John V. Petrocelli

Wake Forest University | WFU · Department of Psychology

The commencement of a new editorial tenure within the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition (JPSP: ASC) provides an opportunity for reflection regarding the journal's core mission. The editors recognize that social psychology is at a crossroads due to competing demands that may have led to reduced submissions...

In a world where exposure to untrustworthy communicators is common, trust has become more important than ever for effective marketing. Nevertheless, we know very little about the long‐term consequences of exposure to untrustworthy sources, such bullshitters. This research examines how untrustworthy sources—liars and bullshitters—influence consumer...

Research suggests that a number of cognitive processes—including pattern perception, intentionality bias, proportionality bias, and confirmation bias—may underlie belief in a conspiracy theory. However, there are reasons to believe that conspiracy theory beliefs also depend in part on a failure to understand the probability of actual events alleged...

em>Background . Counterfactual thinking involves mentally simulating alternatives to reality. The current article reviews literature pertaining to the relevance counterfactual thinking has for the quality of medical decision making. Although earlier counterfactual thought research concluded that counterfactuals have important benefits for the indiv...

Although a ubiquitous social behavior, little is known about bullshitting (i.e., communicating with no regard for truth and/or evidence) and its effects on social perception and influence. Although bullshit and lies are viewed as undesirable, the distinction may have important implications for social influence. Frankfurt’s (1986) insidious bullshit...

Bullshit is the foundation of contaminated thinking and bad decisions that leads to health consequences, financial losses, legal consequences, broken relationships, and wasted time and resources. No matter how smart we believe ourselves to be, we’re all susceptible to bullshit―and we all engage in it. While we may brush it off as harmless marketin...

Bullshit results from communicating with little to no regard for truth, evidence, or established knowledge (Frankfurt, 1986; Petrocelli, 2018a). Such disregard for truth serves as a common source of antiscientific beliefs and endorsement of alternative facts and is thereby critical to understand. To examine how social perceptions of bullshit may be...

Although generally viewed as a common and undesirable social behaviour, very little is known about the nature of bullshitting (i.e., communicating with little to no regard for evidence or truth; Raritan Q Rev 6, 1986, 81); its consequences; and its potential communicative utility. Specifically, it is hypothesized that bullshitting may be may be rel...

We conducted a preregistered multi-laboratory project (k = 36; N = 3531) to assess the size and robustness of ego depletion effects using a novel replication method, termed the paradigmatic replication approach. Laboratories implemented one of two procedures that intended to manipulate self control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of...

Communication breakdowns among clinicians, patients, and family members can lead to medical errors, yet effective communication may prevent such mistakes. This investigation examined patients’ and family members’ experiences where they believed communication failures contributed to medical errors or where effective communication prevented a medical...

Two experiments investigate the role of self-regulatory resources in bullshitting behavior (i.e., communicating with little to no regard for evidence, established knowledge, or truth; Frankfurt, 1986 ; Petrocelli, 2018a ), and receptivity and sensitivity to bullshit. It is hypothesized that evidence-based communication and bullshit detection requir...

Why BS is more dangerous than a lie | John Petrocelli | TEDxUniversityofNevada

Although it appears to be a common social behavior, very little is known about the nature of bullshitting (i.e., communicating with little to no regard for evidence, established knowledge, or truth; Frankfurt, 1986) and the social conditions under which it is most likely to occur. The current investigation examines specific antecedents of bullshitt...

Previous research demonstrates that attitude certainty influences the degree to which an attitude changes in response to persuasive appeals. In the current research, decoding emotions from facial expressions and incidental processing fluency, during attitude formation, are examined as antecedents of both attitude certainty and attitude change. In E...

Experiential and associative learning are essential to optimal decision making. However, research shows that, even when exposed to repeated trials, people often fail to learn probabilities and cause/effect covariations. Consistent with the counterfactual inflation hypothesis, it is proposed that counterfactuals can interfere with memory of repeated...

People regularly rely upon advisors who have conflicts of interest. The law often requires the advisors to disclose these conflicts. However, the very fact that the advisor is disclosing a conflict of interest might be interpreted by some people as a sign that the advisor is trustworthy, undermining the purpose of the disclosure. This article prese...

The present research explores a new effect of regulatory resource depletion on persuasion by proposing that the experience of depletion can increase or decrease openness to attitude change by undermining perceived counterargument strength. Ironically, this openness is hypothesized to be strongest for individuals holding attitudes with high (versus...

Three experiments demonstrated that decisions resulting in considerable amounts of profit, but missed alternative outcomes of greater profits, were rated lower in quality and produced more regret than did decisions that returned lesser (or equal) amounts of profit but either did not miss or missed only slightly better alternatives. These effects we...

Estimates of unknown quantities are influenced by both self-generated anchors (SGAs) and externally provided anchors (EPAs; e.g., the advice of others). It was hypothesised that people use the degree of similarity between these anchors to render final responses. Thus we tested predictions drawn from metacognitive accounts of anchoring using procedu...

