Let’s be real, the most irritating of all Instagram traits, apart from selfies Facetuned so hard you can barely make out someone’s features, is the people who post inspirational or motivational quotes.
I am 100% guilty of it myself when times get rough and I need to ‘handle it’. In fact, I posted one two weeks ago. But I hated myself approximately two seconds after posting it because I looked like a knob, craving a ‘OMG U OK HUN?!’ text.
But if anyone that pollutes your feed with ‘profound’ words of ‘wisdom’ induces some sort of rage blackout, here’s some news that will bring comfort to your cynical soul. Apparently, people who are more receptive to those mumbo jumbo quotes get lower scores in cognitive tests.
So posting some shit like ‘Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you’ll end up among the stars’ means you’re not as smart as those who don’t, apparently.
A study, with the best name in the history of studies, entitled ‘On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bulls***t’, and published in the journal Judgement and Decision Making, examined 845 volunteers and asked them to say how profound they thought a series of statements were, and if they agreed with them. Participants then had to do a series of cognitive tests.
Lead researcher Gordon Pennycook, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, said: ‘Although bulls**t is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception – critical or ingenuous – has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation.’
He added: ‘We focus on pseudo-profound bulls**t, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.’
So those ‘more receptive to bullshit’ are ‘less reflective, lower in cognitive ability, are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.’
The findings are interesting, and coincide nicely with the trend for ‘unspo’ posts on Instagram, like Deliciously Stella, a reaction to that all-too-earnest posting all over your feeds, which jars slightly with the British love of cycnicism.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.