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Study: Stop Being So Cynical, You Could Give Yourself Dementia

Posted by timothy on from the yeah-right-grandma dept.

concertina226 (2447056) writes "Scientists from the University of Eastern Finland have found that people who have high levels of cynical distrust are three times as likely to suffer from dementia in later life, than those who have more faith in other people. Their study is the first of its kind to look at the relationship between cynicism and dementia. Entitled: 'Late-life cynical distrust, risk of incident dementia, and mortality in a population-based cohort', it is published in the latest issue of the journal Neurology. Over a period of eight years, the researchers studied 1,499 people, who all had an average age of 71. The participants were given tests for dementia and a questionnaire to measure their level of cynicism, based on the Cook-Medley Scale."

6 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. There's a relationship... by Morphine007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... but is it cause and effect? Or effect and effect? Could the very high levels of cynical distrust be a result of some malady that eventually causes the dementia?

    --
    Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
    1. Re:There's a relationship... by bluegutang · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd guess that cynical or distrustful people end up with lesser social connections to other people, a factor which has already been linked to dementia.

    2. Re:There's a relationship... by cyn1c77 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd guess that cynical or distrustful people end up with lesser social connections to other people, a factor which has already been linked to dementia.

      I'd guess that the cynicism is an early manifestation of dementia in the people who manifest dementia!

      How do we tell who is right in proper peer-reviewed fashion?

  2. Correlation is not causation by gweihir · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Seems these people and the OP have already given themselves stupidity...

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Correlation is not causation by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "What if cynicism is just an early warning sign of dementia?"

      We used to call it a cranky old fart.

  3. A conversation is not a syllogism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A conversation, even online, is not a syllogism.

    Conversation requires context and shared assumptions. Of course those are often not shared, not fully understood, there can be willful disagreement, misunderstandings, and simple sloppiness.

    All of this activates the typical Slashdot amateur logicians and philosophers who set out to 'prove' the other person is ignorant, stupid, evil or all of those. A pointless exercise repeated ad nauseum.

    Of course the statement you posted is 'stupid'. (technically it simply not a logically valid argument.) It is trivially 'stupid' because the word 'need', in a logical sense, allows any alternate possibility. (A stealth version of affirming the consequent.) We could reduce our dependence on foreign oil by killing 90% of the population. Oil dependence - problem solved. Oops! New problems.

    TLDR: It's all in the assumptions. And yours are wrong.

    Further reading: GEB, to see how even syllogisms fall apart or spiral out of control without SOME shared context and assumptions.