Interpreting cynical beliefs about others

A growing number of studies suggest that individuals are cynical about others’ behavior. But these findings often rely on self-reported rather than actual behavior as benchmark. A well-documented limitation of self-reports is their tendency to overstate good behavior. I introduce a simple, portable test to assess the extent to which inattention to others’ potential misreporting drives apparently cynical beliefs about stated behavior. Drawing people’s attention to the possibility of misreporting in self-reports increases beliefs about others’ stated desirable climate and health behaviors by an average of 0.33 standard deviations, substantially reducing apparent cynicism.