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Story summary
- Wake Forest professor John V. Petrocelli found participants rate statements labeled “bullshit” as more truthful than identical statements labeled “lies.”
- Experiments with undergraduates showed “bullshit” claims earned higher truth ratings than “lies” despite equal false rates, with a warning before exposure removing the effect but a warning after leaving belief unchanged.
- A pizza-ordering test revealed that “bullshit” warnings boosted favorability, prompting Petrocelli to plan study of misinformation and detection interventions.
