The document discusses workplace bullshit and how to deal with it. It defines bullshit as statements made without regard for truth and explores why people produce and consume bullshit. It presents the C.R.A.P framework for comprehending, recognizing, acting on, and preventing bullshit which includes encouraging critical thinking, expertise over opinions, and prohibiting excessive jargon. Some open questions are identified for further researching the impacts and causes of bullshit.

1. Confronting indifference
toward truth: Dealing with
workplace bullshit
Seminar at California State
University – Sacramento
12th March 2021
Professor Ian P. McCarthy

4. Overview
• What is bullshit?
• What do we know about bullshit?
• How to measure bullshit in the workplace?
• How to deal with bullshit in the workplace,,
using the C.R.A.P. Framework?
• Some other questions for the field of
bullshitlology to examine.

5. It all started with ……
Lies Lies
Lies
Lies
Lies
Truth
Lies
Lies
Truth Truth
Truth
• Why is there so much ‘lying’ happening in workplace meetings,
committees and communications?
• Why is it rarely called out and rejected?
• How does it impact how we work?
• What can we do about it?

6. However, what we are often
witnessing is not lying

7. Bullshitting versus lying
• Lying is an act concerned with
the truth and involves trying to
subvert it.
• A liar must know the truth to be
able to lie.
• Bullshitting is done with no
concern for the truth.
• A bullshitter has no regard for,
and is not constrained by, truth.
• A bullshitter’s bullshit can
sometimes turn out to be
correct.
“Whereas the liar misrepresents the
truth, the bullshitter ‘misrepresents
what he is up to” (p. 13).
“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever
circumstances require someone to
talk without knowing what he is
talking about.” (p. 63)
Frankfurt, H.G., 2009. On bullshit. Princeton University Press.

8. What is bullshit?
McCarthy, Ian P., David Hannah, Leyland F. Pitt, and Jane M. McCarthy. "Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with
workplace bullshit." Business Horizons 63, no. 3 (2020): 253-263.

9. What is bullshit?
• In 2018, the U.S. President
erroneously told the Canadian
Prime Minister that the United
States had a trade deficit with
Canada.
• The U.S. President later
admitted that he had no idea if
there was a deficit.
• This freedom from truth means
that leaders can say whatever it
takes to further their agenda.

10. Types of bullshit
• Persuasive bullshitting is motivated by a desire to impress or
persuade.
• Evasive bullshitting is a strategic circumvention of the truth.
• Social bullshitting is teasing, exaggerating, joking and trolling
during normal social intercourse.
– All of above types are intentional
– The first two are Machiavellian in nature.
• Unintended bullshitting is due to being unprepared, gullible,
sloppy, or deluded.
Littrell, S., Risko, E.F. and Fugelsang, J.A., 2021. The bullshitting frequency scale: Development and psychometric
properties. British Journal of Social Psychology, 60(1), pp.248-270.
McCarthy, Ian P., David Hannah, Leyland F. Pitt, and Jane M. McCarthy. "Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing
with workplace bullshit." Business Horizons 63, no. 3 (2020): 253-263.

11. Business bullshit
• Sets out an agenda for reducing business
bullshit.
• Links bullshit to phenomena such as
management fashions and the use of
jargon.
• “No longer is bullshit a handy supply of
manure for fertilising new ideas. Instead, it
can create a dangerous waste problem,
which could make people and, indeed, the
entire organisation profoundly ill” (p. 164).
Spicer, André. Business bullshit. Routledge, 2017.

12. Bullshit and critical thinking
• A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than
the ball. How much does the ball cost?
– 64.9% answer wrongly with 10 cents.
– 4.8% answer with some other wrong answer
– 30.3% answer correctly with 5 cents.
• Typical questions in a Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). (See
Pennycook et al. 2016)
Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Koehler, D.J. & Fugelsang, J.A. (2016). Is the cognitive reflection test a measure of both reflection and intuition?
Behavior Research Methods, 48, 341–348.

13. Why do people produce and believe bullshit?
• We bullshit more when:
– the social expectations to have an opinion are high.
– we expect to get away with it.
– the audience is un-knowledgeable.
• We are more receptive to bullshit when we have:
– lower cognitive skills, and paranormal beliefs, and ‘an uncritically
open mind’.
• We are more sensitive to bullshit when we have:
– an analytic cognitive mindset,
– critical thinking and scepticism.
Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Barr, N., Koehler, D.J. and Fugelsang, J.A., 2015. On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit.
Judgment and Decision making, 10(6), pp.549-563.
Petrocelli, J.V., 2018. Antecedents of bullshitting. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, pp.249-258.

14. Can you bullshit a bullshitter?
• Persuasive bullshitters were
more receptive to bullshit.
• Evasive bullshitters were less
susceptibility to the bullshit and
were even less susceptibility to
believing fake news.
• Persuasive bullshitters were also
more over-confident in their
intellectual abilities.
– They could be experiencing a
Dunning-Kruger type effect,
and suffer from a “bullshit
blindspot”,
Littrell S, Risko EF, Fugelsang JA. 'You can't bullshit a bullshitter' (or can you?): Bullshitting frequency predicts receptivity to various types of
misleading information. Br J Soc Psychol. 2021

15. Bullshitters who are they? Oh Canada!
Jerrim et al. 2019. “Bullshitters. Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives?” . Institute for the Study of Labor

16. Good bullshit
• Desirable bullshit in terms of the
managerial practices include:
– Commanding: an alternative to
command and control. A
workaround for managers. A sense
of commanding without
commands.
– Strategizing: articulating inspiring
futuristic visions without fully
understanding what is going on.
– The above can be expected or
considered ‘normal’ in particular
situations.
Christensen, L.T., Kärreman, D. and Rasche, A., 2019. Bullshit and organization studies. Organization Studies, 40(10), pp.1587-1600.