Existing research shows that people who have good current alternatives to their romantic partner are less committed to the relationship. The present research indicates that relationship committment also depends on perceptions of high quality forgone alternatives. The current research investigates the role of counterfactual potency (i.e., perceived...

Sell-side securities analysts who recommend stocks that they own have a conflict of interest. If investors buy the stocks in response to the analysts’ recommendations, the stocks’ prices will rise, increasing the analysts’ personal wealth. Thus, analysts are legally required to disclose financial interests in securities of companies they cover. How...

Using a multiple-trial stock market decision paradigm, the possibility that counterfactual thinking can be dysfunctional for learning and performance by distorting the processing of outcome information was examined. Correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) evidence suggested that counterfactuals are associated with a decrease in experient...

Accurate reports of mediation analyses are critical to the assessment of inferences related to causality, since these inferences are consequential for both the evaluation of previous research (e.g., meta-analyses) and the progression of future research. However, upon reexamination, approximately 15 % of published articles in psychology contain at l...

A sell-side securities analyst who recommends a stock that the analyst owns has a conflict of interest. If investors buy the stock in response to the analyst’s recommendation, the price of the stock will rise, increasing the analyst’s personal wealth. Because of this conflict of interest, analysts are required by law to disclose any financial inter...

Previous research suggests that counterfactual thoughts in reaction to undesirable, academic performances can enhance subsequent performances by providing functional, behavioral prescriptions. However, on the basis of research distinguishing counterfactual content for the self and others, metacognitive findings suggesting that people are inaccurate...

Prefactual thoughts typically take the form of implied or explicit if-then statements that represent mental simulations of alternatives to what is expected to occur in the future. The authors propose that the multiplicative combination of "if likelihood" (the degree to which the antecedent condition of the prefactual is perceived to be likely) and...

Despite repeated trials, people consistently fail to learn the solution to the Monty Hall problem (MHP). This research examines the links between learning, counterfactual thinking, and memory for decision/outcome frequencies. Study 1 participants completed 60 MHP trials and listed their thoughts following losses. Results showed that participants te...

Counterfactual thoughts typically take the form of implied or explicit if-then statements. We propose that the multiplicative combination of "if likelihood" (the degree to which the antecedent condition of the counterfactual is perceived to be likely) and "then likelihood" (the perceived conditional likelihood of the outcome of the counterfactual,...

This research introduces the concept of implicit theories of attitude stability. Across three studies, individuals are shown to vary both naturally and situationally in their lay theories about the stability of attitudes. Furthermore, these general theories are shown to impact people's certainty in their specific attitudes by shaping their percepti...

Three experiments examined the effectiveness of the forced-agreement scale effect (FASE) manipulation at influencing self-perceptions of traits and consistent behaviors. The FASE manipulation forces respondents to agree (at least somewhat) with behavioral statements from previously validated questionnaires. Experiment 1A required participants to ag...

Differences in people’s reactions to the same events described with full vs. sketchy information are examined. It is hypothesized that differences in counterfactual thought reactions to varying levels of event detail shape confidence in, and willingness to gamble on similar, future events. In three experiments, participants were presented with diff...

This research tests the idea that repeatedly generating counterfactual thoughts in response to recurring events can lead to impairments in memory for actual outcomes (i.e., counterfactual inflation hypothesis). Participants (N = 56) played 40 games of blackjack and listed their thoughts after each win. They were instructed to list evaluative counte...

Punitive responses to crime have been linked to a relatively low need for cognition (NFC). Sargent's (2004) findings suggest that this relationship is due to a relatively complex attributional system, employed by high-NFC individuals, which permits them to recognize potential external or situational causes of crime. However, high-NFC individuals ma...

Stereotype formation may be based on the exaggeration of real group differences (category accentuation) or the misperception of group differences that do not exist (illusory correlation). This research sought to account for both phenomena with J. K. Kruschke's (1996, 2001, 2003) attention theory of category learning. According to the model, the fea...

The past few years have seen an increased awareness of the relevance of studying the role of sexual response, emotion, and traits such as sensation seeking and the propensity for sexual inhibition in risky sexual behavior. The current study examined the association between self-reported sexual risk taking and psychophysiological response patterns i...

According to system justification theory, there is a general social psychological tendency to rationalize the status quo, that is, to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable. This tendency is reminiscent of the dispositional outlook of Voltaire's famous character, Dr. Pangloss, who believed that he was “living in the best of all possible wo...

Undergraduate students (N = 47), enrolled in 2 separate psychology research methods classes, evaluated a power analysis lab demonstration and homework assignment. Students attended 1 of 2 lectures that included a basic introduction to power analysis and sample size analysis. One lecture included a demonstration of how to use a computer-based power...

Attitude certainty has been the subject of considerable attention in the attitudes and persuasion literature. The present research identifies 2 aspects of attitude certainty and provides evidence for the distinctness of the constructs. Specifically, it is proposed that attitude certainty can be conceptualized, and empirically separated, in terms of...

The social motivation functions of intimacy, task, and social category groups were investigated. In two studies, participants were asked to consider the extent to which their group memberships fulfilled several needs. A factor analysis confirmed that the needs comprised three factors: affiliation, achievement, and identity. Intimacy groups were ass...

Discrepancies between people's ought selves and their actual selves and their ideal selves and actual selves predict the emotions that individuals experience. The authors predicted that internal versus external causal attributions for self-discrepancies should moderate the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions, resulting in more refi...

A review of the current literature suggests that comorbidity exists between depression, somatization, and suicidal ideation among behaviorally disruptive adolescents. A study was designed to determine how these clinical characteristics and other clinical indicators measured by the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory differentiate between male deta...

The authors describe use and development of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (E. I. McConnaughy, J. O. Prochaska, & W. F. Velicer, 1983) and examine the psychometric properties of scores from incarcerated male adolescents. Cluster analysis revealed 3 unique profiles (Precontemplators, Participators, and Undifferentiated). Implicatio...

Little is known about the role of inferiority feelings in the academic achievement of college students. Borrowing from the theoretical position that inferiority feelings may have a positive or negative impact on performance, the authors hypothesized that moderate feelings of inferiority would be associated with a higher level of academic achievemen...

The purpose of this article is to assist researchers in meeting the requirement of reporting effect sizes in quantitative research studies submitted to the Journal of Counseling & Development. This requirement is detailed in the “Guidelines for Authors” included in this issue. The authors provide practical information on generating, reporting, and...

Examined the cluster-derived typologies of males in a juvenile offender sample. Adolescent males, age 12-17, in a regional youth detention center were given the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Self Report-Adolescent (BASC-SRP-A; C. Reynolds &R. Kamphaus, 1992) and the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; T. Millon, 1993). Hierarchica...

Little investigative knowledge exists with regard to the roles that adolescent-parent relationships play in the development of female juvenile delinquency among African Americans. In the current investigation, the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD) and the Assessment of Interpersonal Relations were employed to examine 76 female African America...

The author examined the factor structure of the 12-item Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Scale (A. Strathman, F. Gleicher, D. S. Boninger, & S. Edwards, 1994) among 664 undergraduate university students enrolled in human development courses. A principal-components factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded 2 factors. The author used co...

A brief content analysis was conducted on the use of hierarchical regression in counseling research published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology and the Journal of Counseling & Development during the years 1997-2001. Common problems are cited and possible remedies are described.

Technical eclecticism and theoretical integration literature has typically examined how multiple approaches to counseling practice may lead to more comprehensive and functional outcomes. Few have proposed an integration of approaches from a scientist‐practitioner perspective; many others have neglected the richness found in the body of existing the...

Comments on the article by P. Glick and S. T. Fiske (see record 2001-00159-001) that introduced a perspective of how benevolent sexism may play a potent role in the inequality between the genders, as does hostile sexism. The author argues that close examination of the data does not suggest that much ambivalence existed among the samples examined by...

Comments on the article by P. Glick and S. T. Fiske (see record 2001-00159-001 ) that introduced a perspective of how benevolent sexism may play a potent role in the inequality between the genders, as does hostile sexism. The author argues that close examination of the data does not suggest that much ambivalence existed among the samples examined b...

Cognitive therapy holds a prominent place among theories of psychotherapy, empirically derived treatments, and efficacy studies of treatment outcome. Useful concepts, such as cognitive schemas, are well integrated among various cognitive therapies, and, yet, the empirical study and construct validation of specific cognitive schemas remain to be sys...

The current investigation was designed to identify the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Adolescent (MMPI–A) scales that discriminate between three general types of criminal offenses among male juvenile offenders and the degree to which selected scales discriminate. Seventy-two male juvenile offenders were classified according to type of...

Outcome studies support the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral approaches for treating various emotional and behavioral problems. The effectiveness of group cognitive-behavioral therapy (GCBT) has received less empirical attention. The current investigation employed meta-analytic procedures to examine various effects from a total of 22 published...

This investigation attempted to examine the cognitive schemas of five distinct clusters that emerged from a cluster analysis of the personality disorder scales of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (Millon, 1987). Specifically, the degree to which early maladaptive schemas, as measured by the Cognitive Schema Questionnaire-Short Form (Youn...

The current investigation was designed to examine particular maladaptive cognitive schemas as mediating variables of the relationship between the self-defeating personality and depression. A total of 82 mildly to severely depressed adult outpatients, referred for counseling and psychotherapy services, were assessed in terms of self-defeating person...

This investigation was designed to examine the relationship between depression severity and personality disorders measured by the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (Millon, 1987) and affectivity measured by the Positive Affectivity/Negative Affectivity Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Discriminant analyses were employed to identify...