Although bullshit has been extensively discussed in philosophy, it has been only recently investigated by psychologists. Specifically, Pennycook and colleagues (2015) focused on one type of bullshit—pseudo-profound bullshit—which represents a collection of abstract words that have syntactical structure, but no actual intended meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). They demonstrated that endorsement of this type of bullshit is related to lower analytical and higher intuitive thinking style, higher religiosity, and paranormal beliefs. These findings were later replicated and extended, showing that people susceptible to pseudo-profound bullshit are also more prone to conspiratorial and schizotypal ideations (Hart & Graether, 2018), or unusual experiences and magical thinking (Bainbridge, Quinlan, Mar, & Smillie, 2019).

Given that pseudo-profound bullshit might be only one type of bullshit, “[a] point on what could be considered a spectrum of bullshit” (Pennycook et al., 2015, p. 550), researchers attempted to measure other instances of bullshit; for example, Evans and colleagues (2020) measured scientific bullshit (assembling random words from physics glossary), while Čavojová, Brezina, and Jurkovič (2022) attempted to measure general bullshit (i.e., no abstract buzzwords). Endorsement of both types of bullshit showed to be highly correlated with the receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit (rs = .60 and .83 respectively). Another empirical line of research on bullshit focused on bullshitting as an act (i.e., producer), rather than on the bullshit as a product (i.e., receptivity). For example, Gligorić and Vilotijević (2020a) demonstrated that people perceive pseudo-profound bullshit as more profound when attributed to a famous author (e.g., Einstein). Furthermore, Littrell, Risko, and Fugelsang (2021) focused on the frequency with which individuals engage in bullshitting, measuring two aspects of it: persuasive and evasive. While the formers’ function is to persuade, impress and achieve acceptance of others, the latter aims to avoid giving direct answers and evade any thorough inquiry. However, the dominant approach remains the one on the reception of pseudo-profound bullshit. Importantly, previous research investigated the relationship with political affinity.

The idea of bullshit in politics is not new. For example, Orwell (1946) noted how political speech is filled with obscure language, listing devices that foster such rhetoric (e.g., using pretentious diction and meaningless words). More recently, Frankfurt (1986/2005) saw politics (as well as advertising and public relations) as a prime realm where bullshit emerges, whereas Brandenburg (2006) emphasized that bullshit “…has become a structural property, a logical necessity of political communication” (p. 3). Political marketing, communication, and rhetoric (or a combination thereof) can give rise to political bullshit.

Even though research suggests that bullshit emerges in politics, a more important question is what political bullshit is, i.e., how it looks like. Sterling and colleagues (2016) suggested that bullshit in politics would not rely on abstract, pretentious words as pseudo-profound bullshit does because “a politician might deliberately simplify language to broaden his or her appeal, stating something that is vague and platitudinous, like ‘I believe in America!’” (p. 358). To this end, Brandenburg (2006, p. 4) illustrates political bullshit using a part of a speech by a UK politician from the Labour Party, David Miliband: “… Our vision is compelling. Civic pride based on a new age of civic power, not for some of the people, but for all of the people, all of the time.”

Hammack and Pilecki’s (2012) narrative framework is useful in better understanding why political bullshit is used by politicians and what elements make it receptive to people. In this framework, political bullshit can be considered a form of narrative used to politically influence people’s thinking and actions. According to this perspective, language that politicians use serves the purpose of achieving social coherence for political narratives. The “stories” used by politicians help members of a society engage in a political program which is often long and complex, covering many different topics. Politicians and parties try to unite members of society by relying on more abstract and vague communication which at the same time gives people a sense of continuity and personal coherence to deal with the complexity. This can be done, for example, by including in these narratives elements that are meaningful to the audience such as references to social categories (“America”, “all of the people”, “Britishness”). We believe that, when this happens, such rhetoric becomes an instance of political bullshit which is receptive to people because it meets the meaning in solidarity principle of narratives as it fulfills a person’s need to see oneself as part of a larger collective with similar others within a particular time and place (Hammack & Pilecki, 2012). Political bullshit meets another principle of the narrative framework as it can also put the mind in action. Political bullshit can motivate people to engage in action (i.e., voting for a political party) as it may appeal to the audience's emotions (i.e., pride, anger) and identification with the political parties or issues.

