Re: Learning to doubt

Peter Ashby wrote: 
Lance <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Becoming cynics at a tender age
Learning to doubt key to processing information

Originally published August 19, 2005 


Thanks for that Lance, it is always nice to have a proper study that
backs up personal anecdote. In the second last year of school, aged 16
my teacher told me I was a cynic. This article has made me wonder if the
qualities he detected in me (he was an English teacher as well as my
Form master) were partly those that made me become a scientist.

That they detected wide variation doesn't surprise me either. I have
written before of our struggle to bang some scepticism into our too
gullible youngest. No such was ever required for the eldest, the one who
became a declared atheist aged 7 in reaction to her infants school
headmistress.

Peter

There is some research showing that trustingness can be protective. (I know that is difficult idea for a cynic to swallow).

Essentially the idea is that the social world works on the basis of trust. If you work for a company, for example, you trust that your hard work will be recognized and you will get promotion, and the like. The cynic has come to doubt that this trust is well placed, and is thus inclined to look for short cuts. The cynic begins to believe that it is not what you do or how hard you work but who you know, etc. So when corruption of some kind is offered, often the cynic will sucumb to temptation, but the trusting person will resist. Indeed in one experimental test, people who scored highly on a trustingness scale almost never bought a fake watch from a stooge on the street, but a significant proportion of those who scored as low on trust were caught by the scam. So there are advantages to trust...

Lance

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Learning to doubt
    ... If you work for a company, for example, you trust that your hard work will be recognized and you will get promotion, and the like. ... Indeed in one experimental test, people who scored highly on a trustingness scale almost never bought a fake watch from a stooge on the street, but a significant proportion of those who scored as low on trust were caught by the scam. ... Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things. ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: What do you think of Centos
    ... Identifying with RHAT and acknowledging the benefits we get from their ... work are Good Things, but there is nothing wrong with respins IMO, ... They're leeching off Red Hat's hard work and yes, ... "I trust the Democrats to take away my money, ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Learning to doubt
    ... Essentially the idea is that the social world works on the basis of trust. ... If you work for a company, for example, you trust that your hard work will be recognized and you will get promotion, and the like. ... Indeed in one experimental test, people who scored highly on a trustingness scale almost never bought a fake watch from a stooge on the street, but a significant proportion of those who scored as low on trust were caught by the scam. ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Its time for...
    ... Sandi -- you're going all the way with this one. ... Just trust ... yourself and all the hard work you've done and I know you'll be fine. ... Okay, as you were. ...
    (sci.med.transcription)