From Our Members: Approaching Cynicism as Functional, Maladaptive, and Changeable is Crucial to the Longitudinal Health Trajectories of OEF/OIF/OND Veterans – Andrew J. Smith, PhD, Tillman Military Scholar

Cynicism can come to dominate the worldview of combat veterans, especially those who struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) characterized by hypervigilance and chronic threat detection (see Todd et al., 2015). This insight is no doubt familiar to many clinicians working in veteran care settings. Accruing evidence suggests that cynicism—and negative worldview-related byproducts— serve as an integral barrier to health care and healthy re-integration into life after combat (see Arbisi et al., 2013; Crawford et al., 2015; Held & Owens, 2012; Hoge et al., 2004; Sayer et al., 2009). According to a vast evidence base in personality/health psychology, chronic cynicism that calcifies as a trait-like entity is one of our best predictors of biopsychosocial dysfunction across the lifespan (e.g., metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, low social support, divorce; see Glazer-Baron et al., 2007; Miller et al., 1996; Mommersteeg & Pouwer, 2012; Smith, 2006; Smith, Glazer, Ruiz, & Gallo et al., 2004).

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