After findings about the brain areas responsible for understanding sarcasm and irony earlier in the week, we now have new research into the development of cynicism.
In this research, children of ages 6, 8 and 10 were told a story with an ambiguous ending that was open to multiple interpretations. These endings directly reflected the character's motivation. As expected, the ten-year-olds were most likely to ascribe a self-interested motivation to the central character, indicating a well-developed sense of cynicism.
What surprised researchers was that even the six-year-olds were more likely, on average, to interpret the character's behaviour as self-interested. This suggests that the seeds of a cynical outlook are sown earlier than had previously been thought. 
Mills, C.M. & Keil, F.C. (2005). The development of cynicism. Psychological Science, 16, 385-390
How to Be Creative
If we can all be creative, why is it so hard to come up with truly original ideas?
It's because creativity is mysterious. Just ask any scientist, artist, writer or other highly creative person to explain how they come up with brilliant ideas and, if they're honest, they don't really know.
But over the decades psychologists have given ordinary participants countless tests, forms and tasks and conducted hundreds of hours of interviews. From these emerge the psychological conditions of creativity.
Not what you should do, but how you should be...
Join PsyBlog's 51930 readers now:
Share/save this article:
Featured