8 Tips for How to Stop a Bullsh*tter According to New Scientific Research
They come in all shapes and sizes — we all know at least one bullsh*tter. If you’re lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to still hang out with your college, high school, or childhood friends, you probably have to deal with several on a regular basis.
Even if you don’t have any friends in real life, like me, you probably still have to deal with the infamous bullsh*tter at work. (Although I work online so I don’t really have coworkers and it’s awesome: I actually like everyone I work with now.)
Me? I have very low patience for bullsh*t.
It gets me into trouble sometimes because I’m a very small woman and women generally tend to keep negative thoughts to themselves around strangers. Not me.
I’m blunt and the older I get, the worse I get at lying — even out of politeness. In fact, people who lie or don’t say exactly what they think became a huge pet peeve of mine over the past decade or so. What I’m getting at is that people who don’t know me well usually don’t expect me to call them out on their bullsh*t. They think I’ll believe them or at the very least let it fly.
Nope.
Maybe that’s why I don’t really have any friends? There could be a connection here.
What Makes Someone Become a Bullsh*tter?
I can’t really help you develop the apathy I’ve spent years crafting but I can help you spot a bullsh*tter before or during the act. I can’t take too much credit, however, because my suggestions come from John V. Petrocelli’s research at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Petrocelli has published countless studies and articles about personality and social psychology. His most recently published work in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, titled “Antecedents of Bullsh*tting,” looks at factors that may cause a person to become a bullsh*tter.
Why is this important? Well, because lying is not the same as bullsh*tting. A bullsh*tterdoesn’t try to hide or conceal the truth — they just don’t really care about the truth. Bullsh*tters usually have more concern for protecting their own ego or social status. Although researchers have conducted thousands (don’t quote me on that figure) of studies about lying, there weren’t any about bullsh*tting.
The First Experiment
For the first experiment, Petrocelli asked 594 participants on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to fill out a form. The word “bullsh*tter” did not appear anywhere in the form’s copy and participants thought they were answering questions about social behavior.
The form described a scene where a man running for City Council decides to pull out of the race. Petrocelli provided a little bit of background info (13 facts) on the candidate, Jim, to half of the participants. Participants were asked — but not required — to provide five reasons for why this man may have resigned. In fact, Petrocelli explicitly told half of the participants they didn’t have to provide any answers if they didn’t have an opinion. He further manipulated the test by telling half of the participants that the person scoring the results knew Jim very well.
Following their answers, Petrocelli asked participants to rate their own answers based on the factual evidence he provided (truth).
From this experiment, Petrocelli gained a bit of insight.
- Participants who did not receive the 13 facts about Jim admitted post-survey that they bullsh*tted in their answers.
- People bullshi*ted more often when Petrocelli didn’t explicitly tell them that providing opinions were optional.
- Participants bullsh*tted more often when they thought the person scoring the test did not know anything about Jim.
Do you see a pattern yet?
“Anything that an audience may do to enhance the social expectation that one should have or provide an opinion appears to increase the likelihood of the audience receiving bullsh*t,” Petrocelli said.
The Second Experiment
Also online, Petrocelli asked participants to provide their opinion on controversial issues like nuclear weapons and affirmative action. He told some of the participants that a sociology professor would score their responses. He further manipulated this group by telling a few that the professor either agreed or disagreed with their opinion. Other participants received no information about the person scoring their responses.
Again, Petrocelli asked participants to rate their own BS levels post-survey.
People who knew nothing about the person scoring their survey and those who thought the professor agreed with them admitted to more bullsh*ting. Those who thought a professor with an opposing opinion would score the survey bullsh*tted far less.
How to Stop a Bullsh*tter
Looking at Petrocelli’s experiments, we can conclude a few things.
- Bullsh*tting includes a social aspect — it’s more than internal delusions.
- People fear getting called out — especially from smart people.
- People bullsh*t when they feel they can get away with it.
- Someone is more likely to bullsh*t when they feel socially obligated to provide an opinion.
So, how can you stop a bullsh*tter? Here are a few tips.
- Don’t be afraid to call them out. If you do, they will probably walk their words back or at least stop talking.
- What is the conversation’s dynamic? Make them feel like it’s okay to not have an opinion.
- Assert yourself as an informational authority (without bullsh*tting of course). Mention a study you saw, an article you read, or expert you spoke to on the subject.
- Be assertive and firm but not snarky — smugness will probably make them bullsh*t even more.
- Keep asking them questions about the subject you know they can’t answer. They’ll probably give up.
- Don’t ever bullsh*t. If you can utter the words “I don’t know,” (and surprisingly many people can’t) the person bullsh*tting might admit that too.
- Don’t make the conversation feel like a competition between concrete opinions. Keep things flexible.
- Ask them where they learned the things they’re bullsh*tting about. (But not in those words.)
If all else fails, I don’t know what to tell you. I guess you should just avoid that person to keep your blood pressure at healthy levels.
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is the co-founder of Geopolitics Alert Independent World News.