All we have to do to find lies and BS these days is to turn on a device. Social media is filled with “influencers” who make their opinions seem far more interesting than the truth. Newscasters offer up stories that have no context, so the truth gets skewed or entirely lost. Politicians flat out lie. Advertisers and marketers encourage us to override our better judgment to spend money on things that we don’t need. And sometimes it’s even family and friends who become true believers and start to spread the bad information themselves.

The BS is everywhere.

But there is an antidote. Professor of experimental social psychology John V. Petrocelli meets the BS with intelligence, perception, and the scientific method. He goes deep into the BS to find out why people say the crazy things they say and to help the rest of us deal with it. He studies BS for a living, so he understands that there is a cost to dealing it, whether it means you’re spending too much on a car, dealing with the effects of investing with someone like Bernie Madoff, or just trying to decide which politician to vote for.

Petrocelli uses psychological concepts to explain how we fall under the influence of BS, like confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and our tendency to conform to what we see others doing. But understanding the rhetoric and other tricks that others use to trick us, we have another tool to protect ourselves from getting pulled in. And he has another tool that he uses. When he’s analyzing something that he thinks smells like BS, he has a system for how strong the smell is. His BS Flies Index assigns 1-3 flies to the lies, depending on just how strong the BS is.

Now, the next time you’re faced with a flat Earther you have information to counter that. A cousin who still thinks vaccines cause autism? You’ll have it covered. Your best friend is getting ready to pop the question and has to buy a ring? You can help get the best price. When your coworker makes you watch their favorite TED Talk on intermittent fasting, you can do more than just roll your eyes. You can figure out for yourself if the information is true for yourself.

I listened to The Life-Changing Science of Bullshit on audio, and narrator Larry Herron made this book sound accessible. He’s conversational and natural, and I was especially impressed with his impressions of recent Presidents. He can bring the derision when it’s warranted, and makes clarifying the facts sound doable, even against an ocean of BS.

I thought this book was fascinating. In the current political climate, having skills like these is invaluable. And for dealing with all the information on the internet, this book is really helpful for dealing with all the insanity and misinformation. Even just watching the news brings up so many questions that a book like this is necessary. It would actually be a good book to revisit every few years, to learn all these concepts again and to remember not to let your guard down against all the BS out there in the world.

Egalleys for The Life-Changing Science of Bullshit were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks, but I bought the audio book myself through Audible.

Interesting book with in which the author has done way too much research. In a way, he has filled us with a lot of bs about bs. He gives you a lot of scientific and psychological evidence of the bs that we find in everyday life,ie: where and how to suss it out in places you really don't think about being on the receiving end of bs. It will reaffirm that generally you probably already know how to gauge the be all around you. If you just want to read some bs, go for it!
I was provided an advanced reader copy of the book and was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions expressed are my own. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

If you've ever consumed anything by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, you're already prepared for John Petrocelli's "The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit."

Petrocelli's book is a good primer for those who are starting to question more in this age of disinformation. He hits all the historical hallmarks: the Millgram experiments, the Stanford prison experiment and Ponzi schemes to name a few. He also calls out bullshit artists and quacks like Deepak Chopra and Dr. Oz and Andrew Wakefield, who published the now discredited link between vaccines and autism. (It's amazing how much all this pseudoscience leads back to Oprah Winfrey, although Petrocelli doesn't seem to find that worth dwelling on.)

Petrocelli's contribution to the discourse is to create a portmanteau -- bullibility -- which is the average human's blindness to bullshit. He also creates the "bullshit flies index," which gives a sense of scale between the minor whoppers and the destructive nonsense.

If you aren't already familiar, you'll learn about all the way our minds and emotions betray us and the situations during which your friends, colleagues, talking heads on television and even your doctor will feel comfortable bullshitting you. Speaking of that, the reader ought to be comfortable with reading (or hearing) the word "bullshit," as it seems to be Petrocelli's favorite word.

I'm not sure I learned anything more about detecting bullshit than I already knew, but I would recommend this book to anyone who is noticing trouble separating truth from fiction.

The timing of this book is pretty good, seeing as how we are constantly barraged with bullshit. Whether it's news articles, social media "influencers", or people we know, there's not a day that goes by where we don't encounter bullshit. The information in here was pretty solid, though it did get rather repetitive. It does offer a good starting point for detecting bullshit, but ultimately it's up to each individual to determine whether something is bullshit, and what to do about it, which is something I think we all need to work on.

This book offers good info on how to recognize 'b.s.' in its many forms through various anecdotes and insights. It encourages critical thinking and a re-evaluation of our own ability to detect bs. Overall an educational read, even if you think you don't fall for every day bs, you'd be surprised to understand the psychology behind detecting bs. As a designer, it's a standard practice to replace the why questions with how questions and very interesting to learn more about this.

This a fun book of the art of BS. There are interesting stories about people using BS. He gets a little science-ish, but it is definitely a book to pick up if you think there is too much BS in the world and you want ways to detect it. He gives you real ways of detecting it, even when the person or source, is far away from you. This was an informative book and one that I enjoyed reading.

