my own crystal ball into the future. Oh, no. And, you know, they do have their own destiny. Yeah, of course. But, you know, I think that for me, one question is, am I giving them information that is precise, or am I reacting to their thoughts, to their behaviors?

Same more? Yeah, because oftentimes what I'm actually feeling is, wow, you're angry that you didn't get a cookie that's quite as big as your sisters, but you don't understand how privileged do you all? and I need to lay it down. That's a reaction. It's more of a reaction.

Right. It's also a way to shut children down. And I was raised kind of like that. I'll give you something to cry about, which is a different kind of philosophy. Let me also give myself credit that I don't do that very often. And that generally I'm extremely, I think, very warm and affectionate parent. But I think that we talked about lenses through which we see the world and how they

construct our reality. Well, we are putting pairs of glasses on our kids. giving them new lenses every time we talk with them. I messed up. And I think that the question for me is, is the lens that I'm using helping them see more clearly or not? We're going to take an example. If you were to ask either of my children,

like what is one of the truisms? And I'm going to cry. I'm going to cry. I didn't know he'd make me cry. I come by this from my cultural and ethnic heritage. The world is broken. We live in a broken world and that there was an era of paradise and, you know, in many religious traditions

it's the fall. I don't necessarily relate it to that. But the notion is that there is peace and human behavior can often shatter that peace and that our role, and this is a, it's a Kabbalistic concept, our role as humans

is to have a human experience where we gather peace and we bring it back together to try and get back, you know, to that original piece, right? So the times when I would say this to my children, it wasn't just like, hey, good morning, the world is broken. But when we see homeless people, when we see families on the side of the road, and, you know, I was raised in an era where it was like,

those people fucked up their lives, they're drug addicts. And thank God, we now understand that most of the people, people living on the street are in a dire situation, usually because of mental health challenges, addiction, trauma, not getting support that they need. In many cases, a financial system, I mean, don't get me started. You know, a financial system that is broken for people of color and for underserved populations. So when my children would see this and I would see their eyes well up as small children, what I didn't do was say nothing. Because it's so easy to be like, oh, this is, uncomfortable, let's look at the gas station over there, right? And so I saw my children are having a

human experience and what I would say to them is the world is broken and it is our job to repair it. But I'm wondering how much of the world is broken, you know, has become sort of my dominant lens. I think it's, well, I really appreciate you sharing this and I think it's actually a beautiful and sort of spiritual, philosophical place through which you come at this. I, I don't, I, I really appreciate, don't see this at all as sort of a negative message. It feels very deep and it feels as though you're also empowering your kids to do something about it. I think one of the big questions for me and something that I think a lot about when I communicate with my kids is can I specify the difference between broken systems and a broken species, right? Like is the world broken because we are terrible

or is the world broken, and that's a mismatch for who we really are, right? And I think if you believe that a broken system reflects a fundamentally broken human nature, that is a very fatalistic position, because that means that that's what we trend towards. We're magnetized towards the worst possible outcomes. I deeply believe, and I think the data back it up as well, but for me it's also a philosophical and quasi-spiritual belief, that systems are broken and that most people want to live more connected, compassionate, and altruistic lives. I think that at our core, we are a fundamentally social and pro-social species.

And that if the world is broken, it's hiding our positive human nature, not reflecting a negative human nature. Tell us about the data about that and how we can magnetize towards. seeing it that way. Well, can I give you another pop quiz? Yes. Okay. I like a quiz. This one will have two questions.

So they're short. I like a quiz where I have to write things down and do calculations, but okay. Show your work. So the Toronto Star many years ago did a social experiment. They dropped 20 wallets around the city of Toronto. The wallets had some money in them and an ID card so that if the person who found it wanted to be a good Samaritan, they could return it. Also known as just a Canadian.

Yeah. What percentage of the wallets do you think were returned? 100%. 100%. I think 70 to 80%. Okay. Question number two. During the early pandemic years.

This is how nice do you think Canadians are, quiz? I like this quiz. This one will be global. We'll extrapolate out of Canada. During the early pandemic years, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Do you think in general, humanity around the world acted more kindly than they had in the pre-pandemic years of 2017 to 2019, less kindly than they had in pre-pandemic years, or did humankind stay at similar levels? It's a tough one.

Do I get to know what the measures are? Yeah. Helping strangers, donating to charity and volunteering are the three measures. It's a long pause. I'm going to say, well, because I feel a little bit of. bit leading the witness because I feel like, you know, my tendency would be like, everybody was so messed up and everybody must be so mean. But that's too simple. I mean, I would say stayed the same because I feel like it would even out. I think that there were a ton of people who were

horrendous, but I also think that that may have elicited, you know, that period in our history may have elicited some exceptional behavior. So I would say it would even out. I go and start thinking about what happened after 9-11 where there was a common enemy and everyone came together and it was a collective tragedy. But with the pandemic, because everyone was so fear-filled, and everyone was like, well, you are going to get me sick. I actually think maybe it would be worse. But on the other hand, I'm like, we were cheering for the first responders and people who were helping. So it's really, it's hard for me to really gauge this one. I'm probably going to say it evened out and it was the same. Yeah. So I'll tell you the answers. So,

In Toronto, 80% of wallets were returned. With money in it or without? I can't remember whether it was with money. No, I think it was with money. Yeah. But, okay, so to your point, is that just Canadians? Well, first of all, Torontoites, Torontoians, whatever they're. Torontoans.

