| Summary: | We conducted
additional analyses of Pennycook et al.’s (2015, Study 2) data to investigate
the possibility that there would be ideological differences in “bullshit
receptivity” that would be explained by individual differences in cognitive
style and ability. As hypothesized, we observed that endorsement of neoliberal,
free market ideology was significantly but modestly associated with bullshit
receptivity. In addition, we observed a quadratic association, which indicated
that ideological moderates were more susceptible to bullshit than ideological
extremists. These relationships were explained, in part, by heuristic
processing tendencies, faith in intuition, and lower verbal ability. Results
are inconsistent with approaches suggesting that (a) there are no meaningful
ideological differences in cognitive style or reasoning ability, (b)
simplistic, certainty-oriented cognitive styles are generally associated with
leftist (vs. rightist) economic preferences, or (c) simplistic,
certainty-oriented cognitive styles are generally associated with extremist
(vs. moderate) preferences. Theoretical and practical implications are briefly
addressed.
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