Detecting Bullsh*t

Detecting Bullsh*t

“You just don’t know what to believe, anymore!”I’ve heard this phrase too often lately among friends and colleagues. And there is no reassuring response.

Our culture is permeated with misinformation (known also by a more bovine, less genteel term), much of it intentionally deceptive to prod us to “buy” a belief in something: a luxury ride, youthful skin, a political viewpoint, a contrived persona, or an “expert” statement of certainty. We observe compromised truths in “news” stories, consumer and political advertisements, podcasts, social media, political rallies, and even acquaintances determined to persuade us to accept their strong beliefs. We’re aware of skillful efforts to “spin the narrative” in a direction that misrepresents facts. We’ve experienced good ol’ “glad-handing”, that contrived friendliness meant to influence us.

What does all this misinformation, intentional deception, or obsequiousness mean for Generative Communication?

Inside-out Communication

In my recent blogs, I’ve focused on what I call inside-out communication: the conversations we have with ourselves that inform our communication with others and the world around us, our conscious thinking which includes thinking about our thinking.

For example:

• How do we characterize our core integrity, i.e., who we are and what we stand for? How is that revealed in our outside communication? 
• What life experiences have influenced our lifeviews—our filters that screen information that gets through, and then interpret what it means? How does that affect our outside communication?
• How credible are we—competent, genuine, trustworthy—as perceived by others, and how does that impact the quality of our outside communication?
• There’s another way credibility affects our inside-out communication and that’s the credibility of the information we let into our minds as communication fodder. This is the focus of this blog, the last in my inside-out communication series.  

Building a Credible Knowledge Base 

Authentic inside-out communication is grounded in what we know to be true. We build our knowledge base over a lifetime of reading, listening, and learning from others coupled with our own experiences and internal thought processes. How we evaluate the credibility of others and the information they present is a critical element of our inside-outside communication. 

• Is the source competent, genuine, and trustworthy?  
• Is the information valid, reliable, and substantiated by observable and documentable evidence? 

Can we trust that the information we take in is worthy of our internal store of knowledge that informs our beliefs and judgments for communicating authentically, competently, constructively—generatively—with others? 

Paradox

Here is one of the many paradoxes we encounter as we learn to practice Generative Communication, which is fundamental in the process of creating positive change. We must practice open-mindedness and listening nonjudgmentally to points of view that help us see a bigger picture than our limited lifeviews permit. We build trusting relationships by first offering our trust to one another. At the same time, we must pay careful attention to the validity and reliability of the information another espouses before we let it become the basis of our own beliefs! 

Taking in and processing information is an act of vigilance calling us to monitor and manage ourselves–a level of active internal awareness we don’t often practice. Essentially, we must learn to do two seemingly contradictory things at once, which can feel disconcerting: we must trust and remain open to others while also being alert to falsely represented information or intentional deception.

Evaluating the Credibility of Outside Information  

How do we assess the credibility of others and their claims? How do we take in information to expand our understanding and knowledge while steering clear of misinformation and intentional deception as we form our understanding of the world—or a particular situation?  

I recently learned about a course offered at the University of Washington (U.S.) that caught my attention! The course entitled “Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World” introduced the art of critical thinking, a discipline that is often lost on the general public. 

“Finally!” I thought to myself. “A course that teaches us how to THINK with discernment.” I’ve long lamented that this skill is rarely included in elementary, high school, and even general education college classrooms.  

What does it mean to think critically about claims that have little or no relationship with the truth?

John Petrocelli, a psychology professor and social scientist at Wake Forest University, has devoted his career to the study of false claims, misinformation, and outright deception in society today. He suggests that we are currently living in a “communicative culture” in which we feel obliged to have and share an opinion about an issue that matters to us. Further, his research indicates that if we hear a particular point of view repeatedly, whether or not it’s substantiated with facts, our brains begin to accept this view as truth.¹

We’re all susceptible to misinformation and unfounded claims, particularly if they align with our beliefs and preferred way of thinking. We’re inherently subject to confirmation bias, the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It’s up to us to look for our biases and challenge them when we hear others make statements about a problem or situation before we accept them as valid. 

We might ask ourselves:

• What agenda might be behind another’s claim about what is true?
• What evidence do they give to back up their claim? 

Petrocelli encourages us to build our critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills to evaluate information, research evidence and alternative views, and separate fact from fiction. We must commit to truth-seeking.

And above all, we must acknowledge our own lack of knowledge about a topic and avoid making overstatements or distorted claims for the sake of societal conformity.

To counter the societal pattern of allowing misinformation to prevail, we must be willing to respectfully challenge another’s claim (not the person) if we have good reason to do so. We might invite a conversation to help us clarify our confusion, asking: 

• Why do you think this is so?  
• Help me understand the reasons you have come to this conclusion?

Enhancing Your Critical Thinking Skills

We can all enhance our critical thinking skills in the interest of personal development. Consider the following practices:  

• Become more self-aware. Consider your thought process, values, morals, ethics, and beliefs. Identify and evaluate how you receive and process information 
• Practice active listening. Listen carefully and attentively to others. Practice empathy and focus on understanding their perspective(s). 
• Ask questions, challenge assumptions. When you’re not sure, ask questions to enhance your understanding of what underlying assumptions (yours and others) might be at play in a situation.
• Evaluate existing evidence. Use previous experience and facts to help you think critically and consider the viability of current evidence to support your conclusions. 

The foundation of our Generative Communication practice rests on our inside-out communication—the conscious communicating we do with ourselves before we dare interact with the world outside of ourselves.  I’ve devoted a series of blogs to this topic, proposing a number of ways we can engage in generative conversations with ourselves to strengthen our self-awareness and internal thought processes about the people and world around us that, in turn, inform our external communication actions. 

The study and practice of Generative Communication, like all social sciences, is an inexact science at best. However, there are credible clues that are worthy of our attention as we learn to co-create the realities we long for in our fragile world—together!