Another stream of research on bullshit in politics concerns theoretical speculation that focused on the Brexit campaign (e.g., Hopkin & Rosamond, 2018) and Donald Trump’s presidency (Kristiansen & Kaussler, 2018). Similarly, the idea of political bullshit was also used to discredit political opponents or movements (e.g., Brexit campaign; Ball, 2017). Nevertheless, empirical research is needed to examine whether individuals at different points of the political spectrum use more political bullshit or are more susceptible to it. Overall, while research has discussed the idea of bullshit in politics, it has not clearly conceptualized, or more importantly, attempted to measure this concept.

We define political bullshit as statements of political content that intend to persuade voters, but are so vague and broad that they are essentially meaningless. We agree with Pennycook and colleagues’ (2016) notion that the politicians’ goal is often to “say something without saying anything [and] appear competent and respectful without concerning themselves with the truth” (p. 125). Therefore, political bullshit represents political communication which (1) has no regard for truth (Frankfurt, 1986/2005), (2) promotes one’s goals and agenda, i.e., it is proactive in that it persuades to vote (Brandenburg, 2006; Hammack & Pilecki, 2012; Reisch, 2006) and is (3) essentially unclarifiable (Cohen, 2002). To this end, we view the political communication that Chomsky described as a prototypical bullshit communication.

Our definition of political bullshit also resonates well with the finding that bullshitting has two facets: persuasive and evasive (Littrell et al., 2021; see also the difference between proactive and defensive bullshit; Brandenburg, 2006). It is political communication in particular that aims to persuade (attract voters, get support for an agenda), while politicians often keep communication abstract in order to evade directly answering questions that might lead to a decrease in support (Rogers & Norton, 2011). Conjoining these features, politicians might try to persuade using statements too vague to repulse voters (i.e., evades meaningful proposals). In this way, political bullshit departs from demagoguery which includes lying (bullshit is indifferent to the truth) or making impossible promises (bullshit is too vague to promise anything meaningful). Political bullshit is also different from populism as it does not imply any divisions between “us” and “them”, although populists might sometimes engage in bullshitting (Hopkin & Rosamond, 2018).

In the present research, we constructed political statements that we deemed as political bullshit whose endorsement should be a measure of political bullshit receptivity. As argued previously, “it is not the understanding of the recipient of bullshit that makes something bullshit, it is the lack of concern (and perhaps even understanding) of the truth or meaning of statements by the one who utters it” (Pennycook et al., 2016, p. 125). Therefore, in our case, we made political statements that lack actual meaning and are indifferent to truth. The threefold aim of the present study was to: (1) theoretically outline the concept of political bullshit, (2) operationalize the receptivity to political bullshit and (3) explore the relation of political bullshit receptivity with other traits, ideology, and voting behavior.

We expected positive correlations between the endorsement of political bullshit statements, slogans, and bullshit political programs since all three measures fulfill our criteria of political bullshit (convergent validity). We expected that each of these measures shows a one-factorial structure (factorial validity). We also included factual political statements that have the same format as political bullshit statements but should not be regarded as persuasive (see the difference between mundane and pseudo-profound statements; Pennycook et al., 2015). Next, we hypothesized that endorsement of political bullshit would be positively correlated with the receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit because both represent one type of bullshit (cf. Čavojová et al., 2022). Based on information-processing ideological asymmetries (Jost, 2017) and the literature on pseudo-profound bullshit, we hypothesized that receptivity to political bullshit would positively correlate with conservatism (Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2016) and neoliberalism (Sterling et al., 2016). Finally, we expected a low correlation with populism because these are different concepts (discriminant validity). Prediction of voting behavior is exploratory as there are no conclusive results in the literature (Nilsson et al., 2019). All these hypotheses have been pre-registered at the Open Science Framework (OSF; see Supplementary Materials)

To address these research questions, we conducted three pre-registered studies in early 2020 in three countries—the U.S., the Netherlands, and Serbia. We also performed a meta-analysis to average the effects and test for homogeneity which would indicate if the patterns vary across countries. Socio-politically, these countries are somewhat similar: they are all liberal democracies, rely on market economy, and belong to the Western culture. However, some large differences also exist: the U.S. is a presidential democracy with a two-party system, while Serbia and the Netherlands are parliamentary democracies with multi-party systems. Additionally, Serbia is not a WEIRD country (compared to the U.S. and The Netherlands) and it has a socialist history. Furthermore, the main denomination in Serbia is Orthodox Christianity, while it also has strong influences from the Orient (due to long Ottoman rule). These cross-country differences allowed us to test the validity of the concept across different political contexts and get more precise estimates.