Toronto. Wow, thank you. I'm from Toronto. So, Torontoians estimated that 25% of wallets would be returned. So they were wrong. Even polite Canadians were wrong about themselves. So researchers then did a much larger version of this. percentage of Torontonians who apologized while giving the wallet back.

I'm sorry. We actually think we're far less nice than everyone else thinks we are. Whenever I need any dirty work done, like in a restaurant. Like if the bill is raw, I'm like, send him in. Because he has just a way about him. He's very nice. I grew up learning how to complain. So researchers then did this same experiment with tens of thousands of wallets in

dozens of different countries. And the general return rate was 50%, which is way higher than most people. Even economists and social scientists would estimate. The COVID piece, I surveyed 1,000 Americans last year, and I asked them the same question I asked you, 70% or so believe that kindness had decreased. Only 20% thought that it had increased. The World Happiness Report has data on this from six different continents.

Kindness increased by a lot globally during the pandemic, and it wasn't transient. A lot of people will tell me, yeah, I'm sure it went up while we were all banging pots and pans for the first responders, but that lasted like three months and then everybody got sick of being so nice. No, the kindness increase lasted at least three years. And this is giving to charity, volunteering, and helping strangers. And to your point, Jonathan, that's not just true of COVID.

Rebecca Solnit has this beautiful book called The Paradise Built in Hell, where she talks about the earthquakes in San Francisco in 1906 and 1989. the bombing of London during World War II. 9-11, Hurricane Katrina. And in each of these cases, she draws out two things. One, media representations. Oh, the media is terrible. Everything's gone to shit.

People are turning into monsters. Human nature has been revealed, and it is red in tooth and claw. I mean, it feels like that's what the local news kind of broadcasts. And in each case, and she does such a great job going into the historical record, in each case, the exact opposite. was true. So the news wasn't just giving us information that was wrong. It was giving us the exact opposite of, it was, it was as wrong as it could be. It was showing us the bleakest side of

ourselves as if the truth had been revealed when in fact the truth was being revealed, but the truth was much more optimistic. I think we were seeing this also in conversations around social media and especially the shaping, in particular of young minds, you know, in terms of you know, not just like political sides, but what's going on in the world, you know? And I think, you know, sort of the, what I think for a lot of young people feel like is the antidote to that is like, let's just only watch frivolous things, right? Because like nobody knows what is going on and it's so depressing when you try and dip into that. Yeah, how do you see sort of social media?

I mean, do we have enough data yet, you know, to talk about social media and cynicism? I see it very poorly. I think it's extremely harmful. And I'm sorry, being in the Silicon Valley, I'm supposed to be more of a booster for this, I guess, but it's the exact opposite. I feel very bearish on social media and its ability to help us understand the world in any way.

And in fact, I think it's systematically... I mean, you were talking about how perceptions of crime have been so off, right? People think the world is becoming more dangerous when, in fact, we're safer than we have been in decades. And that's more true, the more that you spend time on cable news and on social media. And social media, of course, doesn't just give us the bad news that everybody else is seeing on the 7 o'clock news.

I don't even know what hour the news is on anymore. It's giving us a bespoke catalog of all the things that make us feel worse about the world. It's feeding us a concoction that we indicate we want, or at least that will keep us paying attention. And so whatever we fear, especially about people, is given to us more and more. And that drives up mistrust and cynicism enormously. You almost said the words social media is systematically. And I'm wondering what the last phrase is. My estimation is that it's systematically destroying our perceptions.

How would you finish that sentence? That it's systematically warping our perceptions. And it's doing so with a profit motive. So the algorithms are built not to make us happy, nor are they built to make us cynical. They're just built to keep us online. But it just so happens that human beings have what's known as negativity bias, which means that we pay more attention to threats than to positive outcomes. We pay more attention to villains than to heroes.

And that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. It's how we stay safe and alive. But what's happened in modern life is that that adaptive instinct has been combined, that ancient adaptive instinct has been combined with a hypermodern machinery that drives it into a level that is extremely inaccurate and unhealthy. So I think that we are, the lenses that we use that then construct our reality are being changed systematically. And it's having serious negative impacts on our health. Inflammation, anxiety, stress response, lack of ability to connect with other people, as you were saying.

I really want people to understand that it's not just, oh, yeah, these algorithms are weighted to keep me engaged, but they're weighted actually to make us sick. And the place that I go with this, again, is I never want a cynic who hears about my work to feel blamed or to feel like there's something wrong with them. I think that if you feel cynical, you are in amazing company and you're in greater company than ever.

It's not your fault. It might not be helping you, but there are, I'd say really, I know I sound conspiratorial here, but there are forces that are conspiring to make you feel that way. And another thing I should add is that we sometimes think of cynicism

as a radical perspective, that cynics call out bullshit and speak truth to power, but in fact, cynicism can be a tool of the status quo, right? I mean, if we feel mistrustful of elite politicians, well, then we might do something about it. We might engage in social movements. But if mistrust for them bleeds into our perception of everybody, that's actually very convenient for people who want to hold on to power.

And cynicism has been a tool of autocrats and propagandists for decades or centuries. There's a tremendous amount of cynicism about the government. about politics, about rights, equity, about equality. And it used to be that we used to think of the left as like, the optimistic, you know, like they're, you know, rah, rah, like, we're going to make the world amazing. And what's interesting, and, you know, libertarians used to be this sort of like in-between group, right? And now we're seeing more and more, like the middle's kind of fallen out, right? And we're dealing with kind of all these extremes.

But I see this specifically around how people feel about America. And I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about patriotism, because this used to be something that we reserve for the right, right? The conservatives, right? And what I'm seeing a lot of is people who are more libertarian and even people who identify as liberal. or progressives saying, like, we're not in that bad of shape, right?

Like, Bill Maher has that quote, if you think you've got it bad, read history books, right? And this notion that, you know, I think a lot of the, this kind of other aspect of the left, you know, has taken this like, we're the oppressors and this sort of language where everything is sort of like, we're horrible, right? My kid's going to college and just the level of, like,

questionnaires he has to fill out about, like, how privileged are you? It's basically, like, trying to figure out how badly should you feel when you just walk into your campus. And so I wonder if you can talk a little bit about this notion of, you know, kind of like patriotism and what has happened that, you know, people who used to be like supportive and like, let's make this country great, have kind of taken a cynical turn. It's a profound trend. And I think that I think it's one that comes from an understandable place.

I mean, especially young people. I interact with college students all the time. And I think of them as very mission-driven and very moral and also exposed to much more global suffering than I. I mean, when I was entering college, when I was 17, 18, Framingham, Massachusetts was like 90% of the known universe for me. You know, like maybe I thought about New Hampshire once in a while. But I wasn't focused on suffering in other continents around the world.

I wasn't aware of how the privileges that I enjoyed might come at a cost to other people. So I think that there's a kind of consciousness raising that has occurred through. And that's positive in a lot of ways. Yes, yes. But that comes with this baggage where suddenly in an unequal world, I must be the bad guy or anybody who benefits in any way from a system must be awful. And I think that that's, again, a confusion of a broken system with a broken species. I know I'm coming back to this term a lot, but it's meaningful to me.

I think that the idea that because there is injustice in the world means that we are all to blame and we should feel nothing but shame and contempt. And the whole country is just like gone to shit because we're horrible. And I think a lot of this also comes from the fact that, that people don't realize how much others want to help each other. Right? So, for instance, people, if you ask them, how many Americans would support pretty aggressive policies

to protect the climate? The average American will say about 35% of Americans would support this. The real number is like 65%. So we underestimate how many people want the things that we want. Similarly, how many, you know, how many Americans would support universal pre-kindergarten, for instance, or other benefits for the poorest Americans. People vastly underestimate how much their fellow citizens want to help.

Again, I think the message here is it's tragic that we are so cynical about each other, not because it's not because we're doing harm through our cynicism, but because we're not aware of really a world full of people who care. And if we saw each other more clearly, maybe we could organize more to achieve something as opposed to drowning in this shame and contempt. I'm going to switch the good cop, bad cop dynamic that Miami and I have had for a minute and challenge you a little bit. Yeah, please. In terms of the people wanting environmental reform or drastic change, it's one thing to ask them, do you want that? It's another thing to say, are you willing to sacrifice anything?

part of your life and comfort and air conditioning and SUVs in order to get it. So I'm curious, like, how do we know that people are actually willing to not just pay lip service to it, but actually when it comes to something difficult, are we willing to actually make substantial changes that impact our lives in order to get the result? Well, and I think what you're getting at is maybe some of the cynicism comes from this mismatch, right? Like, oh, it's easy to say on a questionnaire, right? But are you willing to, I mean, we're super crazy about chemicals in sunscreen. People don't want to give up their spray sunscreen.

They really don't. They don't. They don't care. I think that it's true, but I think that there's many cases in which our perception of what other people want actually affects what we do and our behavior. There are not data on this for environmental policy in the U.S. If I can, I'll pivot to a completely different example that will sound weird at first, but I find really interesting.

This is the example of women working in the country of Saudi Arabia. So in Saudi Arabia, of course, you know, this is not a place that we would think of as gender egalitarian at all. The percentage of women who work is tiny. The percentage of women who work outside the home is even tinier. And that's in part because husbands control the lives of their wives at a degree that I think most of us would find really worse than problematic. Criminal. Criminal, yeah, sure. And so a question then becomes, is that what most men want for women not to work?

And it turns out that men in Saudi Arabia, if you ask them privately, will report that they want women to work and they think that they should, but they believe erroneously that most men don't think that. Now, Jonathan, to your point, you might be saying, well, yeah, that's what they say on a questionnaire. Economists a few years ago went to Saudi Arabia and presented a group of Saudi men with the data. Hey, did you know that 80% of Saudi men think that women should work outside the house? Well, guess what? Six months later, their wives were twice as likely to have applied for jobs.

