Hope for Cynics w/ Dr. Jamil Zaki

I had a great chat with Dr. Jamil Zaki about the need for "hopeful cynicism".

In his new book, Dr. Jamil Zaki defines hopeful skepticism as “the realization that people are often better than we expect.”

Imagine if everyone went around not so driven by their prior expectations based on what they know about their political status or whatever demographic? Imagine if we looked at each other with fresh eyes, “knowing that a lot of the information we’ve gotten so far— while compelling— is just not accurate"?

Dr. Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neurosience Lab. Using tools from psychology and neuroscience, he and his colleagues examine how empathy works and how people can learn to empathize more effectively.

In this episode we take a deep dive into the content of his new book “Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness”. We discuss his idea of “hopeful skepticism” and how it’s different from naive optimism. According to Dr. Zaki, hopefully skepticism honors humanity’s strengths while confronting our weaknesses head-on. We also discuss “social shark attacks”, “tribal cynicism”, and “social savoring”. This is an important episode, especially in light of the rise of cynicism we are seeing all around the world right now.

You can listen to the audio-only version wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio). If you enjoy listening to my podcast, please consider writing a positive 5-star review on Apple. It would mean a lot to me!