“Bullshit Makes The Art Grow Profounder” by Martin Harry et al.: Summary and Critique

🔍 1. Research Objective

Turpin et al. (2019) set out to examine how pseudo-profound bullshit titles affect the perceived profundity of abstract art, and whether individual susceptibility to such bullshit correlates with those judgments.

“We investigated whether giving abstract artworks pseudo-profound bullshit titles influences their perceived profundity” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 658).

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🧠 2. Theoretical Background

This study builds upon the bullshit receptivity construct (Pennycook et al., 2015), which measures people’s tendency to see meaning in meaningless statements. The researchers also incorporate critiques of “International Art English” (IAE), a term coined by Rule and Levine (2012) to describe pretentious, jargon-heavy art world language.

“Much of the critical literature on modern and postmodern art has focused on the role of obfuscating language… our study attempts to quantify the influence of such language” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 659).

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🧪 3. Hypotheses

The authors proposed three central hypotheses:

• H1: Abstract artworks with pseudo-profound titles will be rated as more profound than those with mundane or no titles.
• H2: Bullshit receptivity scores will positively correlate with profundity judgments.
• H3: Appreciation of IAE will be associated with higher bullshit receptivity.

“We hypothesized that pseudo-profound titles would elevate judgments of artistic profundity” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 660).

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👥 4. Participants

• Total N = 818 across four experiments
• Recruited from Canadian university students and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)
• All participants were fluent English speakers

“The final sample across all studies consisted of 818 participants… all fluent in English” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 660).

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🧪 5. Methodology

• Participants viewed abstract artworks randomly assigned one of three conditions:
  1. No title
  2. Mundane title (e.g., “Lamp on a table”)
  3. Pseudo-profound bullshit title (e.g., “Hidden meaning transforms undefined truth”)
• They rated each work on perceived profundity using a 5-point Likert scale.
• Additional psychometric tools:

• Bullshit Receptivity Scale (Pennycook et al., 2015)
• International Art English Receptivity Measure (developed for this study)
• Need for Cognition Scale (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982)

“Each participant rated 15 artworks… all shown with either no title, a mundane title, or a pseudo-profound bullshit title” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 661).

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📊 6. Key Findings

• Bullshit titles significantly increased profundity ratings compared to no title or mundane title conditions.

“Across all four studies, bullshit titles reliably increased the perceived profundity of artworks” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 662).

• Effect size was moderate to strong (e.g., Cohen’s d = 0.63 in Study 2).
• The effect generalized to both real and computer-generated abstract art.
• Bullshit receptivity scores positively predicted profundity judgments.

“Those who were more receptive to pseudo-profound bullshit also rated the artworks as more profound, regardless of the actual title content” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 663).

• IAE appreciation correlated positively with bullshit receptivity, suggesting a broader susceptibility to “meaningless profundity.”

“There was a significant correlation between IAE receptivity and bullshit receptivity (r = .43, p < .001)” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 664).

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🧠 7. Interpretation & Implications

• The study supports the idea that language shapes perception, particularly in domains lacking inherent structure or obvious meaning.
• Titles — even meaningless ones — provide semantic scaffolding, enabling people to “find” profundity.

“Participants may use the title to ‘anchor’ their interpretation of an ambiguous stimulus, especially when the stimulus lacks obvious meaning” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 665).

• Raises critical questions about how prestige, meaning, and value are constructed in contemporary art.

“Our results suggest that art discourse may be more performative than substantive — a domain where bullshit thrives” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 666).

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📚 8. Contribution to Literature

• Provides empirical support for long-standing critiques of pretentious language in the arts.
• Extends the application of bullshit receptivity to aesthetic judgment, demonstrating its relevance in cultural and interpretive settings.
• Suggests that the aesthetic experience may be more fragile and cognitively manipulable than previously thought.

“The perceived profundity of abstract art can be manipulated with meaningless language, exposing the susceptibility of aesthetic judgment” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 667).

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⚖️ 9. Limitations

• Sample restricted to Western, English-speaking populations.
• Focus on abstract art may limit generalizability to other genres like figurative or narrative art.
• Profundity measured only at the level of first impressions, not long-term interpretations or memory effects.

“The domain-specific nature of the findings may limit generalizability beyond the abstract art context” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 668).

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✅ 10. Conclusion

• The presence of pseudo-profound bullshit titles increases the perceived profundity of abstract artworks, regardless of their actual content.
• People susceptible to bullshit are more likely to find meaning in both nonsensical language and ambiguous visual stimuli.
• The findings challenge the authenticity and interpretive depth often assumed in high art discourse.