And I think, if I recall correctly, five times as likely to have interviewed for a job. So that's a case in which, I mean, of course, we are shaped by our social world. We are collective creatures. We do what other people around us do. And if other people stood up loudly and declared their values, we would feel a kind of positive form of social pressure. And I think that's what happened in this experiment in Saudi Arabia. I don't know if that would, I don't know if people would give up their spray sunscreen. But if you see, if you know that the vast majority of people think that that's a really wasteful thing to own, you might just feel weird pulling it out and spraying it all over

yourself. This is what psychologists call pluralistic ignorance. And it's an idea I wish more people understood that oftentimes we look to our community and social norms to figure out what we should do, but we're wrong about what our community is, thinks, and wants. Right? So one example here is about you were talking earlier about parenting and sort of saying, yeah, you know,

sometimes kids need to know that in order to get ahead, you might need to compete. Well, it turns out that, you know, I sometimes do sort of trainings at workplaces. And I'll ask people, how much do you value collaboration and how much do you think the average person at your workplace values collaboration. And in every case, there are two realities. People really favor collaboration,

but they don't realize that their colleagues do as well. So they think that they have to fight each other to get ahead when that's not what anybody wants and that ultimately doesn't help a community succeed. Sometimes I say no to things. And I think maybe we might be curious about a link between cynicism and creativity. And if you can talk a little bit about sort of what a cynical view, you know, does, especially for collaborative, creative work. I think it dissolves the possibility for collaborative and creative work. There's one version of this.

And again, I'll go to kind of organizational example, but there's so many examples like it you can think of in other spaces. a popular management technique in the 90s in 2000s was called Rankin' Yank. Have you ever heard of this? So every team, a manager would have to rank the people in the group. So I've got a team of 10 people. I've got to give one person a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, 5, all the way down to 10. And the people in the top 3 will get rewarded.

Maybe they'll get a bonus. The people at the bottom 3, maybe you will get fired. Oh. I know. I know. Like Microsoft is really famous for this in the early 2000s. And GE was famous for it before. And the idea was, hey, we're a Darwinian species in order to get the best out of people.

That would be the fittest. Yeah, I got a, I got to cull the herd. But what did that actually do? It turned workplaces into a nightmare. Yes, a bad, exactly. And you might think, oh, a battlefield, well, people feel shitty in a battlefield, but they fight. But no, they don't. People got really boring in the work that they did.

because why would you take a risk if going out on a limb means that the person next to you will snap it behind you, right? Why would you share knowledge and ideas with other people if you'd be benefiting your competitors by doing so? Right. So you get really low, you get all these negative health impacts of a cynical environment. But let's not forget that you also get really boring, mundane and ultimately unsuccessful outputs from an environment. like that. It's not that people feel rough, but they do great. No, no, what you're describing is what I would imagine it feels like to be in a prison, right? When you're trapped, right? And someone else is deciding your worth, right? And how do you survive? Yeah, that's right. Second place is a set of steak knives. The Glenn Gary Gennarrow and Ross

Lime. Oh, right. That is an excellent movie about cynicism, actually. When we're trying to protect our kids by telling them all the bad things that are possible in the world. And I grew up, like, my dad, really, he's a risk analyzer by, like, that's his trade. Oh. You know, he's a chartered accountant, but he managed an accounting firm, and his entire training and focus is on evaluating risk and identifying risk. What could go wrong? What could go?

I'll tell you the 10 things that will possibly. go wrong. And it generalized to other aspects of life. And he had many experiences in life that reinforced that he was accurate and, you know, he had the data to prove. Right. And I'm wondering, you know, when I think about how I try to prevent my son from having experiences that I know will be negative. Yeah. What am I trying to protect him from? What ultimately I'm saying is that I don't reality. Well, I am and I want to protect them and I'm trying to do it lovingly. But what I'm ultimately saying is I don't believe that you have the resources to overcome challenges. Yeah, you don't want to shelter them. And we had a, this is a tiny example. So small.

My son left a garb, like a full garbage bag filled with, filled with trash on the driveway. In a canyon. In a canyon. And didn't put it in the bin. And I knew that was a bad idea. I didn't want to fight with him. Yeah. He wakes up the next. morning. The garbage is ripped out. Of course. Of course. But he's never lived in an environment and he's never experienced that. And at 16, I could tell him all about it. But, you know, the next day, here's a shovel and a broom and fix it. Fix it. You know that and like me telling him how bad that's going to be is not going to ever equate to him actually having the experience. So in some ways, as much as we're trying to protect our children, what we're not doing is giving them the experience of learning. And then,

But of course, if that's also crashing your car, then that's a different, you know, risk and potential danger than leaving the bag. And so, like, where do we find that line? But you could extrapolate that out also. I mean, this is a, this is an example that doesn't necessarily reflect, like, how you feel about raccoons, right? But I'm thinking, you know, when, I mean, when I started talking to my teenager about parties or what's going on at this party, and, like, I, sorry, I'm a horrible person. I literally said, if you are in a situation where anyone is too intoxicated to know what's going on, you are at risk for being accused of doing something that they may or may not remember.

