Bullshitters. Who Are They and What Do We Know about Their Lives?

Arbeitspapier

'Bullshitters' are individuals who claim knowledge or expertise in an area where they actually have little experience or skill. Despite this being a well-known and widespread social phenomenon, relatively few large-scale empirical studies have been conducted into this issue. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by examining teenagers' propensity to claim expertise in three mathematics constructs that do not really exist. Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from nine Anglophone countries and over 40,000 young people, we find substantial differences in young people's tendency to bullshit across countries, genders and socio-economic groups. Bullshitters are also found to exhibit high levels of overconfidence and believe they work hard, persevere at tasks, and are popular amongst their peers. Together this provides important new insight into who bullshitters are and the type of survey responses that they provide.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12282

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Inequality ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: PISA ; overclaiming ; bullshit

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Jerrim, John ; Parker, Phil ; Shure, Nikki
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/196780
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET