Dr. Jamil Zaki

That's the idea that when you trust people, they are more likely to step up and want to become trustworthy.

So cynicism creates all these poisonous, self-fulfilling prophecies.

You decide that people are terrible, you treat them terribly, and you bring out the worst in them.

But skepticism and what I call hopeful skepticism, which is also understanding that our default setting might be too negative, that type of perspective allows us to take a chance on people and bring out their best, turning a negative self-fulfilling prophecy into a positive one.

So there's a bunch of studies that explore this, where people are asked to predict what would it be like if you struck up a conversation with a stranger or confided in an acquaintance about something that you're struggling with, these little acts of vulnerability and openness.

And first, you ask one group of people to predict how would that go.

And they say, oh my gosh, this would be awful.

It would be awkward and cringe, and everybody would hate the experience.

You then ask a separate group of people, hey, go and try it and then report back.

And people are shocked at how positive these interactions are.

Even conversations with people they disagree with are much more positive than they think.

And the evidence suggests that if we pay close attention

If we savor the difference between our bleak expectations and the often very good reality, we actually do learn.

We start to become more habitually open to other people, which is a great way, again, to become healthier and more connected.

There's a strong correlation between people's cynicism and their susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

And again, I'm not at all saying that we should all unthinkingly trust the government.

That sounds like lunacy.

But

When we decide that nobody can be trusted, that anything that we hear on the news is automatically fake, that actually opens us up to being controlled in other ways.

And there are lots of people, including elites like politicians, who benefit a lot