This section of the library shall be dedicated to commentaries on the Hubermanlab podcast. Included below is not a summary of the episode (I’ll leave that for you to check out), but rather my comments on the episode in terms of psychology, health, and human behavior. Whenever possible, I draw connections to autism as well. Most of my comments originally appear on Twitter/X, so be sure to follow on there.
Cynicisms by “Neurodivergents”?
The comments about “cynics” basically engaging in confirmation bias makes a lot of sense. I will always relate these Hubermanlab episodes to autism whenever possible since that’s my primary focus…
So my wheels are spinning…and I wonder the degree current cultural norms around “Neurodiversity” are negatively impacting potential cynicism of adults with autism spectrum disorder in how they view the world around them regarding their own state of health and how their condition may or may not be supported. This is of course further influenced by the fact that in general, there is little discussion around all of the environmental toxins impacting diagnosis, therefore there is little treatment for autism based upon biological factors that were impacted to begin with, so many adults with autism may indeed feel quite cynical about treatments for autism and rather choose to view their condition as genetic or normal.
Thus, a cynicism might be developed toward discussions around environmental toxins that may result in an autism diagnosis… this is further impacted, of course, by other psychological defense mechanisms regarding their own mental health and unwillingness to address them based on research that contradicts notions of “neurodiversity identity.”
It’s a touchy topic to be sure.
Happiness and Cynicism
The negative relationship between cynicism and happiness makes a lot of sense. It got me thinking about my previous study [unpublished data] on the gratitude-happiness relationship. I do wonder if people who are more cynical are less grateful as well. Perhaps there is a cynicism regarding what there is to be happy or grateful about in life if there is a general sense of mistrust, for example.
I remember one less popular conceptualization of the definition of gratitude in the literature was actually the definition of ‘appreciation’, one component which included “downward social comparison.” So, to spill out another hypothesis, are those who are more cynical more likely to engage in upward social comparison or less likely to engage in downward social comparison, and be less grateful for what they have in comparison to others who have less?
I often view gratitude within the context of entitlement, in some sense being the complete opposite of one another, so would greater cynicism also equate to greater amount of entitlement for things in life?
Creativity and Cynicism
Dr. Huberman mentioned that he believes creativity and cynicism seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, such that open-mindedness leads to more creativity, whereas cynicism leads to less.
I think this actually gives cynicism a slightly different definition, where it’s characterized by a lack of open-mindedness, and therefore, a lack of joy or delight. But at the beginning of the episode, cynicism was defined as an outlook on life, or rather a specific perspective of other people themselves in viewing them as primarily self-interested and selfish.
I can see where there can be some lack of open mindedness conceptualized in the definition, perhaps a lack of open-mindedness toward other people’s ability to be their best selves (cynical attitudes about other people’s prosocial behaviors), but perhaps it may be an over generalization of that compartment to say that it is a lack of open-mindedness that impacts creativity overall.
From the very start of the episode, it was understood that cynicism was a type of confirmation bias toward certain attitudes that inhibit positive social relationships, negatively impact happiness, and perhaps affect other areas of life as well. So, I found the definition of cynicism to be broader, rather than simply viewing it as a lack of open-mindedness.
I would disagree with the notion that cynicism necessarily comes with a lack of openness because it can be extremely compartmentalized into various outlooks on life. One might be cynical toward certain stimuli in the environment or a particular societal group, rejecting them entirely due to cynicism and confirmation bias, while remaining very open-minded about something else or another group.
Thinking about cynicism in terms of creativity, I would argue that cynicism can both hinder or spark creativity, depending on the context. For instance, cynicism toward the government’s ability to solve environmental problems might lead to creative solutions from individuals outside the government. I suppose it depends on whether the cynicism is paired with a sense of positive hope or a negative outlook on potential solutions. In this sense, cynicism can be self-defeating, or it could foster creativity.