17. Workplace bullshit
• We define workplace bullshit as
“taking place when colleagues
make statements at work with no
regard for the truth”.
• “The term bullshit therefore
comprises both the communicative
act and the information in it.”
• “Bullshit can be conveyed in
written form (e.g., emails, letters,
reports), spoken form (e.g.,
conversations, speeches,
audio/video recordings), and
graphical form (e.g., photographs,
charts, diagrams).”
A colleague is a bullshitter when
they do not care whether their
statements are true.
Workplace bullshit occurs when
colleagues are prompted to
speak about something which
they do not possess the relevant
knowledge of the facts.
A colleague’s bullshit can
sometimes turn out to be
correct.
McCarthy, Ian P., David Hannah, Leyland F. Pitt, and Jane M. McCarthy. "Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with workplace bullshit."
Business Horizons 63, no. 3 (2020): 253-263.

18. The Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale
• This study describes the
development of a multi-item
scale for assessing employee
perceptions of bullshit in their
workplace.
– The Organizational Bullshit
Perception Scale
• Regard for truth
• The boss
• Bullshit language
Ferreira, C., Hannah, D., McCarthy, I., Pitt, L. and Lord Ferguson, S., 2021. This Place Is Full of It: Towards an Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale.
Psychological Reports

19. The Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale
• Plan to validate the scale using two
projects:
– A large U.S. Energy Company to
assess how bullshit levels vary
throughout the organization and are
correlated with different levels of
engagement and exit.
– Healthcare professionals in English
speaking countries, and how their
perceived bullshit by leaders is
correlated with different COVID-19
stats in the region.
Ferreira, C., Hannah, D., McCarthy, I., Pitt, L. and Lord Ferguson, S., 2021. This Place Is Full of It: Towards an Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale.
Psychological Reports

20. The C.R.A.P.
Framework for
dealing with
workplace
bullshit
McCarthy, Ian P., David Hannah, Leyland F. Pitt, and Jane M. McCarthy. "Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with workplace bullshit."
Business Horizons 63, no. 3 (2020): 253-263.

21. The C.R.A.P. framework
• Comprehending: What is it? Why does it exist?
• What is workplace bullshit?
• How is it different from lying and other forms of
misrepresentation?
• Why do people bullshit at work?
• How does it get spread?
• Why do people consume and allow workplace
bullshit?
• Never attribute to malice that which can adequately
be explained by:
– Incompetence, lack of support, stress, ignorance,
confusion, sloppiness and shyness

22. The C.R.A.P. Framework
• Recognizing: How to develop a ‘nose for bullshit’?
• The first rule of bullshit recognition is to expect it
(Berkun, 2011).
• It masquerades as:
– statements that are abstract and general in nature,
lacking details, sources, and logic.
– meaningless language, acronyms, buzzwords, and
jargon
• Bullshitters can sometimes produce and spread bullshit
unknowingly.

23. 2017, Howard Schultz, the
CEO of Starbucks on the
new Starbucks Roasteries:
“delivering an immersive,
ultra premium, coffee-
forward experience.”

24. The C.R.A.P. Framework
• Acting: What actions can employees take?
• Draw on Hirschman’s (1970) framework:
– Exit: escape from the bullshit.
– Voice: confront (or call out) the bullshit.
– Loyalty: accept the bullshit.
– Neglect: disengage from the bullshit.
• Consider the context and costs for the
above.

25. The C.R.A.P. Framework
• Prevent: How to stifle its production and
spread?
• Encourage critical thinking - What people
think and state, depends on how they think.
• Value expertise over egalitarianism, and
evidence over opinions.
– Expertise and evidence are central to
critical thinking and a disinfectant for both
the production and spread of bullshit.
• Prohibit excessive jargon and statistical
trickery.
• Eliminate pointless meetings and
committees.

26. The C.R.A.P. Framework
• Making “no bullshit” salient
should improve the ability to
make statements grounded in
logic and evidence.
• When does the “”reasoning”
happen:
– Before making a statement
– Or to justify a statement
one made.
•

27. Some more questions for the field of bullshitlology
• Which professions and job roles are most and least “full of it”?
• How does bullshit impact the performance of individuals, teams
and organizations?
• The link between bullshit and different attitudes and personalities:
– optimists vs. pessimists
– Extroverts vs, introverts.
• Test the bullshit asymmetry principle:
– The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of
magnitude bigger than to produce it. (Brandolini).
• Test the Insidious Bullshit Hypothesis
– That bullshit is more damaging than lying (Frankfurt)

28. 1. Don’t confuse bullshit with lying and
others forms of misrepresentation.
2. Don’t forget that bullshit is often
appealing and sometimes turns out to
be true.
3. Don’t forget that people knowingly
and unknowingly bullshit.
4. Don't listen and read with an
uncritically open mind.
5. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”
and “I don’t understand”.
Summary: Five don’ts

29. 1. Do call for or question logic and evidence, while
rejecting anecdotes.
2. Do be alert to inconsistencies, biases and vague
and jargon-filled statements.
3. Do proportion your belief to the availability of
evidence and its veracity.
4. Do prohibit excessive jargon, statistical trickery,
and pointless meetings and committees.
5. Do understand and adjust how colleagues ‘act’
toward bullshit.
Summary: Five dos

30. Thank you!