Those Who Buy Into Inspirational Quotes Are Less Intelligent, According To A New Study

There's a direct correlation between the rise in Instagram's popularity and the instance of inspirational quotes (so many reposted quotes, so many). But a new study claims there's also a relationship between how many you post and how intelligent you are. In fact, it suggests that the more you buy into quotes the less intellectual you might be.

A study by Gordon Pennycook, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and a team of researchers recently published their findings on what they called “pseudo-profound bullsh*t” and how it relates to your intellectual level. Eek.

Participants were asked to rank a series of aforementioned 'psuedo-profound' statements on how profound they were. But what they didn't know was that Pennycook had used a wesbite that randomly generates the phrases, which according to the study were “collection of buzzwords put together randomly in a sentence that retains syntactic structure.” Ie. nonesense.

The test resulted in an average rating of 2.5 on the profound scale - which the testers deemed as midly profound. The participants then did a second test using real-life quotes by, say Ghandi, and two more tests which used mundane sentences as a control like 'most people enjoy some sort of music,' to check people weren't just saying everything was profound.

The results were fathomed using personality traist and the test results, and showed that those who believed in the profound were “less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy,) and are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation."

The takeaway: don't believe everything you read. But, while we should all definitely take those quotes by Marilyn Monroe et al supposedly said with a very large pinch of salt, is it really so bad to repost a quote that captures your mood from time to time? We say if it feels good, then do it.

What do you think? Are you a fan of inspirational quotes? Tell us on Twitter @GraziaUK

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