If you want to be a part of the solution to climate change and other sustainability challenges in 2025, please join me in my New Year’s resolution: Resist Cynicism.
Cynicism—a reflexive distrust in other people or institutions even in the absence of information about them—has negative health and social impacts on individuals and a corrosive impact on institutions, as documented by Stanford University psychologist Jamil Zaki in his new book Hope for Cynics: the Surprising Science of Human Goodness. Zaki focused his attention on individuals more than institutions, but his analyses and arguments have something powerful to say about the current attacks on universities by political and corporate leaders, and subsequent responses by university leaders.
Whether you work in a university, NGO, corporation, or government—and even if you work on topics other than sustainability—you and your work will benefit from avoiding cynicism. I focus though on what I know best, which is the influence that academic research has on public opinion, corporate products and practices, and government policies on climate change and related sustainability challenges. The main thing I know is that cynicism undermines the potential for cross-sector collaborations toward positive change.
While we all know plenty of cynics in all walks of life (I’ve sometimes been one myself), my 46 years as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, faculty member, and institute leader in large universities, punctuated by stints in government, suggests to me that academics are particularly susceptible to cynicism. This is ironic because cynicism is an impediment to the very purpose of the university—the free and civil development and exchange of knowledge and ideas.
Furthermore, studies reviewed by Zaki show that cynicism, contrary to popular belief, is not clever: cynics have a harder time spotting liars than non-cynics. That is one reason, Zaki argues, that cynicism is a tool of the status quo. It robs us of hope, which is essential to action.
Hope is a key ingredient for university leaders like me who are trying to bring university research expertise into interdisciplinary collaborations and creative partnerships to help solve problems. Yet in some parts of many universities, it isn’t unusual to run into knee-jerk hostility toward non-university organizations, especially for-profit corporations, as “the bad guys” who can never be trusted. More than one colleague has asked with incredulity and dismay, “What, you are working with Walmart? Why?” Cynicism from academics is death to the prospect of society’s use of university-generated knowledge.
Unfortunately we don’t have to look hard to find some reciprocal cynicism aimed at universities. Polling conducted in 2024 revealed that the public’s trust in universities is at an all-time low, with only 28% of Americans having a “great deal of confidence” in universities. Some reasons for declining trust may apply distinctively to universities and have substantial merit, such as a lack of viewpoint diversity and high cost. Others may reflect underlying societal changes that are driving similar declines in trust in a broad array of institutions, including Congress, which currently is trusted by only 8% percent of the public. More generally, the percentage of Americans who believe that “most people can be trusted” declined from 73% during World War II (according to Zaki) to 46% in 1972, and to 32% in 2018, and remains in the low 30%’s. In a horrible feedback loop, all of this is fueled by and causes increasing cynicism.
As Zaki explains, cynicism is self-fulfilling. The attitudes, body language, and words we bring to a personal encounter determine in part the attitudes, body language and words we get back. If we bring trust or at least an open mind into a relationship we are more likely to get that in return.
Of course, as Zaki acknowledges, we do encounter people who are habitually untrustworthy, and institutions whose missions are antisocial. Hence as Zaki argues, the antidote to cynicism is not naive trust but hopeful skepticism.
Since skepticism and careful analysis of information is the very lifeblood of academic training, this should come naturally to academics. However, it is often outweighed by disciplinary arrogance (“the things that I know are the most important things to know”), and a delusion of moral superiority (“isn’t it self-evident that my goals are pure and my values are the right ones for everyone?”). I have encountered analogous hubris in corporations but here I will constrain my stone throwing inside my own glass house.
At Cornell Atkinson, we seek to facilitate collaborations between researchers who want to contribute their expertise to society and organizations who recognize the power of bringing complementary expertise to bear on topics of common interest. From the university perspective, such partnerships are essential to identify research results or future research topics that could be implemented at larger and longer scales. Research activities alone are unlikely to bridge the boundaries of academe and will not become self-perpetuating at scale without motivations provided by policy incentives or the potential for profit or both combined with private finance.
The reason we work with corporations, NGOs, and government agencies is because we want our work to inform sustainability across the globe. Collaborations with corporations, NGOs, and government agencies are essential to scaling solutions. With an attitude of hopeful skepticism, we rigorously evaluate potential partners and work with those who we trust to use their power to improve sustainability performance by their own or other organizations. In the coming year, join us in practicing hope that motivates action, and skepticism that carefully evaluates alternative solutions to today’s increasingly urgent sustainability challenges.