People with high levels of cynical distrust may be more likely to develop dementia, according to a new study

Cynical distrust, which is defined as the belief that others are mainly motivated by selfish concerns, has been associated with other health problems, such as heart disease. This is the first study to look at the relationship between cynicism and dementia. "These results add to the evidence that people's view on life and personality may have an impact on their health," said study author Anna-Maija Tolppanen, PhD, of the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. "Understanding how a personality trait like cynicism affects risk for dementia might provide us with important insights on how to reduce risks for dementia." For the study, 1,449 people with an average age of 71 were given tests for dementia and a questionnaire to measure their level of cynicism. The questionnaire has been shown to be reliable, and people's scores tend to remain stable over periods of several years. People are asked how much they agree with statements such as "I think most people would lie to get ahead," "It is safer to trust nobody" and "Most people will use somewhat unfair reasons to gain profit or an advantage rather than lose it." Based on their scores, participants were grouped in low, moderate and high levels of cynical distrust. A total of 622 people completed two tests for dementia, with the last one an average of eight years after the study started. During that time, 46 people were diagnosed with dementia. Once researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect dementia risk, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking, people with high levels of cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop dementia than people with low levels of cynicism. Of the 164 people with high levels of cynicism, 14 people developed dementia, compared to nine of the 212 people with low levels of cynicism.

Holding cynical beliefs about others may have a negative effect on your income according to research published by the American Psychological Association

"While previous research has associated cynicism with detrimental outcomes across a wide range of spheres of life, including physical health, psychological well-being and marital adjustment, the present research has established an association between cynicism and individual economic success," says Olga Stavrova, PhD, a research associate at the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, Germany, and lead author on the study. The research outlines a series of studies using survey data from the United States and Europe. The first two studies looked at cynicism (as measured by responses to a questionnaire) in national surveys of Americans (1,146 and 497 participants respectively) and income level at a later date. In both studies, a high level of cynicism was associated with lower income. Another study, focusing on a nationally representative sample of approximately 16,000 people in Germany, found that after nine years people with low levels of cynicism earned on average $300 per month more than their more cynical counterparts. The final study examined the potential universality of these findings, looking at survey data from 41 countries to see if societal factors could play a role. The negative association between cynicism and lower income was strongest in countries with higher levels of altruistic behavior, lower homicide rates and lower levels of overall societal cynicism. "There are actually some countries where cynical individuals do not necessarily earn less than their less cynical compatriots," said Stavrova. "These countries are those with pervasively high societal cynicism scores, rare pro-social behavior (e.g., charity donations) and widespread antisocial behavior (as indicated by high homicide rates) - in other words, countries where cynicism might be justified or even somewhat functional." One reason for these findings could be that cynical individuals are less likely to trust others and therefore forgo cooperation opportunities, said Stavrova. They are more likely to suspect mean motives behind other people's behavior, might be less likely to join collaborative efforts and may avoid asking for help in case of need, which may eventually undermine their economic success. "For example, employees who believe others to be exploitative and dishonest are likely to avoid collaborative projects and to forgo the related opportunities," said Stavrova. Similarly, cynical individuals might be likely to over-invest resources on protecting themselves from potential deceit, "covering their backs" at costs of focusing on their jobs. "Occupational success and economic prosperity represent important life goals for many people and promote life satisfaction and psychological well-being," said Stavrova. "Our findings may help in achieving these goals by encouraging people to adopt a more benevolent and idealistic view of human nature and trustful attitude towards their peers."

Practice may not make perfect, but visualization might

New research shows that people who imagined a visual target before having to pick it out of a group of distracting items were faster at finding the target than those who did an actual practice run beforehand. "The idea that we can train our brains to work better is all the rage across society, but our research suggests that the human brain may benefit as much, or even more, from imagining performing a task, than the brain does from practicing a task over and over," says psychological scientist and study author Geoffrey Woodman of Vanderbilt University. "Until now, people have thought that imagining performing a task improved how efficiently people could decide how to respond to objects, or how well those motor responses were executed. To our knowledge, this study is the first demonstration that imagery actually changes how information is processed early on in the visual system," Woodman explains. Imagery, or visualization, is commonly used as a technique to improve performance in various sports. When Woodman heard an interview with legendary tennis player Billie Jean King - in which she attributed her success in tournaments to imagining what the ball would look like coming at her under different conditions - he began to wonder whether visualization might actually improve visual processing and not just motor performance. The research team - including Vanderbilt researchers Robert M.G. Reinhart and Laura J. McClenahan - brought participants to the lab and had them look at a computer screen while their brain activity was recorded via EEG. The participants looked at a series of images, each of which contained a bunch of letter Cs arranged in a ring - importantly, the Cs varied in how they were oriented (i.e., which way the gap in the C pointed). The participants were asked to determine, as quickly and accurately as they could, whether a target - a red or green C with a particular orientation - was present or absent in each image. During one part of the experiment the participants were asked to imagine looking for the target C before the test trial. During another part of the experiment, participants were given an actual trial to practice on before they did the test trial. Imagining enabled participants to search more efficiently, speeding up how quickly they were able to find the target. And participants who imagined searching for the target showed bigger improvements in performance that did the participants who actually practiced the visual search. "We ended up running a fairly large number of experiments because it was so surprising that imagery beat actual practice," says Woodman. The results of these experiments indicated that imagination is superior to practice because it doesn't involve as much visual interference. When participants practice a search, the distracting stimuli (all the non-target Cs) appear to leave traces in memory that interfere with performance on the next visual search. When participants imagine the search, on the other hand, the non-target stimuli receive much less focus, and are therefore less likely to interfere with later performance. The increased efficiency brought on by imagination was also supported by the EEG data, which showed a link between imagination and a pattern of brain activity thought to be specialized for shifting visual attention. "We found that imagining searching for targets changed how strongly the visual system responded to the targets within 200 ms of an array of objects appearing," says Woodman. The researchers point out that these findings have broad implications across a variety of fields: "This study indicates that some of the success of imagery for learning in sports, music, and clinical settings is due to how well our sensory systems process inputs. So using imagery can change information processing in the brain at the earliest levels," Woodman concludes.