All three studies had a correlational design, used survey methodology, and were programmed in Qualtrics. Each study was conducted in the native language (English, Serbian, and Dutch) after translation and back-translation by native speakers. Thus, the participants answered the same scales, except for the voting behavior as parties/candidates differ across countries. Before the main studies, political bullshit statements, factual political statements, and slogans were piloted (see Supplementary Materials on OSF, section Pilot Study). Materials for the pilot and main studies (in all languages), datasets, analyses scripts, and outputs are available as Online Supplement (for sample size determination, see Bayesian explanation document). None of the studies had missing data, as each question requested an answer before allowing to move to the next page. Data analyses were performed in JASP (Bayesian correlations) and R (all other analyses; packages: lavaan for confirmatory factor analyses, metaBMA for meta-analyses). Appendices to which we refer in text can be found in the Supplementary Materials, under Online supplement.

For brevity purposes, we fully report the factor structure of political bullshit measures for Serbian and Dutch samples at the OSF (see Supplementary Materials, document “Factor structure of political bullshit measures in Serbian and Dutch sample” and Appendix A, document “Appendices”, under Online supplement). In Serbia, we also performed EFA on political bullshit statements as CFA did not show a good fit. A one-factor solution in Serbia explained 30% of the variance for political bullshit statements, 36% for slogans, and 58% for bullshit programs. In the Netherlands, CFA on political bullshit statements showed a good fit, while the proportion of variance explained was 34% for slogans and 52% for bullshit statements. Overall, we found a pattern similar to the U.S. sample, indicating that each measure can be conceptualized as a one-factor measure.

To better understand the relationship between ideology and political bullshit, we performed linear regressions, predicting political bullshit (political bullshit statements, slogans, bullshit programs) with three ideological measures (ideology on social and economic issues, and neoliberalism) included simultaneously. Therefore, we performed nine linear regressions in total, three in each country (one for each political bullshit measure). In the U.S., in all three regressions, only neoliberalism was a significant predictor (βs > .181, ps < .05). In Serbia, social ideology was significant in all three regressions (βs > .158, ps < .05), while neoliberalism predicted political bullshit statements and slogans (βs > .163, ps < .05). In the Netherlands, neoliberalism was significant predictor in all three regressions (βs > .177, ps < .05), while social ideology predicted bullshit programs (β = .285, p = .002). Overall, the pattern of results suggests that neoliberalism is the most important ideological predictor (significant in eight out of nine regressions), while social ideology was still significant in four analyses. On the other hand, economic ideology was not associated with political bullshit. All regression tables are reported in Appendix E, Supplementary Materials.

Finally, we performed exploratory analyses on the combined datasets¹1

To justify the merging, we tested the configural measurement invariance of political bullshit measures, i.e., whether one-factorial structure of measures fits in all countries. Political bullshit statements showed acceptable fit for a one-factor model that included residual covariance between items 1 and 3 (see factorial structure in Serbian sample), RMSEA = .076, SRMR = .049, CFI = .926, TLI = .903. Slogans showed good fit for a one-factor model that included residual covariances between items 3 and 4, and 4 and 5 (see CFAs in U.S. and Serbian samples), RMSEA = .066, SRMR = .026, CFI = .987, TLI = .956. Therefore, configural measurement invariance held after accounting for residual covariances that were detected in separate country samples. For bullshit programs, we could not perform these tests because the proper CFA model is saturated. However, given that EFA shows that one-factor solution is appropriate in all three countries, we believe that merging the datasets is justified.

We then tested whether political bullshit measures predicted the ideological position of the candidate/party for which one would vote at the coming elections (Appendix D2, Supplementary Materials, shows category formation). Contrary to the last elections, multinomial regression showed that political bullshit measures could not predict the ideology of the party one would vote, χ²(6) = 7.660, p = .264, R²_McFadden = .012. However, when political bullshit statements were the only predictor in the model, it could distinguish between left and right voting options, B = .431, Z = 2.11, p = .035. This was also found for the bullshit program endorsement, B = .327, Z = 2.108, p = .035. These findings about the coming elections mirror the pattern found for the last elections.