I can't think of a subject more needed, worth discussing than the one in the title. In the U iced States right now bullshit and those who believe every outlandish conspiracy theory thrown their way, are running rampant. Violence and the lack of concern for others is putting all at risk. So, how does this happen? Why do people believe things that leave those with any common sense, frustrated, shaking their heads. This book goes into some of these scenarios, people, in detail. Personality traits, biases that make one a victim to these flagrant untruths.

Political untruths, marketing tactics, cons, people feeling left out, wanting to belong to something, easily swayed, the list goes on and on. One needs to practice due diligence, fact check before one spreads these conspiracies, but most don't. This book tackles different scenarios, from the marketing of jewelry and wine, to the Madoff pyramid scheme. Interesting though maybe because I am a skeptic, I'm not easily sold, much here seems to me, like good old common sense. My hubby always says, common sense isn't so common anymore. Unfortunately those who could really use this book probably won't read, and if they did, they wouldn't believe.

At books end, the author provides a list of fact checking sites.

"In other words, one's susceptibility to being duped by bullshit is associated with an intuitive, less effortful, or careless thinking style."

"Bullshit can create an equally deceptive cognitive illusion if it focuses our thinking on incomplete information or nothing's that are really not there."

ARC from Netgalley

THE LIFE-CHANGING SCIENCE OF DETECTING BULLSHIT by John V. Petrocelli will capture attention due to its provocative title and its key message: "to recognize that it is that it is to your distinct advantage to seek evidence and truth, ... [to] ask yourself and others important, critical thinking questions." Petrocelli, a Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University, studies "the causes of bullshit, its potential benefits to individuals, its consequences to society, and how people can better detect and dispose of its unwanted effects." In each chapter, he relates stories (e.g., making a major purchase like a diamond ring or buying real estate), and discusses how the surrounding BS (diamonds have great resale value) can have a negative impact, arguing that "failed bullshit detection is usually about things people don't do and the questions they don't ask." He reviews the scientific method and offers a list encapsulating the basic habits (e.g., listening, curiosity, perserverance, awareness of bias, and so on) of critical thinking. Petrocelli also includes a Glossary about problems of thinking which will be of interest, especially to our Psychology students. And, he appends numerous notes (at least twenty percent of the book) with bibliographic information and additional comments. For a brief overview of his work, see the March 2019 Ted Talk he gave on "Why BS is more dangerous than a lie."

Ted Talk link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaOiRRqHNNk

Another edition in the continually growing trend of books promoting information literacy. As others have noted, the overuse of cussing seemed unnecessary, and this is coming from someone who probably uses too many of those words in his own vocabulary. One redeeming factor of the book is Petrocelli speaking from a position of authority. While many other information literacy books are written by those without advanced degrees in the processes of human thought, Petrocelli is a professor of psychology at a prestigious school and has devoted much of his professional career to studying the ways in which humans bullshit.

Over the course of our lives we will inevitably find ourselves in the situation where we have to choose the wine, buy or sell a car, play the stock market, date someone, pay for a training class, or go to a doctor. In a lot of these cases we make our decision based on the beliefs we have or on what someone told us. That’s where bullshit often comes into play. John Petrocelli's book explains us what bullshit is and how to recognize and resist it, so you are not going to get snookered by some bullshit provider. The examples John Petrocelli has chosen are eloquent in addition to being funny which makes them easy to understand and remember. He’ll introduce you to three skilled bullshit detectors of his acquaintance: a car salesman, a diamond dealer and a real estate agent. He’ll engage you into an interesting discussion on gun control. And he will give you useful tools in what he calls “the great struggle against bullshit”. John Petrocelli's book is a wonderful blend of science and entertainment. Highly recommended.

Strategies for Detecting Bullshit

Detecting bullshit is an important strategy for our time. Facebook, Twitter, major media, and television personalities all engage in some form of bullshit as do jewelers, car salesmen, and diet gurus. Arguments from authority are one way of persuading people to your point of view whether the authorities are correct or slanted.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is anecdotal stories illustrating bullshit by personalities such as Deepak Chopra, Donald Trump, and others. It is very important when so much information is floating around to have a way to do critical thinking to separate what’s real from what’s being hyped.

The second half of the book, and in my view the most interesting, presents strategies and checklists for detecting bullshit. While not a prefect solution, it does give you a place to start and encourages you to sharpen your faculties to get a better handle on the truth. I particularly liked his suggestion of asking questions that require evidence based replies. Bullshitters make things sound wonderful, but they slide over what their pronouncements are really based on.

I recommend this book if you want to develop or bush up your skills in critical thinking for getting closer to the truth.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Have you seen the social media prompts that ask you to poorly explain what you do professionally? How many therapists would argue that this book title could work for that prompt? Haha! There are certainly those clients, certainly those days. Right!?

