People Talk A Lot. Yet Say Very Little.

Littrell and colleagues recruited a total of 826 participants from Canada and the United States. Study 1 explored the extent to which bullshitting frequency was associated with pseudo-profound bullshit, scientific bullshit, and fake news, with each task including a measure of receptivity to relev...

later when we realize we’ve been duped. But other types can potentially be more harmful, especially when one’s health is concerned.”

Bullshit receptivity and bullshitting frequency are both negatively associated with cognitive ability and analytic thinking. Thus, it could be the case that ...

Lastly, Study 3 experimentally tested whether the observed association was the product of higher frequency persuasive bullshitters being insensitive to the differences in statements that sound profound and those that actually are profound. One group of participants were instructed to rate items o...