First, we found evidence for convergent validity for political bullshit measures. Similarly to the attempts to operationalize other types of bullshit—scientific (Evans et al., 2020) and general (Čavojová et al., 2022)—political bullshit was consistently positively correlated with pseudo-profound bullshit. This builds on the idea that pseudo-profound bullshit is only one kind of bullshit among many to be operationalized (Pennycook et al., 2015; Sterling et al., 2016). Importantly, receptivity to bullshit might be generalizable across domains, meaning that one might be receptive to bullshit no matter whether it is political, pseudo-profound, or scientific (Čavojová et al., 2022; Evans et al., 2020).

Each political bullshit measure showed good reliabilities. Hypothesized one-factor solution for political bullshit statements showed an acceptable fit (in the Serbian sample, this was true after including covariance between two similarly phrased items). This was not the case for slogans, while a proper CFA model for political bullshit programs could not be tested. However, exploratory factor analyses yielded a one-factor solution, which justified the calculation of mean scores. Yet, this indicates that these measures require more work to achieve better psychometric properties (also see limitations section for a discussion of items’ content). Political bullshit statements and slogans had higher intercorrelations than any of these had with bullshit programs. We assume this is due to the format of statements and slogans which were one-sentence items, while bullshit programs were more elaborate. This also raises both theoretical and empirical questions of the structure of political bullshit—whether it is a one or two factorial structure (or even with one higher-ordered factor). However, this was out of the scope of the present paper which attempted to establish the concept of political bullshit itself.

Our participants also recognized factual statements as such, rating them lower on persuasiveness in all three studies. Importantly, controlling for these did not substantially alter the correlations as all of them remained positive. This bias remains an important issue to be accounted for in bullshit receptivity research (Pennycook et al., 2015).

We found evidence that endorsing political bullshit is associated with higher support for the free market, even after controlling for ideological stance on social and economic issues. This is in line with the finding that free-market supporters are more susceptible to pseudo-profound bullshit (Sterling et al., 2016). Interestingly, the relationship with ideology on social and economic issues is less consistent: only bullshit programs endorsement was correlated with both social and economic ideological stance while political bullshit statements were correlated only with social ideology. It is surprising that political bullshit measures were consistently correlated with the support for the free market but not with economic ideology, given that the free market is an important feature of right-wing economics (Harvey, 2007). There might be at least two reasons for this inconsistency. Firstly, the support for the free market was measured with two items, while economic ideology was a one-item measure (higher measurement error). Secondly, right-wing economics also includes other concepts and not only the free market (less welfare state, private ownership). Therefore, one could have a free market with leftist concepts (public/state ownership) as in the case of market socialism. In this view, it is the free market, and not the right-wing economics per se, that is related to the endorsement of bullshit. This aligns with the idea that if one endorses vague concepts such as pseudo-profound bullshit or political bullshit, she would also endorse the free market which is based on obscure concepts such as the invisible hand (Sterling et al., 2016).

The explanation above might help in resolving similar inconsistencies in the literature. While Sterling and colleagues (2016) found that neoliberals in the U.S. endorse pseudo-profound bullshit more, Nilsson and colleagues (2019) did not find that economic right-wing individuals in Sweden also endorse this type of bullshit more. Interestingly, in terms of political bullshit, our study replicated both findings, regardless of country differences. While Nilsson and colleagues (2019) noted that the discrepancy between the findings might have emerged due to cultural differences between the U.S. and Sweden, our study shows that this explanation might be less likely, as the same pattern emerged in all three countries. Alternatively, their second explanation—that they measured different constructs (focus on free-market vs. focus on redistribution/preference for equality)—is more plausible. As we discussed above, it could be specifically free-market proponents (and not economy ideologues more general) who are susceptible to bullshit, because of their preference for simplicity and intuitiveness²2

Consider for example neoliberal dogma that free market is a solution to all problems (not only economic), even though implementation of these policies often end with disastrous consequences (e.g., in Russia after the dissolution of Soviet Union) (Harvey, 2007).

In line with the theoretical framework of political narratives, we also found evidence that political bullshit can put the mind in action (Hammack & Pilecki, 2012). Political bullshit was associated with voting choice in the U.S. In the Netherlands, it was only associated with the choice of party one voted for but not for the coming elections. Interestingly, political bullshit was not associated with voting behavior in Serbia, which was probably due to the small sample size. Analysis of the merged dataset supported the notion that a higher score on political bullshit increased the probability to vote for right-wing parties. These results are in line with the finding that the favorable view of Republican candidates is correlated with pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity (Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2016).