Yeah. That was like mom less than 101. And I said, go to whatever party you want to do it. But know that if anyone is at a point of inebriation where they don't know what's going on, you are in an environment where that is possible. It seems very true. I think that's very wise. And I mean, I think these days of parties as, I think of parties as just, they terrify me because they're like, there's journalists everywhere, covert journalists.

So, no, I think there's, of course, there's a lot of threats and dangers out there. So how do we handle this? I mean, I think that, so one of my friends, a late friend of mine who I admired enormously and was one of the most hopeful people I ever knew. He always talked about his parents as the source of his optimism and his positive perspective on the world. And I said, well, what was it about them? And he said, my dad engaged in underbearing attentiveness. I love this term, right, which is that he was always present. There was never the sense that he wasn't paying attention, that he wasn't there, that he wasn't available to support.

But he was also underbearing instead of overbearing, letting my friend Emil explore the world as he chose. and then kind of being there to catch him if he fell, but not stopping him from falling, which is the hardest, I mean, as a parent is the hardest thing on earth to do because one of the... No, we're wrapping kids in bubble wrap, both literally and figuratively, you know. I mean, this is personal, but, you know, I think that one of the things that is hardest as a parent to realize

is that you cannot protect your kids, no matter how much we wish that we could, and it's probably not good for them, but fundamentally it doesn't matter. cynical yeah well when when our older daughter was born she had this really traumatic birth and she had a stroke um in the you know while she was being born and so i had this visceral experience at the moment that i became a parent that i had already failed at the primary job of protecting my daughter and it was you know the it's so weird because it was the best and the hardest moment of my life simultaneously. But it's a lesson that I've brought with me is that the thing that I'm trying to do when I get in that protective mode is a mission that is doomed for failure. I just can't protect

her from the world. I mean, I can try. I can protect her from specific risks. But if the idea is to just keep her in a place where she is fundamentally safe all the time, that's just not my job, nor is it one that if I... It's not good for her either, right? Yeah, that's right. Another way that I try to to handle this with parenting is just to, you know, be aware that we're changing the lens that our children are seeing through and then say, okay, I'm going to tell you about risks, but let me try to balance that out, right? So my kids and I do something that, well, I think of it as practicing savering. Savoring is like gratitude, except it's about the current moment instead of what's happened that's great in the past. So I'll sort of, I'll say, okay, today we're going to do a

class in ice cream eating or we're going to do a class in sunset watching and the idea is to mindfully enjoy the experience that we're having right what does it taste like what do you like about this what do you want to remember about this moment and i'm trying to do that more and more with what i call social savoring right so if we're walking around san francisco yeah i can point out all the litter on the street but there's also a lot of times people picking it up and so i try to point their attention towards the helpers. And it's interesting because in trying to do that for them, I also find my mind changing.

I find myself noticing more kindness in my own everyday life, which is really easy to find when you start to look for it. We did a whole episode on how remembering past positive social connections that you have leaves you more open to finding new social connections. Loneliness and isolation, shocking health impacts. Oh. And we were talking about the loneliness epidemic and that, you know, so many people don't want to come out of their shell. Yeah.

And one of the ways to hack that is to think back to ways that you've had positive social connections in the past and which just sort of reminded me about that priming and what we're going to look for next or that we feel opportunity. So in the risk, you know, I definitely love savoring. I think that I want to start to incorporate that. but also, you know, putting our kids in a position where they're having new social experiences, that they're seeing the opportunity, that they're having setbacks, but then seeing that they can overcome those. Well, I guess maybe one way to sort of frame this is like, what's the opposite of cynicism? That's a great question. I mean, I think of it as what I call hopeful skepticism. So we've already talked about how skepticism is, I'm not going to think like a lawyer. I'm going to

think like a scientist and be open to evidence. What is hopeful skepticism, it's adding to that scientific mindset, the understanding that our minds play tricks on us and that one of the systematic tricks that our minds play on us is to make us think that people are worse than they are. And that causes us to underestimate how kind, trustworthy, open-minded, and friendly people are. So hopeful skepticism is saying, well, let me add a dash of risk positivity to my skepticism. Let me not just be open to data, but sort of treat people like they're the folks

that I hope they are, that I want them to be as opposed to the folks that I fear. And one example of this, Jonathan, to your point, is this idea that I think loneliness often comes from our unwillingness to risk, to put risk up in trying to connect with people. There's all sorts of evidence that people underestimate how well conversations will go. That could be conversations with strangers or it could be deep conversations with people who we already know. How is hopeful skepticism different from, let's say, everybody's favorite toxic positivity or blind optimism? Because I get really annoyed by people who are like, everything's great and everything's fine. And like, it really, really bothers me. And I have to believe that there's

something in between, which I think would be this kind of hopeful skepticism. What's the difference between that and like, you know, sort of blind optimism or toxic positivity? Thank you so much for asking that because I often am accused of being a polyana. Of being a polyana. Yeah, head in the sand, rose-colored glasses, you name it, right? And I think that, well, there's a bunch of differences here. So one important distinction is between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will turn out well. Hope is the idea that they could turn out well, right? That uncertainty that the future is clouded, by is critical. We don't know what's going to happen. Cynics think that they can predict the future. They think that everything is terrible. And so do optimists. In fact, cynics and blind optimists or

cynics and toxicly positive people. Yes, they have much more in common that I think they realize in that both of them are thinking in very naive and almost magical ways. And hope by contrast is oriented towards what the future could be. And it's got another component to it, which is agency, that in an uncertain future, my actions matter. What I do matters, that I can shape the future that I live in through the actions that I take, including by being more open to other people and trusting other people. That's really helpful. I have a hard one for you. We are potentially more polarized than ever before as a country. Maybe we're not. Maybe you just think that. There's a lot to say here, but Jonathan, finish the question.