I also loved Dr. Zaki’s discussion about ranked-stacked work environments that aren’t conducive to creativity. For those at the top, trying new ideas that might lower their ranking could be seen as risky and unbeneficial. That makes so much sense. I can’t imagine working in a system like that. It reminded me of the *Malcolm in the Middle* episode where a new teacher introduced a ranking system in the gifted classroom of young teen students, and all the students ended up having a mental breakdown over the system. It was quite a hilarious episode and really speaks to the nature of the human mind.
Social Media Outrage
I will be frank and candid: the autism vaccine debacle is filled with endless outrage. it’s exhausting.
While I share the most concern and to some extent horror at the evidence contrary to what mainstream media shoves in everyone’s faces, I do find myself outrage exhausted. And this is coming from a person who already works in the ABA autism services industry, I just don’t have the energy to be outraged every single day when I see stories about vaccine injuries or new autism stories when I’m already working in the autism field helping parents on an individual basis deal with the repercussions of an autism diagnosis.
I think this has contributed to some personal “outrage burnout” in that I feel less inclined to participate in discussions around the emotional outrage regarding the autism-vaccine literature. And I do feel quite isolated over it because in a sense I’m really not bonding with people who are also expressing the same level of outrage. And so there is a lot of loss of social connection with people who are predominantly expressing those emotions, and in many cases major public figures bringing awareness to vaccine injury or lack of proper clinical trials for vaccines.
But I’ve come to terms with it, and I decided I would rather feel isolated than endless emotional exhaustion. Ultimately, what I’m presently doing is just trying to make something constructive out of all of my own emotions and just pour it into my work, both in the field as well as in reading these research papers and putting together this conglomerate.
But yes, very isolating.
Democrats vs Republicans?
Particularly enjoyed the research regarding Democrats overestimation of the number of Republicans who make more than 250K per year, the overestimation being 25%, the actual number being at around 2%.
Also enjoyed learning about Republicans overestimating number of LGBTQ people in the Democratic Party.
So, I feel particularly reinforced regarding my behavior of not getting into discussions accusing Democrats of THIS and Republicans of THAT.
And actually before this single comment, I have not once in my entire Twitter history use the word, ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’. And I asked the Grok to analyze all of my posts so here’s the proof.
In the field of Applied Behavior Analysis in working with children with autism, there is what we call ‘overgeneralization.’ In regards to when children learn a skill, sometimes there can be overgeneralization (e.g., calling all women ‘mom’) and not enough discrimination (e.g., calling women by their specific names). As another example, saying ‘more’ to get everything you want instead of specifically saying ‘cake,’ ‘juice,’ ‘milk,’ etc.
So, and this may seem a bit condescending, I do view a lot of the squabbling as a matter of cognitive laziness and overgeneralization.
But of course there’s more to the story, such as deliberate attempts at pitting one party against the other via manipulating human behavior via influencing perceptions of the other (oftentimes by people themselves who don’t have actual data but are just acting on layers of assumptions)…but that’s a whole other matter.
The other compassionate and evolutionary psychological perspective, of course, is that to a certain extent we HAVE to form perceptions about a group of people in order to function and know what to expect when encountering that group of people in our daily life; it’s too much of a cognitive effort to individually separate every single person as their own unique individual. Although, it’s not impossible. But it is difficult to walk in life and go about without making a single assumption about any single person we encounter.
Thanks for the lovely episode.
Autism Librarian
P.S. Additional thoughts on my outrage burnout.
- It has led to less social interactions with others on social media expressing outrage, even if the outrage may be justified.
- Has this impacted potential professional relationships?
- Is there a mental health benefit of not expressing outrage on a daily basis? Does this benefit outweigh the cost of loss of social interaction? I believe Dr. Zaki warned against it, regardless. I’ll just meditate more.
- I wonder if what percentage of parents of children with autism exert extra energy onto social media to express outrage.
- There will undoubtedly be cases of parents who do have the extra energy, but I’d hypothesize the percentage if extremely small.
