#591 John Petrocelli - The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit
RECORDED ON NOVEMBER 12th 2021.
Dr. John Petrocelli is Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University. He is a social psychologist and his research involves experimental social cognition and judgment and decision making. His specific research interests include attitude strength and persuasion, bullshitting, counterfactual thinking and metacognition. He is the author of The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit.
In this episode, we focus on The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. We define bullshit, and discuss the motivations behind bullshitting, and the social contexts that promote it. We talk about the costs of bullshit, individual differences in proneness and susceptibility to bullshitting. We discuss how we can determine that something is bullshit, and signs of it. We go into the tactics employed by bullshit artists. We discuss why TED Talks might be problematic, and help disseminate bullshit. Finally, we discuss how we can prevent bullshit from spreading.
Time Links:
Intro
What is bullshit?
The motivations behind bullshitting
The idea of everyone being entitled to their own opinion
Social contexts that promote bullshitting
The costs of bullshit
Proneness and susceptibility to bullshitting
Detecting bullshit
Do people care if others bullshit?
Signs of bullshit
Bullshit artists, pseudoscience, and science denial
Are TED Talks problematic?
Can we prevent bullshit from spreading?
Follow Dr. Petrocelli’s work!
Follow Dr. Petrocelli’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3xEp5VE
The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit: https://amzn.to/3d00zGi
Twitter handle: @JohnVPetro