Look at this reversal of worlds that we have. This is a fantastic arc for the episode. I'm seeing a transformation in the room. Many of us have been told that we are more polarized. And maybe we're not. Actually, I think that's a fascinating way to enter it. We can go back and blame it on social media for making us perceive this.

But we have an election coming up. Many people are on very opposite sides of this election. It's a challenging topic. People feel extremely passionate. one way or another. Maybe they're actually in the middle, but many of them are presenting. But there's a lot of cynicism. There's a lot of cynicism. People think that the country is up for grabs, that democracy is at stake, that women's rights are at stake, that freedom in general is at stake, that the economy is going to collapse. Like, how does one navigate this particular time,

especially when the headlines are geared towards presenting the worst-case scenario on both sides. How do we navigate this carefully? I mean, these are extraordinarily hard times. I can't tell whether coming out with a book on fighting cynicism during this election season was the best or worst idea of my entire life. But I think let's get to the premises of your question, which, Maam, I think you were accurately questioning, given what we've been talking about so far. First, let me stipulate there are real threats out in our political system. There is deep and dangerous division, rights are being rolled back, democracy I think is teetering in many ways. So I am terrified just like I think many people are.

And again, my terror and my distrust is pointed at elites, right, at politicians and the system that that supports them. But oftentimes I think we are also terrified of each other, of our fellow citizens. And I think that that's a more interesting place to go because, in fact, we are less polarized than we think we are in a lot of different ways. So political scientists call this false polarization. If you ask Democrats, what does the average Republican believe? They think the average Republican believes what the top 20% of most extreme Republicans believe.

This comes up with women's issues and abortion a lot, that everyone assumes that nobody wants rights for women if they're a Republican. And that's actually not true. Exactly. And the same is true of Republicans. They think that all Democrats are like. crazy. I'm like tearing down every wall. Exactly. So if you ask people about specific issues, not about what do you think about the other, but if you ask people about specific issues and plot what their responses look like, I'm going to try to give a visual here. It's like a hill with two peaks. Right. Right. So there's a lot of overlap in the middle. And yes, Democrats and Republicans

feel differently. But if you ask them to imagine what the other side feels and plot those instead, It's two entirely different mountains on opposite sides of the world. I think the country's too big. It's too big for all these opinions and nobody gets to talk and know what anybody's actually thinking. And so you get all these misperceptions. But I think that those misperceptions are fueled by the media ecosystem, right? And in fact, there's so much hope if you look at the data instead of at the news.

Because not only do we overestimate how much we disagree, we overestimate how violent the other side is. we overestimate how undemocratic the other side is, how hateful they are. And we feel as though we must defend ourselves against this phantom in our mind of what the average person on the other side is like. Now, I am in no way claiming that there are not horrendous extremists. Well, January 6th, I think for a lot of people, was like, wow, I didn't know this was going to happen like that.

Exactly. But so in no way am I saying, hey, everything is great. But if you look at what people really want, there is an enormous amount of overlap that we are being shielded from, that we're not being allowed to see. And that overlap to me, it gives me so much hope. And it also makes me so angry that it's occluded from us because we could do so much more as a country together if we knew all that we have in common. And we simply don't. Are we allowed to be cynical about anything? Like, do I get a pass on anything?

Like, I could go through the list of things that I feel, you know, so scared about, right? Like, am I allowed to have that? Like, is that merited for anything? I have a tie-in to this, which is connected to the political side. What I really got and get annoyed at is people not believing that there are real threats. Yeah. I think in American society and society in general, up until recently, While the news, yes, has said, oh, there are demons and monsters and child abductors at a rate that are exaggerated, people haven't really wanted to believe there could be real risk to the existence of our nation, that America will always be on top.

And there's a conversation and a reality now, among some who you may call cynics, who are saying, wait a second, it may not be on top forever. The dollar may actually erode. The end may actually increase in. value in a way that is going to displace us economically and politically and military in our military. So there's something like of a balance

between yes, I want to hold hope that things will be able to change and be positive and that we do have, the majority of us have overlapping similarities. But you do have to acknowledge the dark side. Otherwise you're like, you know, you don't take the...

Your heads in the sand. Yeah. Don't take the appropriate action. Germany in 1931, would be a terrible place to feel optimistic, you know? And I'm sorry, but that's where my mind goes. And I think that here again, we need to separate optimism from hope, right? I think this is a terrible time in America to feel optimistic. It is in no way clear to me that things are going to get better. And it's very much on the table that things could get worse in fundamental and even

existential ways for the country. But that doesn't mean that that will necessarily happen. And I think it's really critical to remember that, Most people don't want that. And I think there's power in our collective goodwill. And again, I'm not saying that there are not people who want really horrible things to happen to the country. But I do think that they're in the minority. In fact, I think they're in the small minority.