In all sincerity, this book is a great choice for therapists to read for the purpose of professional development. Author John V. Petrocelli, expanded upon his TEDx talk of the same name in this book that presents tangible skills that can be utilized to reduce one’s vulnerability to misinformation and improve one’s critical thinking skills. (*anyone else wishing they could force entire segments of the country to read this...sigh…) The social-scientist in me found this book incredibly timely and enlightening. Petrocelli, an experimental social psychologist at Wake Forest, does not hold back! He tackles “fake news”, the social media influencer phenomenon, and multiple prominent figures we know from politics and pop culture. In addition to the social connections, this book is also applicable to the work we do. “Bullshit,” manipulation, deception, and exaggeration are all defense mechanisms. Petrocelli’s strategies and insights will absolutely aid you in not only detecting when clients are feeding you a line, but also help the client learn to step out from under the comfort of defensiveness and begin to practice more authenticity.

I enjoyed this book so much, in fact, that I broke one of my own rules by not marking it “read” on my reading log because I feel like I need a second read to absorb and process the information more fully.

As always, I’m grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review. The words and opinions are all my own.

If only this book had been published prior to the 2016 presidential election. So much could have been saved--especially hundreds of thousands of American lives. Author John V. Petrocelli explains the difference between outright lying and bullshitting, gives advice on avoiding falling for bullshit, provides examples of widely accepted bullshit, and offers pointers on analyzing information to determine its accuracy.

It's amusing and novel to have a PhD take on the subject of "bullshit"; it almost seems as if a more scientific term should be created for this all-too-prevalent phenomenon. The people who most need to read this book probably will not, and that's the real problem. #TheLifeChangingScienceofDetectingBullshit

A timely tool given our current sociopolitical atmosphere, in which half the country has decided to abandon truth, facts, and reality itself.

Entertaining and very interesting read as how to recognize bullshit when presented to you. Examples of where in society bullshit is used in ads to sell products or promote a person for a political party.
It was an fun book to read an did enjoy it.

Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Most of this book is fine, but falling for a media hoax in the first chapter loses Petrocelli quite a few Authority Points.
Trump never said to drink bleach to cure COVID. That never happened. This has been supported a few times since then. An experimental UV-light treatment had been discussed, and Trump referenced this treatment like a child trying to remember a movie he saw once. He said "disinfectant" and the media ran with it to make him look like an dangerous idiot. Trump said a lot of stupid things in his presidency, but "drinking bleach" was never one of them.
Since this incident gets discussed in the first chapter, I'm wondering for the rest of the book if Petrocelli is going to fall for any more hoaxes... I don't think he does, but still hurts his case.
Overall, a good book about how information is presented and processed by the media and the people trying to control the world through social media.

A fun and well- written book advocating and explaining the need to greater reliance on critical thinking and evidence seeking.
Petrocelli does research from the Wake Forest "Bullshit Laboratory" (yes, I'm jealous) and wow this book seemingly as a textbook for how to help people understand when they someone is using Bullshit on them (from lying) and how they can get better at catching it and avoiding using it themselves.
Were I still teaching, I would want this to be required reading for our science department (or maybe the whole school) to enable us to work critical thinking techniques into every class. One portion that especially jumped out at me was asking "how" instead of "why" questions in order to elicit more evidence based thinking about a topic. Because of this, I would recommend this for anyone who actually cares about understanding the world through the lens of facts and evidence and I would wish that would include everyone.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the chance to read an advance copy of this book and to Dr. Petrocelli for his work.

John Petrocelli is a social psychologist at Wake Forest University who specializes in, according to the WFU website, "experimental social cognition and judgement and decision making." In other words, Dr. Petrocelli is an expert on the art and science of detecting bullshit.

This short book describes how susceptible we are to bullshit (very) and lays out how Dr. Petrocelli's recommendations for detecting it yourself. Unlike your average TED talk that suggests a simple action that will revolutionize your life (fasting to induce autophagy!), Dr. Petrocelli doesn't have a quick fix to offer (though note that the author does have a TED talk). Instead, the antidote requires critical thinking. I found the systematic process and list of sample questions for evaluating prospective bullshit quite helpful and definitely plan to review it in the future.

The book is fairly nonpartisan in nature, quite an achievement given the subject matter. This shows a careful hand at work. I'm tempted to buy copies for my more gullible relatives.

My only quibble is that several old chestnuts about social psychology are trotted out for illustrative purposes, namely Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment, and there's no mention of how much bullshit was involved in this study.

Nullis in verba.

I get the point of this book that it gets you to recognize all lies from TV, to friends, family and other sources making you impenetrable to "bullshit." There was an overabundance of swearing which I usually do not mind but was off in this book when it is trying to be psychology/self-help book; it is not, Some parts were good but some parts were over-done/over the top absurd. All in all, a waste of my time when I can be reading something else on my ever growing TBR list.

Cannot recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley, John V Petrocelli and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 7/27/21

quick and entertaining read that should help many people become more aware of how they've arrived at their own decisions and attitudes and how they can logically dissect that process so they're less susceptible to bullshit.