The Illusion of Cynical Intelligence and the Power of Curious Questions
In the thick of the first pandemic wave, a senior executive pitched an idea with great enthusiasm: an app that would utilise smartphones to detect when people were too close to one another, thereby violating the sacred two-metre rule. Around the boardroom table, heads nodded. It sounded sleek, simple, even smart.
Except, I knew it wouldn't work. Not because I was a cynic. Because I knew the users. Before every shift, they locked away their phones, and I also wondered it the tech could reliably measure distances through pockets, let alone things like doors. So I raised a hand - not to poke holes, but to ask questions.
But the air turned. The room stiffened. What I offered as insight, others heard as obstruction. The questions were seen not as collaboration but as a challenge. Eventually, someone else built the app.
This moment captures something more profound than just a failed product. It exposes the uneasy tension between two very different ways of questioning - one performative, the other sincere. One intended to signal power, the other to prevent error. One that commands the room, and another that often gets ushered out of it.
Cynicism Looks Smart - But Isn’t
There’s a peculiar social illusion that persists in workplaces and boardrooms: the cynical voice often sounds the smartest. Research backs this up. A 2015 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people perceived cynics as more intelligent, even though their performance on objective measures did not support this view.
The researchers, Olga Stavrova and Daniel Ehlebracht, argued that cynical individuals are often perceived as having a deeper, more realistic understanding of the world. Yet, ironically, cynicism can impair decision-making, reduce trust, and lead to poorer long-term outcomes.
Cynicism is also self-reinforcing. A cynical person rarely has to prove anything. By doubting every idea, they never have to build one. If a project succeeds, they were merely “sceptical,” not wrong. If it fails, they saw it coming. “Told you so”. This shields the cynic from the risk of failure, and therefore from the possibility of growth. It is a safe place to sit, throwing stones from the edge.
But optimism, in its way, can be just as distorting. The blind optimist charges ahead, believing in the inevitability of success. Both extremes share a quiet arrogance: the belief that they can predict the future - one with doom, the other with triumph. Both are uninterested in complexity. And both can be hostile to questions.
In one experiment, people were more likely to trust leaders who framed their critiques with scepticism rather than optimism, even when the optimistic approach led to better outcomes. It’s a cognitive bias we carry: scepticism equals sophistication. But beneath the surface, it can mask insecurity, power play, or a lack of engagement.
The Misread Question
This illusion becomes especially dangerous when it meets neurodivergent communication. For many autistic people, questioning isn’t a power move, it’s a form of responsibility. It’s a drive to reduce error, to clarify, to understand better. Yet the world doesn’t always hear it that way.
Research into the communication styles of autistic individuals, particularly in relation to language development and question-asking, reveals a fundamental difference in intention. Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), for example, is based on the idea that when autistic children are encouraged to ask their own questions, their communication skills develop significantly.
But outside therapeutic settings, that instinct to clarify often meets misunderstanding. The "double empathy problem," a concept coined by Damian Milton, explains how autistic and non-autistic people frequently misread each other, not because either lacks empathy, but because they interpret the world through different lenses.
So when someone like me asks, "Will the app still work if phones are in lockers?" it's not a power play. It's an attempt to help. But it can be interpreted as defiance, negativity, or worse, insubordination.
The Power Dynamic of Questions
Philosopher Michel Foucault once noted that knowledge and power are inextricably linked. Questions, especially in institutional settings, are rarely neutral. In corporate or hierarchical environments, who gets to ask questions - and how - is tied to perceived authority.
In 2018, a study in Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes revealed that people who ask more questions are generally seen as more competent and more likeable unless the questions appear to challenge authority. In those moments, particularly when asked by someone without perceived status, the same curiosity is often reinterpreted as criticism.
This is where the autistic tendency to ask detailed, precise questions, often without the usual deference signals, can rub badly against workplace norms. The motive is clarity. The reception is conflict.
When Questions Save
Yet, again and again, we see how valuable that kind of questioning can be. Consider the case of Dr. John Snow, who in 1854 traced a deadly cholera outbreak in London to a contaminated water pump. His theory contradicted the prevailing miasma model of disease. He asked the questions no one else dared. He mapped, investigated, and eventually persuaded local authorities to disable the pump. The outbreak subsided.
His was not a cynical question, it was a curious one, born of evidence and insistence. But initially, it was read as insubordination to the medical consensus.
In the modern context, consider tech whistleblowers like Frances Haugen, who questioned Facebook’s internal practices not to provoke scandal, but to prevent harm. Her questions, rooted in data and concern, were interpreted as betrayal by the company, but seen as public service by the world.
Reframing the Value of Inquiry
So what if we rewired our institutions to distinguish between questions born of ego and questions born of care?
This is not just about autism. It’s about valuing a way of thinking that prioritises outcomes over optics. That doesn't just seek to sound smart, but to be right, for everyone’s sake.
Because sometimes, the smartest question in the room is the one that no one wants to hear. And often, the person asking it is the one trying hardest not to win the argument, but to save the effort.
And here lies a possible reason why many autistic individuals, particularly those labelled as "high-functioning" (a term that flattens more than it illuminates), often struggle in traditional workplaces. Their questions, their diligence, and their refusal to conform to flawed groupthink can be interpreted as obstruction rather than insight. When communication styles clash with corporate norms, the person who dares to question can be sidelined, labelled as difficult, or quietly excluded from opportunities.
It may be no coincidence that autistic adults are disproportionately unemployed or underemployed, even when they possess above-average qualifications. The issue isn’t a lack of ability. It’s the systemic misreading of motive. A workforce that rewards cynical passivity or performative optimism is poorly equipped to recognise and value earnest scrutiny.
Reaching potential requires an environment where intelligent challenge is seen not as a threat, but as a contribution. Until that changes, we will continue to waste a great deal of talent, not because people aren't capable, but because they're misunderstood.
In the end, it’s not about who controls the room. It’s about who’s brave enough to risk the silence that follows a question no one else thought to ask.
And sometimes, that bravery looks a lot like care.
Peace and love, MP
References
1. Stavrova, O. & Ehlebracht, D. (2015). The cynical genius illusion: Lay beliefs about cynicism and intelligence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
2. Stavrova, O. et al. (2024). *Cynical beliefs about human nature and income: longitudinal and cross-cultural analyses.*
3. Stavrova, O. & Ehlebracht, D. (2016, 2019). Findings on cynicism’s association with lower competence and empathy.
4. Education as an Antidote to Cynicism (2018). Longitudinal study connecting education with reduced cynicism.
5. Milton, D. (2012). *On the ontological status of autism: the 'double empathy problem'.*
6. National Autistic Society (2018). Summary of the double empathy problem.
7. Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) literature: Koegel & Kern Koegel.
8. Organizational Behaviour study (2018). Questions and authority dynamics.
9. Double empathy problem implications for employment.