Publication Type
News Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2016
Abstract
Cynicism, for instance about startling turns in global affairs, can be toxic. A dose of healthy scepticism is a much better approach. Trust is an important foundation in interactions between people, and this applies in relationships between friends, employee and employer, or citizens and the government. At the government level, recent surprise world events, such as Brexit, when Britons voted to leave the European Union, and last week's election of anti-establishment figure Donald Trump to the United States presidency, suggest a disruption of that foundation of trust. One challenge from such a turn of events is the rise of cynicism. A cynic thinks that everything that others do is motivated by their self-interest, that people do good only to seek personal glory or as a calculated investment to reap some material gain. The cynic also believes that people will lie to get ahead and exploit others when they can get away with it - that people cannot be trusted to say what they mean and mean what they say.
Keywords
cynicism, scepticism, government, attitudes
Discipline
Psychology | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social Influence and Political Communication
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Straits Times
First Page
A44
Last Page
A44
ISSN
1692-9344
Publisher
Singapore Press holdings
Citation
CHAN, David, "In a funk over Trump" (2016). Research Collection School of Social Sciences. Paper 2023.
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2023
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2023
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Psychology Commons, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons