Jonathan A Fugelsang

• PhD
• Professor at University of Waterloo

Understanding individual differences in metacognitive ability is vital to gaining a better understanding of how we think about our own thinking. Past research has shown that individual differences in grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are related to overconfidence and self-reported metacognitive insight. Building off this work, we present results...

Across three studies (N = 659), we present evidence that engaging in explanatory reflection reduces receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit but not scientific bullshit or fake news. Additionally, ratings for pseudo-profound and scientific bullshit attributed to authoritative sources were significantly inflated compared to bullshit from anonymous so...

People often overestimate their understanding of how things work. For instance, people believe that they can explain even ordinary phenomena such as the operation of zippers and speedometers in greater depth than they really can. This is called the illusion of explanatory depth. Fortunately, a person can expose the illusion by attempting to generat...

The growing prevalence of misleading information (i.e., bullshit) in society carries with it an increased need to understand the processes underlying many people's susceptibility to falling for it. Here we report two studies (N = 412) examining the associations between one's ability to detect pseudo-profound bullshit, confidence in one's bullshit d...

It has been argued that the experience of ease (i.e., the ability to quickly generate an initial response) during processing influences one’s likelihood of engaging reflectively when reasoning. This is a key feature of of Thompson et al.’s (2011) Metcogntive Reasoning Theory (MRT), and numerous studies have found support for this claim by showing t...

Across four studies participants ( N = 818) rated the profoundness of abstract art images accompanied with varying categories of titles, including: pseudo-profound bullshit titles (e.g., The Deaf Echo ), mundane titles (e.g., Canvas 8 ), and no titles. Randomly generated pseudo-profound bullshit titles increased the perceived profoundness of comput...

Does one’s stance toward evidence evaluation and belief revision have relevance for actual beliefs? We investigate the role of endorsing an actively open-minded thinking style about evidence (AOT-E) on a wide range of beliefs, values, and opinions. Participants indicated the extent to which they think beliefs (Study 1) or opinions (Studies 2 and 3)...

In the domain of scratch card gambling, “pushes” refer to outcomes in which a prize is won that is equal to the cost of a scratch card game. Despite resulting in no net monetary gain, these outcomes are categorized as wins by lottery operators, effectively inflating published scratch card information (e.g., posted odds of winning). Additionally, th...

The Keats heuristic suggests that people find esthetically pleasing expressions more accurate than mundane expressions. We test this notion with chiastic statements. Chiasmus is a stylistic phenomenon in which at least two linguistic constituents are repeated in reverse order, conventionally represented by the formula A-B-B-A. Our study focuses on...

A consistent finding reported in the literature is that epistemically suspect beliefs (e.g., paranormal beliefs) are less frequently endorsed by individuals with a greater tendency to think analytically. However, these results have been observed predominantly in Western participants. In the present work, we explore various individual differences kn...

Past work has demonstrated that presenting statistical information in a foreground-background icon array can improve risk understanding, reduce decision-making biases, and decrease the salience of low-probability risks. In the present study, we assess whether presenting readily available gambling information within a foreground-background icon arra...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health guidance (e.g., regarding the use of non-medical masks) changed over time. Although many revisions were a result of gains in scientific understanding, we nonetheless hypothesized that making changes in guidance salient would negatively affect evaluations of experts and health-protective intentions. In Stu...

Across six studies (N = 1988 US residents and 81 traditional people of Papua), participants judged agents acting in sacrificial moral dilemmas. Utilitarian agents, described as opting to sacrifice a single individual for the greater good, were perceived as less predictable and less moral than deontological agents whose inaction resulted in five peo...

Across six studies (N = 2646), we demonstrate the role that perceptions of predictability play in judgments of moral character, finding that people demonstrate a moral preference for more predictable immoral actors. Participants judged agents performing an immoral action (e.g., assault) for an unintelligible reason as less predictable and less mora...

Evil supernatural beings are often depicted as responding to unintended requests, whereas this may be less common in representations of good supernatural beings. This asymmetry suggests that people may expect good and evil agents to differ in their sensitivity to other people's intentions. We investigated this proposal across five experiments on 22...

Despite autonomous vehicles (AVs) being safer than human drivers, people are averse to their presence on roads. Across three studies (N = 4,014), we examined peoples' perceptions of human drivers and AVs acting within a moral dilemma. Scenarios involved an out-of-control vehicle (piloted by a human, or autonomously) that could stay on its present c...

In the domain of scratch card gambling, “pushes” refer to outcomes in which a prize is won that is equal to the cost of a scratch card game. Despite resulting in no net monetary gain, these outcomes are categorized as wins by lottery operators, effectively inflating published scratch card information (e.g., posted odds of winning). Additionally, th...

Navigating social systems efficiently is critical to our species. Humans appear endowed with a cognitive system that has formed to meet the unique challenges that emerge for highly social species. Bullshitting, communication characterised by an intent to be convincing or impressive without concern for truth, is ubiquitous within human societies. Ac...

The present work (N = 1906 U.S. residents) investigates the extent to which peoples' evaluations of actions can be biased by the strategic use of euphemistic (agreeable) and dysphemistic (disagreeable) terms. We find that participants' evaluations of actions are made more favorable by replacing a disagreeable term (e.g., torture) with a semanticall...

Research into both receptivity to falling for bullshit and the propensity to produce it have recently emerged as active, independent areas of inquiry into the spread of misleading information. However, it remains unclear whether those who frequently produce bullshit are inoculated from its influence. For example, both bullshit receptivity and bulls...

While they usually should, people do not revise their beliefs more to expert (economist) opinion than to lay opinion. The present research sought to better understand the factors that make it more likely for an individual to change their mind when faced with the opinions of expert economists versus the general public. Across five studies we examine...

The present work (N = 1,906 U.S. residents) investigates the extent to which peoples’ evaluations of actions can be biased by the strategic use of euphemistic (agreeable) and dysphemistic (disagreeable) terms. We find that participants’ evaluations of actions are made more favorable by replacing a disagreeable term (e.g., torture) with a semantical...

Previous research suggests that intuitively appealing, yet uninformative unclaimed prize information is capable of biasing gambling-related judgments when people compare scratch cards that vary in the number of unclaimed prizes. However, it is unknown if the mere presence of unclaimed prize information alters a game’s attractiveness. Using an onlin...

Research into both receptivity to falling for bullshit and the propensity to produce it have recently emerged as active, independent areas of inquiry into the spread of misleading information. However, it remains unclear whether those who frequently produce bullshit are inoculated from its influence. For example, both bullshit receptivity and bulls...

The Keats heuristic suggests that people find aesthetically pleasing expressions more accurate than mundane expressions. We test this notion with chiastic statements. Chiasmus is a stylistic phenomenon in which at least two linguistic constituents are repeated in reverse order, following an A-B-B-A pattern. Our study focuses on the specific form of...

Using participants who have been previously exposed to experimental stimuli (referred to as non-naïveté) can reduce effect sizes. The workforce of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is particularly vulnerable to this problem and solutions are usually cost and time inefficient and of mixed effectiveness. In response to this problem and its currently underwhel...

Previous work has demonstrated that peoples’ gambling-related judgments (e.g., perceived likelihood of winning) are often biased by non-diagnostic unclaimed prize information (i.e., the number of prizes still available to be won) resulting in non-optimal scratch card preferences. Another line of research suggests that people make less biased decisi...

The ability to navigate social systems efficiently is critical to our species. Humans appear endowed with a cognitive system that has at least partially formed to best meet the unique cognitive challenges that emerge in a highly social species. Bullshitting, a style of communication characterised by an intent to be convincing or impressive without...

Recent psychological research has identified important individual differences associated with receptivity to bullshit, which has greatly enhanced our understanding of the processes behind susceptibility to pseudo‐profound or otherwise misleading information. However, the bulk of this research attention has focused on cognitive and dispositional fac...

Across two experiments (N=799) we demonstrate that people’s use of quantitative information (e.g., base-rates) when making a judgment varies as the causal link of qualitative information (e.g., stereotypes) changes. That is, when a clear causal link for stereotypes is provided, people make judgments that are far more in line with them. When the cau...

Across two experiments (N=799) we demonstrate that people’s use of quantitative information (e.g., base-rates) when making a judgment varies as the causal link of qualitative information (e.g., stereotypes) changes. That is, when a clear causal link for stereotypes is provided, people make judgments that are far more in line with them. When the cau...

In four experiments, we explore the role that verbal WM plays in numerical comparison. Experiment 1 demonstrates that verbal WM load differentially impacts the two most common variants of numerical comparison tasks, evidenced by distinct modulation of the size of the numerical distance effect (NDE). Specifically, when comparing one Arabic digit to...

Across four studies participants (N = 818) rated the profoundness of abstract art images accompanied with varying categories of titles, including: pseudo-profound bullshit titles (e.g., The Deaf Echo), mundane titles (e.g., Canvas 8), and no titles. Randomly generated pseudo-profound bullshit titles increased the perceived profoundness of computer-...

When people have invested resources into an endeavor, they typically persist in it, even when it becomes obvious that it will fail. Here we show this bias extends to people’s moral decision-making. Across two preregistered experiments (N = 1592) we show that people are more willing to proceed with a futile, immoral action when costs have been sunk...

Recent psychological research has identified important individual differences associated with receptivity to bullshit, which has greatly enhanced our understanding of the processes behind susceptibility to pseudo-profound or otherwise misleading information. However, the bulk of this research attention has focused on cognitive and dispositional fac...

The domain of gambling is rife with both diagnostic and non-diagnostic information. Previous studies examining scratch card gambling have demonstrated that people are often biased by intuitively appealing, yet non-diagnostic information (i.e., unclaimed prize information). The current study investigated how varying the presentation format of a diag...

Across four studies participants (N = 818) rated the profoundness of abstract art images accompanied with varying categories of titles, including: pseudo-profound bullshit titles (e.g., The Deaf Echo), mundane titles (e.g., Canvas 8), and no titles. Randomly generated pseudo-profound bullshit titles increased the perceived profoundness of computer...

Previous research has revealed that intuitive confidence is an important predictor of how people choose between an intuitive and non-intuitive alternative when faced with information that opposes the intuitive response. In the current study, we investigated the speed of intuition generation as a predictor of intuitive confidence and participant cho...

Previous research has demonstrated a link between illusory pattern perception and various irrational beliefs. On this basis, we hypothesized that participants who displayed greater degrees of illusory pattern perception would also be more likely to rate pseudo-profound bullshit statements as profound. We find support for this prediction across thre...

Wilkinson, Butcherine, and Savulescu propose that physicians’ greater reluctance to withdraw medical treatment than to withholding treatment reflects a novel cognitive bias, withdrawal aversion. Instead, we suggest that this aversion may largely be explained by a bias already known to judgment and decision-making researchers, namely the sunk cost f...

Supplementary Materials

Scratch cards are a popular form of lottery gambling available in many jurisdictions. However, there is a paucity of research that examines associations between individual differences in thinking style, participation in scratch card gambling, and problem gambling severity. In three studies, we sought to examine the relationships among these variab...

Unclaimed prize information (i.e., the number of prizes still available to be won) is information commonly provided to scratch card gamblers. However, unless the number of tickets remaining to be purchased is also provided, this information is uninformative. Despite its lack of utility in assisting gamblers in choosing the most favourable type of s...

Bilinguals who consider moral problems in their foreign language tend to endorse causing harm to others that if that leads to good outcomes more than they do in their native language. Čavar and Tytus (2018) reported that this effect disappears when the decision maker is highly acculturated. We challenge the latter conclusion. Specifically, the expe...

Background and Aims Slot machines pose serious problems for a subset of gamblers. On multi‐line slots, many small credit returns are less than one's spin wager, resulting in a net loss to the player. These outcomes are called ‘losses disguised as wins’ (LDWs). We aimed to show that different proportions of LDWs could differentially affect gambling...

The belief-bias effect is one of the most-studied biases in reasoning. A recent study of the phenomenon using the signal detection theory (SDT) model called into question all theoretical accounts of belief bias by demonstrating that belief-based differences in the ability to discriminate between valid and invalid syllogisms may be an artifact stemm...

Multiline slot machines allow for a unique outcome type referred to as a loss disguised as a win (LDW). An LDW occurs when a player gains credits on a spin, but fewer credits than their original wager (e.g. 15-cent gain on a 20-cent wager). These outcomes alter the gambler's play experience by providing frequent, albeit smaller, credit gains throug...

In modern casinos, multiline slot machines are becoming increasingly popular compared to traditional, three-reel slot machines. A paucity of research has examined how the unique presentation of near-misses and the use of a stop button in multiline slot machines impact erroneous cognitions related to the perception of skill and agency during play. O...

Slot machines are available in several countries, with multiline games growing in popularity. Interestingly, many audiovisually reinforced small ‘wins’ in multiline games are in fact monetary losses – outcomes referred to as losses disguised as wins (LDWs). Research suggests that LDWs cause players to overestimate how many times they remember actua...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153039.].

The Dunning–Kruger effect refers to the observation that the incompetent are often ill-suited to recognize their incompetence. Here we investigated potential Dunning–Kruger effects in high-level reasoning and, in particular, focused on the relative effectiveness of metacognitive monitoring among particularly biased reasoners. Participants who made...

We investigated whether the personal importance of objects influences utilitarian decision-making in which damaging property is necessary to produce an overall positive outcome. In Experiment 1, participants judged saving five objects by destroying a sixth object to be less acceptable when the action required destroying the sixth object directly (r...

Individual differences in the mere willingness to think analytically has been shown to predict religious disbelief. Recently, however, it has been argued that analytic thinkers are not actually less religious; rather, the putative association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking (an order effect). In light...

Materials. (DOCX)

Mass testing. (XLSX)

Analysis of same-day/different-day participants. (DOCX)

Results for thinking disposition scales. (DOCX)

I raise a methodological concern regarding the study performed by Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler and Fugelsang (2015), in which they used randomly generated, but syntactically correct, statements that were rated for profundity by subjects unaware of the source of the statements. The assessment of each statement’s profundity was not based on its i...

We review recent evidence revealing that the mere willingness to engage analytic reasoning as a means to override intuitive “gut feelings” is a meaningful predictor of key psychological outcomes in diverse areas of everyday life. For example, those with a more analytic thinking style are more skeptical about religious, paranormal, and conspiratoria...

Although bullshit 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. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually...

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess individual differences in intuitive-analytic cognitive styles. The CRT is of broad interest because each of its items reliably cues a highly available and superficially appropriate but incorrect response, conventionally deemed the "intuitive" response. To do well on...

AimsIn multi-line slot machines, players can wager on more than one line per spin. We sought to show that players preferred multi-line over single-line games, and that certain game features could cause multi-line game play to feel more rewarding.Measurement and ParticipantsReward was measured using post-reinforcement pauses (PRPs) following each ou...

A divide exists in the creativity literature as to whether relatively more or less executive processing is beneficial to creative thinking. To explore this issue, we employ an individual differences perspective informed by dual-process theories (DPTs) in which it is assumed that people vary in the extent to which they rely on autonomous (Type 1) or...

Reinforcement is a key component of slot machine play. Multi-line video slot-machine play can lead to "losses disguised as wins" (LDWs) which are credit gains that total less than the wager on the spin. LDWs only occur on multi-line games, with their frequency increasing with the number of lines played. If perceived as wins, they will be reinforcin...

While individual differences in the willingness and ability to engage analytic processing have long informed research in reasoning and decision making, the implications of such differences have not yet had a strong influence in other domains of psychological research. We claim that analytic thinking is not limited to problems that have a normative...

In both a behavioural and neuroimaging study, we examined whether memory performance and the pattern of brain activation during a word recognition task differed depending on the type of visual context presented during encoding. Participants were presented with a list of words, paired with either a picture of famous face, a famous scene, or a scramb...

Losses disguised as wins (LDWs) are slot machine outcomes where participants bet on multiple lines and win back less than their wager. Despite losing money, the machine celebrates these outcomes with reinforcing sights and sounds. Here, we sought to show that psychophysically and psychologically, participants treat LDWs as wins, but that we could e...

Slot machine wins and losses have distinctive, measurable, physiological effects on players. The contributing factors to these effects remain under-explored. We believe that sound is one of these key contributing factors. Sound plays an important role in reinforcement, and thus on arousal level and stress response of players. It is the use of sound...