I see it as straightforward - bullshit results in contagious sociopathy.

Sensitivity means being more manipulatable, sociopaths manipulate to get what they want which leads to the dupes copying the antisocial behavior without a thought or even the benefits the originator gains. The only beneficial to actor behaviors likely arise from the sociopath's excuses being internalized. Look at snake oil salesmen for an example - pushing antivax lies to sell "essential oils" to get profit and spreading bullshit to cause others to make others sick avoiding imaginary risks.

Meanwhile a skeptic would refuse to go along with wrong just because "everyone is doing it" even if they are selfish for not wanting the needless risk or hassle.

The headline 'Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior' contradicts the summary from the abstract where it basically says: Profoundness-receptivity has a positive association with prosocial behaviour whereas bullshit-receptivity has a negative association with prosocial behavior.

So if you go by the abstract the results match your intuition!

Bullshit-sensitivity = ability to distinguish bullshit sentences from genuinely profound sentences

Bullshit-receptivity = tendency to perceive bullshit sentences as meaningful

So, BS-S is not BS-R, thus there is no contradiction. Mate, the guys wrote a paper about it, they're not going to have the abstract contradict the title.

Thank you. That receptive and sensitive were used as opposites not synonyms is exactly what I missed.

I think you can be extremely apt at detecting bullshit without being a cynic. In fact I think a lot, though certainly not all, of cynicism stems from the disappointment of having been fooled too much by bullshit.

I guess this means that many "IT professionals" don't even reflect enough to clearly detect rubbish even after a fad is over.

OOP (as the solution to every programming problem), Java everywhere (performance is great and/or doesn't matter - really!!), P2P everything (because Napster), semantic web, XML, SOAP, agile(washing), cloud (whether it makes sense or not), server-side JS (overused), client-side JS whether you need it or not, IoT (aka please pay us monthly), blockchain. You see a lot of bullshit in a career.

Putting disagreements of what does and does not belong there aside there are also sunk costs of sorts - if everything works sufficiently learning a new way puts you at a disadvantage unless the new way really is sufficently appreciably better for the application so you stick with what you know. Not doing so ironically itself leads to faddish behavior and falling behind due to tripping on hidden pitfalls.

I'd guess Fred Rogers was an excellent bullshit detector.

I think you're right. I hadn't looked at it that way.

I think that's the key! On a personal note - I have tremendous difficulty reconciling kindness and cynicism in personal relationships. This reached an apex when I was dating an extremely kind and energetic girl, but couldn't help roll my eyes all the time at mentions of astrology and the universe talking to her through four-leafed clovers. I am not fully sold on cynicism being a virtue.

I don't think they are the same. People who bullshit a lot do try to frame those able to see through it as cynics, to make it harder for bullshit sensitive person to convince third parties about bullshit.

> It feels counter-intuitive to find cynicism positively correlated with prosocial behaviour (which the article defines as donating to and/or joining a charity.)

Does it? I would expect both to follow from, for want of a better term, "caring more": you would expect someone who is more sensitive to bad things to be both cynical and prosocial than someone who noticed bad things less.

More scepticism. A cynic would find reasons why the sentences listed as profound are meaningless too.