Science Proves That Bullshitters are More Intelligent Than Honest People
Moviestore. Shutterstock Images.Daily Mail - People who are better at making up 'bullst' explanations for things tend to have a higher cognitive ability than their peers, a study has concluded.
Experts from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, conducted tests to explore the link between people's willingness and skill at lying and their cognitive abilities.
Fortunately, even though smarter people are better at making up nonsense, the team found that they were less likely to do so than their less-intelligent counterparts. …
A person’s bullstting ability is positively associated with how smart they seem and how smart they genuinely are,' paper author and clinical psychologist Mane Kara-Yakoubian of Ryerson University told PsyPost.
'We propose that bullstting may have emerged as an energetically inexpensive strategy of obtaining prestige, status, or goods in domains where success is determined by the subjective evaluation of others.'
Such areas, she noted, include politics, public speaking and the fine arts.
'A person can go through the process of acquiring the necessary skills to succeed in a particular domain, or they can bullst their way through it, and be rewarded similarly,' Ms Kara-Yakoubian continued.
I suppose I could lump this study in with the ever-expanding field of Unnecessary Research into the Painfully Obvious. But I won't. Because even though this is something all of us at one time or another intuited, it's important that science produce the data to back it up.
To me, this is personal. As someone who has prided myself on the way I've bullshitted my way through life, it's important to me that that ability gets the respect it deserves.
And to be clear, I don't think either the experts at Ryerson University nor a professional bullshitter like myself are talking about simple, garden variety liars. People who make up stuff about who they are, what they've done and who they've done it with out of whole cloth. It's easy to say you got a degree in something you never studied or claim you're from somewhere you've never been or make up relationships you've never had. You can't get a good Catfishing off the ground without that. The internet is full of that. Come to think of it, so are the courts and jails. But there's no skill to it. Any slack-jawed moron can utter simple falsehoods.
What I want to celebrate is the fine, subtle art of being able to spin a narrative. To dazzle people. To paint word pictures so impressive they'll buy whatever you're selling. To make yourself sound so convincing, they'll think you're an expert on a subject you know nothing about. Which to me, takes more brainpower than actually becoming an expert. Yes, it's a shortcut. But like my high school Algebra teacher use to put it any time he showed us a shortcut, "Mathematicians are lazy." Which I took to mean the smart ones figure out the easiest way to tackle a problem. Such it is in Algebra, so it is in life. And I say that as someone who got a C- in Alegbra.
Just look at pop culture. How many highly successful people do you see who are not the best in their field, but got ahead through the underappreciated skill of out-bullshitting the rest. Saul Goodman is by no means the cleverest lawyer on TV. But no one can touch his BS game, which is how by the last season of Breaking Bad he's got access to a Self Storage unit piled high with 100s. Loki is the best Marvel villain because he is the Norse God of Bullshit, which is more powerful than Thunder. What is Succession but the story of a family empire built upon the patriarch's powers of bullshit. George Costanza was the biggest loser in sitcoms until he harnessed his bullshitting ability to land his dream job at the New York Yankees. Despite having no other definable, useful traits.
So thank you science, on behalf of proud bullshitters everywhere. Those of us who operate in banter the way other artists work in oils or clay. Resume padders. Spouses coming home late. Motorists at traffic stops. Sports media hosts. Politicians. People at parties and bars trying to get laid. And of course, bloggers. Anyone out there trying to use their intellect to avoid actually having to accomplish things is grateful that the data backs us up and proves that the skills we do possess - in lieu of any actual skills - have value in and of themselves.
Just remember I didn't call myself a genius for getting this far just on my bullshitting ability. Academia did.