Cynics do not believe that people can act in any way other than their own self-interest. Reflecting hostility, cynicism is ...

They don’t trust in a variety of contexts, whether it's strangers, politicians or even family and friends, the way less cynical people do. You write that people often mistake cynicism for wisdom.

But the opposite is true. People who trust others more, who have more faith in people, tend to actually do better on those tests than cynical people. We also find in research that cynicism is not ...