The Cynical Genius Illusion: Exploring and Debunking Lay Beliefs About Cynicism and Competence

Abstract

Cynicism refers to a negative appraisal of human nature-a belief that self-interest is the ultimate motive guiding human behavior. We explored laypersons' beliefs about cynicism and competence and to what extent these beliefs correspond to reality. Four studies showed that laypeople tend to believe in cynical individuals' cognitive superiority. A further three studies based on the data of about 200,000 individuals from 30 countries debunked these lay beliefs as illusionary by revealing that cynical (vs. less cynical) individuals generally do worse on cognitive ability and academic competency tasks. Cross-cultural analyses showed that competent individuals held contingent attitudes and endorsed cynicism only if it was warranted in a given sociocultural environment. Less competent individuals embraced cynicism unconditionally, suggesting that-at low levels of competence-holding a cynical worldview might represent an adaptive default strategy to avoid the potential costs of falling prey to others' cunning.

Keywords: competence; cynicism; lay theories; social perception.

Figure 1.

Mean performance expectation of a cynical (vs. a noncynical) target on cognitive and social tasks (higher values reflect a preference for a cynical target), Studies 1 to 3. Note. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals. Point estimates that do not cross the dotted lines are significantly different from “no preference for either a cynical or a non-cynical target (‘.50’ in Studies 1a, 1b, and 2, and ‘5’ in Study 3)” at (at least) α = .05.

Figure 2.

Violin and box plots: Mean performance expectation of a cynical (vs. a noncynical) target on cognitive and social tasks (higher values reflect a preference for a cynical target), studies 1 to 3. Note. * indicates means; dotted lines denote a point of indifference (“.50” in Studies 1a, 1b, and 2, and “5” in Study 3).

Figure 3.

Within-country zero-order correlations between cynicism and competence (countries with no available data are white), Study 6.

Figure 4.

Effects of education and competencies on cynicism as a function of country social climate (rule of law and control of corruption; higher values reflect a lower justifiability of cynicism).