Cynical people are often seen as smarter. Here’s why that might not be true.

If you’re feeling despair about the state of the world, you’re not alone. Americans trust one another less than they did decades ago, and cynicism is on the rise in many countries around the world.

It can be tempting to become cynical — essentially, distrusting other humans and assuming every act is driven by self-interest — especially in the face of tremendous uncertainty. If you don’t get your hopes up, you’ll never be disappointed, right?

Even Jamil Zaki, a Stanford University psychologist who studies kindness and empathy, sometimes finds himself being pulled in by this worldview, especially when he spends too much time online.

“Cynicism is the expectation or the belief that people are in general selfish, greedy and dishonest,” Zaki said. “It is an utterly understandable response to the world that we’re living in.”

But just because cynicism is reasonable doesn’t mean it’s accurate, or helpful to us.

“If it were a pill, cynicism’s warning label would be three feet long,” Zaki said.

He and other researchers have found that having a negative view of humanity hurts us as individuals — it can be bad for your physical and mental health and may even cost you economically from causing you to miss out on opportunities that require cooperation and trust.

It may also be problematic for societies: Zaki said that research suggests cynical people may be less likely to protest an injustice, take steps to address global problems or even vote.

“It doesn’t help us solve any of the problems that are making us cynical in the first place,” Zaki said.

The ‘cynical genius illusion’

When psychologist Olga Stavrova was starting her career in academia, someone offered her guidance that surprised her.

“I got the advice to ‘never share your ideas’” because someone would steal them, Stavrova said. She wondered, in such a collaborative field, could that possibly be right?

Stavrova, a professor at the University of Mannheim in Germany, started studying cynicism in the workplace and whether it is a path to success. Her research found the opposite: A 2016 study showed that people who are more cynical actually make less money and are less likely to become leaders in their fields.

But as she continued to study this, she found that many people still believe cynics are smarter and more competent.

A series of studies in 2018 conducted by Stavrova and her colleagues found that people tend to believe cynics have “cognitive superiority” and are more likely to perform well in a series of tasks.

But when Stavrova reviewed data from 200,000 people across 30 countries, she found that people who were more cynical actually scored lower on assessments that tested their reading comprehension, math, scientific literacy and computer literacy.

Stavrova and her colleagues also found that even after controlling for advantages such as socioeconomic status, people with more education were less cynical.

The discrepancy between how smart we think cynics are and how competent they actually are is what Stavrova coined the “cynical genius illusion.”

To this point, a small 2010 study that showed cynical people aren’t as good at detecting lying as those who generally believe most people are trustworthy.

“Cynicism is a form of naiveté,” Zaki said. “Assuming that nobody can be trusted and just looking for evidence that you’re right — that’s a great way to convince yourself that you’re smart and a terrible way to actually learn about the world and other people.”

‘Hopeful skepticism’

In his book “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness,” Zaki argues for “hopeful skepticism,” which he said means approaching the world not as a lawyer, but as a scientist.

“It’s like skepticism that starts with the assumption of positive intent,” Zaki said.

In a large global study published in the journal Science earlier this year, researchers tested how willing people were to work together and their assumptions about how willing others would be.

Participants played a simple game with a stranger. If the players chose not to cooperate, they were given $100 to take home. If they cooperated, they got $70. But if both players cooperated, there was an additional donation of $400 to charity.

Nearly 70 percent of people chose to cooperate with strangers for the common good, even when it meant sacrificing personal financial gains, said Armin Falk, an economist at the University of Bonn who led the study. Yet, many of those same participants underestimated how altruistic others would be, assuming only 47 percent would cooperate.

“Decades of science find that we underestimate how trustworthy and friendly and helpful other people are,” Zaki said.

But when he tells people that, he often hears the same reaction: “Are you kidding me? Have you seen the news?”

The problem, Zaki said, is that the news, and social media in particular, tends to surface the worst of humanity, often in service of either capturing our attention or holding people accountable for wrongdoing.

“That gives us a warped sense as consumers of the news about what regular people are like,” Zaki said.

Zaki said that might be why many people have a dim view of humanity in general, even as they tend to trust their neighbors.

“Generally speaking, people feel really bad about humanity, but they feel great about the people around them,” Zaki said.

If you want to be more hopeful, here are some tips

Researchers have found that it is possible for people to become more hopeful and less cynical about others. The key is that they have to want to.

“We found that the more cynical people are, the less they want to change,” Stavrova said.

Fact-check your assumptions about others. Zaki and many other psychologists have found that people often underestimate one another and expect interactions with other people to go worse than they do — especially with people who disagree with us.

One of the best ways to fight cynical assumptions is to treat them with skepticism.

“I do try to talk with people more than my instincts tell me to,” Zaki said.

Studies show that talking to strangers makes people feel happier, and that the more we know people, generally the more we like them.

“Not assuming the worst about people allows you explore humanity,” Zaki said.

Practice “positive gossip.” Humans have a negativity bias that’s evolved to protect us. But it can hurt us to become too fixated on the worst things people do.

Zaki said his family practices positive gossip at the dinner table, meaning everyone shares a story about someone else’s kindness.

“When you know that you’re going to talk about something, you kind of notice it more,” Zaki said.

Cultivate hope. In her research, psychologist Megan Edwards at Texas A&M University has found that hope leads to a greater sense of meaning and purpose, especially for people who have survived trauma. Hopefulness also improves health by inspiring people to take better care of themselves.

Edwards found in a 2024 study that it is possible to make people feel more hopeful simply by showing them pictures of babies and tree saplings, reminding people of fresh starts and possibility.

She said a first step toward becoming more hopeful is to act the part.

“Start acting like people can be kind, people can trustworthy, and find people to do it with,” she said.