How Well Can You Detect BS?
Have you ever heard of Deepak Chopra? Neither had I until I stumbled upon this study by Pennycook et al. Chopra is an alternative medicine advocate known for tweeting, well, BS. Take this: “Attention & intention are the mechanics of manifestation” — and please explain to me what this means, because frankly I’m at a loss. All of Chopra’s quips are equally as pseudo-profound, yet some people truly believe he’s a genius. You might be (definitely are) wondering, how is this possible? Pennycook et al. asked themselves the same exact question.
In their paper, “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullsh*t,” Pennycook et al argue that Chopra is so popular because he has become a master at the art of BS-ing. Using buzzwords in such an ambiguous context is the perfect way to create an air of wisdom without any actual substance. Through a combination of psychological tests, Pennycook et al provide evidence for two mechanisms that could explain a general “receptivity” to BS. A person with a higher-than-average level of receptivity tends to accept items at face value, and subsequently fails to provide the stimulus special consideration (a process called conflict monitoring). In their study, Pennycook et al use a variety of tests throughout several studies to attempt to establish a legitimate measure of BS receptivity. While I decided to highlight tests with the highest levels of internal consistency, please note this is not an exhaustive list.
In the first study participants were presented with ten made-up statements similar in vagueness to Chopra’s tweets and asked to rate its profundity on a scale of 1 to 5, with the authors arguing that a score of 5 indicated high BS receptivity. Next they were given the Cognitive Reflection Test, which consists of mathematical word problems that cue an incorrect intuitive response. This was used to reflect the tendency to avoid miserly cognitive processing. Participants were also asked to rate their level of agreement with eight widely-held religious beliefs. For this study, the overall BS Receptivity (BSR) scale had good internal consistency (α = .82), indicating that the subjects failed to detect that the vague statements were BS and this tendency was significantly related to cognitive variables of conceptual interest in the way you’d expect.
In the second study the researchers asked participants to rate the level of profundity of real-world examples of BS, followed by the Paranormal Belief Scale which included questions regarding witchcraft, spiritualism, and precognition. Overall the BSR scale had excellent internal consistency (α = .93) and was positively correlated with ontological confusions and both religious and paranormal belief.
Other tests worth mentioning include a general conspiracy beliefs scale which included items like “a small, secret group of people is responsible for making all major world decisions, like going to war,” and an alternative medicine scale which measured the participants’ level of confidence in the efficacy of various alternative medicine practices. (I bet our boy Chopra scored pretty high on this one.)
Pennycook et al compared a battery of tests to one another to create what they argue is a reliable index of BS receptivity, and in my opinion they’re not too far off. The researchers were able to pinpoint specific cognitive processes that correlate with religious and paranormal beliefs to suggest the existence of different psychological profiles that are more or less susceptible to BS.
The biggest takeaway from this article? BS-ing isn’t an art, it’s a science.
