How does social cynicism affect psychological well-being? : The mediating role of attention and memory of negative information

Abstract

Research on world-views and psychological well-being is burgeoning. Cynical world-view has been consistently found to predict various well-being indicators at both individual and culture levels. Yet, empirical studies examining the underlying process between cynical world-view and psychological health are scarce. Based on social schema theory and heightened attention hypothesis, while handling different information, the survival instinct deeply rooted in social cynics motivates them to stay away from potential hazards by enhancing sensitivity to negative information, which in turn dampens their psychological health. To test the proposed mechanism, three studies were conducted using multiple methods, namely cross-sectional design (N = 394 in Study 1), longitudinal design (N = 77 in Study 2), and diary design (N = 264 in Study 3). Results indicated that cynical world-view explained additional variance in diversified psychological well-being indicators over and above one’s self-view. Across three studies, results converged and confirmed the full mediation model; social cynics revealed elevated attention to negative information and amplified perceived vividness of negative memory, in turn reporting poor psychological well-being. Additional analyses showed that this indirect effect did not work for self-view to affect psychological well-being. Overall, the present research identified a process model underlying the function of world-views and highlighted the distinction between world-views and self-views in terms of their predictabilities.