Although in line with previous research, the reason for ideological asymmetries in susceptibility to political bullshit remains unclear. One possibility would be the above-mentioned ideological differences which showed that right-wing individuals engage in simpler information processing (Jost, 2017). Given that individuals on the right have a more intuitive thinking style and rely more on heuristic processing (Jost & Krochik, 2014), it might be that they fail to detect the vagueness of political bullshit. Indeed, as Sterling and colleagues (2016) found, the relationship between neoliberalism and pseudo-profound bullshit disappears when heuristic and biased processing, and faith in intuition are included in the model. However, there are also reasons why conservatives and right-wing voters would be less receptive to vague political rhetoric: they have a larger need for certainty and closure (Jost, 2017) which is the opposite of political bullshit. Therefore, the exact mechanism remains to be investigated by future research.

Our political bullshit measures were relatively short (between five and ten items) which might have increased measurement error. The addition of new items is warranted, while the CFA indices also showed there is room for improvement. Also, the number of studies for conducting a meta-analysis was small. We assume that because of the small number of studies, only two correlations had evidence for heterogeneity. It is reasonable to assume that the correlation between political bullshit and ideological measures might vary across countries due to the different conceptualizations of ideology. Yet, a strength of the meta-analytic approach is that we could show there was no evidence for heterogeneity for any of the correlations between bullshit measures. This suggests that the intercorrelations were homogenous across countries and implies the robustness of political bullshit as a concept.

The reliability of the populism measure (Elchardus & Spruyt, 2016) was relatively low (varying between .51 and .69). Therefore, low correlation with political bullshit measures that we observed might be an underestimation of the true one. However, the observed correlations were found consistently across studies, suggesting a difference between the two constructs. Additionally, there are theoretical reasons for distinguishing between political bullshit, which is based on abstract and vague statements, and populism, which concerns a concrete conception that politicians should be more similar and close to ordinary people. In any case, we believe that political bullshit and populism are distinct constructs, while future research should investigate the relationship in more detail (e.g., relationship’s size between the receptivity to political bullshit and populism, or how politicians as producers use political bullshit and populism in real political programs).

We had a small number of observations in the voting categories, which decreased power to detect the relationship between political bullshit and voting behavior (e.g., 2016 elections in Serbia), and did not allow for analyses of the 2020 elections in Serbia. However, analyses in the U.S., the Netherlands, and on parties combined in the left/center/right categories for all countries support the idea that right-wing voters might be more susceptible to political bullshit. Another reason that this might be the case is the different linguistic repertoire that left-wing and right-wing individuals employ (Sterling et al., 2020). For example, one of the bullshit programs mentioned the idea to “restore the soul of our country”, which seems to contain conservative rhetoric. Therefore, it is possible that our political bullshit items contained words more used or familiar to right-leaning individuals, and thus the relationship could be a confound of item content. However, while this limitation might explain the relationship with social ideology, it could not explain why neoliberalism is still consistently predicting political bullshit, even after accounting for one’s social (and economic) ideology. Future research should investigate this question in more depth, preferably with items cleared of ideological content.

Another limitation in our research is relatively high correlations between the measures of political bullshit and factual statements, which suggests a general tendency to endorse any type of political statement. However, this high correlation is most likely due to the common-method variance, given that these statements were all presented together. As exploratory factor analyses of political bullshit and factual statements, and differences in means (participants endorsed factual statements to less extent) demonstrate, participants distinguished between the two. Future research should take into account the tendency to agree with all statements, but also attempt to reduce common-method bias.

Lastly, a natural question arises—who uses political bullshit? Our research does not provide an answer; it only answers who might be more receptive to it. One way to answer this question could be to take a similar approach that Pennycook and colleagues (2015) took with Deepak Chopra and pseudo-profound bullshit. If items actually uttered by politicians (Deepak Chopra) have the same psychological reality as political (pseudo-profound) bullshit, it would be a strong argument in favour that it indeed is political bullshit. In any case, we do believe that all politicians, to some extent, use political bullshit as exemplified in the introduction with Joe Biden and Donald Trump.