The Deceivers are the Deceived

New research from the University of Waterloo shows those who desperately try and deceive others are the most easily deceived themselves.

It turns out those who often try to persuade people with disinformation; are more easily impressed by others distortions of the truth.

It’s the people that frequently engage in what researchers call persuasive bullshitting who are poor at identifying when they are on the receiving end.

Researchers say; this group experience problems when they have to distinguish scientifically accurate facts from academic sounding meaningless fiction.

The effect becomes more skewed once you factor in the group’s biases on any given topic.

What’s interesting is this group is also much more likely to fall for fake news headlines; say researchers.

Shane Littrell, lead author of the paper and cognitive psychology Ph.D. candidate at Waterloo, states:

It probably seems intuitive to believe that you can’t bullshit a bull-shitter, but our research suggests that this isn’t actually the case.

In fact, it appears that the biggest purveyors of persuasive bullshit are ironically some of the ones most likely to fall for it.

Littrell certainly has a way with words, on top of which he’s succinct and gets straight to the point.

Good stuff guy; and timely research if I may say so.

The researchers define “bullshit” as information designed to impress, persuade, or otherwise mislead people that’s often constructed without concern for the truth.

Mm, yes we know; it is the plague of our times on the internet.

The study identified two kinds of bullshit; persuasive and evasive.

The persuasive type uses misleading exaggerations to impress, persuade or fit in with others, while the evasive type uses irrelevant, evasive responses in situations where frankness might result in hurt feelings or reputational harm.

Over 800 people from the US and Canada participated in the study and underwent a battery of cognitive tests.

And the researchers concluded;

The more frequently someone engages in persuasive bullshitting the more likely they are to be duped by various types of misleading information.

And this is regardless of their cognitive ability, engagement in reflective thinking, or metacognitive skills.

Persuasive Bull-shitters seem to confuse superficial profoundness for actual profoundness; so, if something sounds profound, truthful, or accurate this means it really is.

The study: You can’t bull-shit a bull-shitter (or can you) is published in The British Journal of Social Psychology.

Deceivers like to give the impression that they are somehow important and knowledgeable; while they aim to deceptively influence those around them; but there’s a good degree of narcissism at work as well.

It’s interesting that prophecy seems to agree with the premise of this study with the words; ….deceiving others while being deceived; to refer to the mental state of people in the last days.

Basically people love their lies so much they want others to buy into them.