And so long as we focus on these extremes and feel as though we can't trust anybody, it actually makes it more likely that those terrible outcomes will unfold. Whereas if we can relocate the vast majority, of our nation, which is a group of people who want peace and democracy, then we have a better chance. So again, it's in that uncertainty of the future that I think hope can be really powerful and helpful. I love that. I want to get to your question, which I think is a really important one as well.

Do I get any passes? Yeah. And I think, first of all, again, I want to be really clear. I'm not here to judge anybody for the way that they see the world. A lot of people who feel cynical have been traumatized. And that is a real experience. that is absolutely valid and whatever your response to it is is also valid. I think that it's important to separate cynicism from mistrust, right?

And so do you get a pass on cynicism? If you want one, I will give you all the passes you need. But I think that, again, cynicism is not, I feel like I don't want to trust this particular person or I feel really negative about this political. It's bigger for me, like capitalism. Yeah. Like for me, I feel like a lot of my cynicism comes from, you know, both what I would say, and again, this could be erroneous, is an understanding of capitalism, right?

So there's that, like, I know things. And also a deep dismay about a structure. And what I don't want is, let me try, you know, try fascism. It's like, I'm not, I don't want to try fascism. But, you know, there are certain things about the structure of a free market economy that are incredible and helpful. And there's a lot of things that, for me, are really destructive. Yeah.

Like, I feel cynical about it. But I would say you sound skeptical about it. You sound like you're criticizing, I would say, from my perspective, aptly criticizing a system for its toxic effects. Well, but because it feels unfixable and unchangeable and immovable, which, you know, for the most part, I would imagine it, kind of is. Like for me, that's where I think the true cynicism comes in of like there, there is not a remedy that I can imagine in a system that values exploiting workers for the benefit

of, you know, someone who doesn't do any work and owns the company. You know, MLK. I mean, like, I could go on. I'm like, you know, like, you know, like textiles and like, you know, China. You know, like the product, the mass production of things we don't need, the proliferation. of materialism as like the currency of youth, which is actually destroying the environment and the economy. You know, sorry. No, it's beautifully, no, that's the way that you put that has a dark beauty to it. No, it's very elegant the way that you're describing it.

Dark beauty, that's her new nickname. You know, I think that there is a huge difference between criticizing the many terrible things that our culture does and thinking that those things are inevitable or reflect who we really are. Got it. MLK gave a speech to the American Psychological Association in 1968. And he said, you all, I mean, he was much friendlier about it than I'm about to be. I'm paraphrasing.

He said, he was a preacher. Yeah. He said, you all are obsessed with the idea of being well-adjusted. You think that we should be happy, go lucky. And when people feel depressed or anxious, you blame them. You call them maladjusted. But why the hell should we be well-adjusted to racism? Why the hell should we be well-adjusted to inequality or exploitation?

And that wasn't a cynical take, right? That was an appropriate. He suggested that we should create a new society for the cultivation of creative maladjustment. The idea is to be really unsatisfied, really angry with how the system is, but to be creative, to understand our power and to understand that in having hope about each other and understanding that most, again, I really do believe that most people want. But then he was assassinated because people can't tolerate. that expansion of consciousness.

But his legacy outgrew that of any one life, right? And so I think that his message lives on. And to me is really powerful. Social movements, fierce, angry and explosive social movements can't happen without some hope that people want something better, right? So feeling really critical of a system is not, to me, at least, the same as feeling cynical about who we are. fundamentally. That's a really important point. The notion that in the anger there has to be hope in

order to have change to create something different. So cynics, it turns out, participate less in social movements than non- cynics. Yeah, I think of when you think of like a personality of a cynic, like are they an isolator or they can be all kinds of people? Like I think of like a curmudgeonly, you know, a confederacy of dunces. Like I think of like that kind of personality. Yeah, not great at parties. But also, um, but also. But also. also, yeah, not really active. I mean, I think that your earlier comparison to depression was really powerful, right? I think of cynicism as almost a form of social depression. Yeah, it's kind of that Venn diagram is like feeling kind of expansive. Tell us how to have more empathy for one another,

which ultimately will help us feel more optimistic, more connected. You know, I do think it's in the micro connections that we can build a sense that the world is not a horrible place because we can believe in individuals. And you talk a little bit about in your book, the idea of mirroring in the brain is associated with empathy. Can you explain that? Yeah, yeah. So we are built to co-experience the world with each other, right? That's why our lenses shape each other's lenses. And that's a fundamental ability, but it's one that we often lose. Things that can shut down your empathy are competition, stress, threat, cynicism. These are things that make it harder to connect with one another. So if you want to, I would say, rediscover that connection, not

discover it, not find a way to be good at it, but return to what I would say is our fundamental nature. There's a few things you can do. One is to try to calm yourself before you engage with somebody else, right? To engage in mindfulness, to regulate your own emotions. A second is to try to express genuine curiosity, right? And we were talking about this earlier when somebody acts harmfully towards us. The best example that I can come up with is when somebody cuss you off in traffic. That's one of the, that's like the final boss for empathy, right? Because you don't see the person, you don't know them. All you know about them is a shitty thing that they just did. But if you've ever been in the car with someone who's super chill, they're just like, oh well.