- One hypothesis: Less than 10% of parents with a child with severe autism exert the extra energy to express outrage on social media over various matters. Mediator: the level of support the child requires, more support = less time and energy for social media. Less support = more time and energy for social media.
- Admittedly, the brunt of my work is not on vaccines alone, but on other toxins connected to autism, and this is a factor that has contributed to the lack of, perhaps, a greater response from many on X. To put it bluntly: unless I’m screaming that vaccines are the sole cause of autism, it seems that when I speak of other toxins, 99% people are deaf. As a behavior analyst, I now have legitimate concern that a portion of the USA populations’ behaviors have been shaped so much by the vaccine-awareness movement (e.g., lack of proper clinical trials, little to zero compensation for vaccine injuries, etc.), they are less likely to be inclined to consider other toxins associated with autism, and therefore also less likely to consider the research pointing to those other toxins. It would, in part, explain the lack of greater public receptivity to this library that seeks to explain the increases in autism incidence now 1 in 36 (a major public health concern) by considering all toxins connected to autism -lack of better outrage content around these toxins in order to capitalize on the negativity bias toward social media being another factor. This is not to say I don’t harbor feelings of great disappointment in various government health agencies, but I do prefer to direct my energies into more productive means than spreading outrage on social media -not to mention that working directly with children and parents with autism can be very emotionally taxing (I love what I do nonetheless, but it requires a lot, and the latest research in the ABA field shows a 72% level of medium/high burnout among ABA practitioners). Regardless, I do read and follow many accounts and keep up with the latest developments in the vaccine awareness field and love and appreciate the efforts of many organizations, whose work I admire.
- All this is not to say that I’m not capable of experiencing outrage and that I’ve never expressed outrage on social media. I certainly have. But I’d say 90% of my posts are not negatively emotionally charged. Although, a funny anecdote, is when the CDC X/Twitter account blocked me because I quite literally cussed at them on social media after learning of all the lab leaks and human death surrounding their bioweapons research. I’ve no regrets for expressing the outrage, and probably should go after them for violation of 1st amendment rights. I do wonder if after over a year on social media, there’s been a decrease in my outrage expression. I would say it has. I feel much less inclined to…
- Perhaps my job, whose very nature requires me to keep a calm demeanor and model peaceful attitudes in the midst of the most severe behaviors, is another contributor to the greater lack of willingness to express outrage on social media. Just in the past two weeks, one child on my caseload experienced a severe tantrum episode involving property destruction inside the home, aggression toward the mother, and self-injurious behaviors (and he’s a heavy 11 year old). How much has my job which requires me to stay calm and peaceful in difficult situations, contribute to a lack of willingness to express outrage on social media? Perhaps I’ve carried over that calm demeanor to social media, to some extent.
- Finally, what is the correct attitude toward these matters? To play devil’s advocate, is the outrage and anger not justified? I feel perfectly content in agreeing with an outraged parent who is upset about their child’s diagnosis of autism due to a severe injury that resulted in developmental regression less than a week later (frighteningly, in some cases it’s been less than 24 hours). I empathize with the parents more than anything because I know what its like…I’m there for them on a weekly basis in my work in the ABA field. Is the disappointment, frustration, and anger at government officials who are not considering these matters and doing what needs to be done to mitigate future autism risk justified (pesticide and air pollution literatures also considered, here)? What will motivate the government employee to change their behavior: a peaceful confrontation or an angry one? Who knows…perhaps I’m not upset enough about all of this. Therein lies my conundrum: reconciling core spiritual principles of love and peace toward humanity versus holding individuals accountable for corruption and/or simply not doing their job. Perhaps my mom was right: a monk meditating alone in a monastery can’t achieve true enlightenment; they have to act in the world.
Again, thanks for the lovely episode.
P.P.S. I reserve the right to get pissed off every once in a while. 😉
The Causes of Autism 