And that's really, but that's where we should be. Because not being that way only makes you angry, violent, aggressive, and retaliatory. Yeah, that's right. And, and you know, I think again, the idea is can we, instead of being judgmental, even when we, we, feel in competition with somebody, even when somebody has done something hurtful, it's, of course, fair to protect ourselves. I'm not saying to put yourself in harm's way, but when we are able to, when we have the space psychologically and physically, can we turn curiosity towards that person instead of judgment? Right. And oftentimes what we find is that somebody even who's acting in a way that we don't understand or don't like is doing so for fundamentally human reasons. They're under

stress. They're under threat. They're in pain. Or they don't, I mean, just, I live in Los Angeles. Or they don't have the ability to understand the level of danger that they are putting themselves and other people into. Meaning like that's, that's a place to have compassion. Like, that's a spiritually sick human being, right? If they are behaving and acting so recklessly with no regard for their safety or others, that's sad. Like, I feel, and I don't mean, I pity them. I mean, that's just a sad state of. of the world that there are people who would drive like that.

And you wish that they didn't have to do that, right? And that's compassion. Like hurt people hurt. Yes. I mean, that's really true. That's right. And then I think another way of doing this is, so we've talked about practices that are mental, you know, psychological for engaging in empathy, but there's also behaviors.

And the simplest thing that you can do is just ask more questions. You know, just express that curiosity in the form of, you know, almost trying to interview people, Not about, so one thing that I often do is if somebody expresses an opinion to me, let's say a political opinion, let's say it's an opinion I don't agree with. My knee jerk is to say, what the, what is wrong with you? How could you possibly believe that? Haven't you seen these nine statistics, you know, and to browbeat them into agreeing with me? I try to instead say, that's really interesting. When's the first time that you found yourself thinking this? What was the experience that got you here? and almost to get into an interview mentality with them.

And astonishing things can happen when you do that. First, you can learn that you have much more in common with a person than you realized at first, right? I think we as a nation could use this enormously. Second, you find that the person lowers their defenses, that they feel safer around you, that they become more vulnerable. And guess what happens after that? They listen to you more when you see.

speak. In fact, political scientists have found that one of the best ways to convince somebody or at least get them to consider your perspective is to first show that you're listening to their perspective. Yes, the data is very clear that trying to convince someone right out of the gate of anything is they just totally shut down. Exactly. Exactly. So we can try the opposite instead. It's hard work. It's not instinctual for many of us, but it's incredibly powerful when we can tap into it. And very hard work to have a poker face of not reacting so they know exactly

how you may be viscerally feeling. Yeah, yeah. I know that we don't have necessarily time to get into the full kind of mirror neuron system, but obviously this is one of these regions and organized kind of parts of the brain that we know

is kind of wired for this kind of empathetic communication and in some cases it's motor and in some cases it's social. is there a way to sort of strengthen your mirror neuron system to gear yourself towards being more open? Well, first I would say I'm not sure that that's the system we want to be strengthening.

There are lots of forms of empathy, right? One, and the one that is most supported by the mirror neuron system is what we could call resonance or emotional empathy. I see you stub your toe and I grab mine reflexively. I feel your pain, I feel your joy and so forth. And that's a really powerful form of empathy. It can be really great in lots of situations.

But it can also lead us to burnout. It can lead us to catch other people's threat. Right. And sometimes what somebody else is feeling is not what you want to be feeling. And it won't help them for you to feel it. If I'm with my therapist, I don't want him crying and being like, Jesus, your life really does suck. You know, that's not helpful.

I don't need you to feel what I feel. I need you to show me something else. Right? So I don't know that that's the system that we want to be ramping up all the time. Another form of empathy is what we call perspective taking. And that's what we've been talking about now, this type of curiosity. And there are ways to get reps on that, to practice that, which is, again, to try to be more intellectually humble, try to not rest on our assumptions, and to ask more questions.

So I think that sort of experiencing and expressing inquisitiveness, I mean, perspective taking at the level of the brain overlaps with things like thinking about the future, remembering the past, and thinking about what could have been. It's extracting our mind from the here and now. And the same brain systems support all of those qualities. So really, the best way to practice that type of empathy is to practice stepping outside of yourself in whatever way you can. For a topic for another time, you know, I'm wondering if people who are healers or people who are energy workers, right, who are literally, in many cases, disregulated by other people's emotions, right?

This would be a fascinating. I'm wondering if anyone has done a study with energy workers in this system. But the book is Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness by Jameel Zaki. Thank you so much for being here. I feel less cynical. I do. It worked.

This is incredible. A transformation, but this has been... Instant. This has been delightful. Thank you so much for that. Thank you from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. And we really hope you'll never have it because we're not cynical anymore. We'll see you next time.

It's My and Beallix Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.