“Our results demonstrate that bullshit can serve as a low-cost signal of profundity, particularly in domains like abstract art where interpretation is inherently ambiguous” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 669).

🧠 1. Reader-Response Theory

Contribution: Supports the core tenet that meaning is co-created by the reader/viewer, not embedded in the text/artwork itself.

• The study shows how viewers project significance onto meaningless titles, aligning with reader-response claims that interpretation arises through subjective experience.

“Participants attributed more profundity to abstract artworks when paired with bullshit titles, despite no change in the visual stimulus” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 662).

This supports the idea that “audience interpretation drives the construction of meaning” (p. 665).

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🌀 2. Post-Structuralism / Derridean Deconstruction

Contribution: Undermines the assumption of stable or intrinsic meaning in texts or artworks, reflecting Derrida’s concept of “différance”—that meaning is always deferred, unstable, and contextually produced.

• Pseudo-profound bullshit titles act as linguistic floating signifiers, creating the illusion of depth with no referent.

“Bullshit titles functioned as semantic primes despite lacking any objective connection to the artwork” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 663).

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🏛️ 3. Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)

Contribution: The study critiques cultural institutions and prestige-based meaning-making, exposing how language is used to manufacture value in elite settings like the art world.

• Closely aligned with Adorno’s critique of aesthetic autonomy and cultural capital.

“Our findings suggest that the art world may reward the appearance of profundity over actual content” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 666).

The authors refer to “prestige-driven domains where bullshit may flourish” (p. 668).

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🧩 4. Semiotics (Barthes, Eco)

Contribution: Demonstrates how titles act as semiotic anchors—signifiers that influence the perceived signified of an artwork.

• Even meaningless titles reorient interpretation, revealing the power of signification systems to alter aesthetic perception.

“The title becomes part of the interpretive apparatus, shifting how viewers construct the artwork’s meaning” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 660).

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🎭 5. Aesthetic Formalism vs. Contextualism Debate

Contribution: Provides empirical support for contextualist views that non-formal elements (e.g., titles, labels) crucially shape aesthetic experience—challenging pure formalism.

“The profundity ratings were not influenced by formal visual content but by extraneous linguistic context” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 662).

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🧮 6. Cognitive Poetics / Empirical Literary Studies

Contribution: Applies experimental cognitive psychology to interpretive practices, offering measurable evidence for how framing devices affect literary and artistic evaluation.

“This study exemplifies how psychological methods can illuminate questions of interpretation and aesthetic judgment” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 665).

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📡 7. Discourse Analysis / Foucauldian Power-Knowledge

Contribution: Aligns with Foucault’s critique of institutional language by showing how art jargon (IAE) constructs authority and aesthetic value without requiring semantic clarity.

“The bullshit susceptibility of participants also predicted appreciation of International Art English… suggesting shared mechanisms of prestige rhetoric” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 664).

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🧱 8. Structuralism

Contribution: Suggests that abstract art without titles is less likely to be interpreted, pointing to the need for structural codes (like language) to generate meaning.

“Without a title, participants struggled to attribute meaning… indicating reliance on linguistic cues for structuring interpretation” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 661).

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📉 9. Hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur)

Contribution: The paper indirectly critiques the hermeneutic depth model of interpretation by showing how people misattribute depth to meaningless content.

“Even vacuous statements triggered perceived insight, revealing how minimal cues can evoke interpretive engagement” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 663).

🔬 Overreliance on Quantitative Measures of Profundity

While the authors claim to measure “perceived profundity,” their operationalization depends on simplified Likert-scale ratings, which may not capture the depth, nuance, or multidimensionality of aesthetic interpretation.

“Participants rated each artwork on a 5-point scale” (Turpin et al., 2019, p. 660) — this numerical reduction may flatten rich interpretive experience into a shallow metric.

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🌍 Cultural Narrowness of Sample

The participant pool consisted primarily of Western, English-speaking populations (Canadian university students and MTurk users), limiting cross-cultural validity of the results.

“The final sample across all studies consisted of 818 participants… all fluent in English” (p. 660).
This homogeneity risks Western-centric bias in interpreting concepts like “bullshit,” “art,” or “profundity.”

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🧠 Conceptual Ambiguity Around “Bullshit”

The study uses pseudo-profound statements (from Pennycook et al.) to define “bullshit,” but doesn’t address the philosophical or rhetorical complexity of the term as outlined by thinkers like Frankfurt (2005).

Although the authors acknowledge that “bullshit is characterized by a disregard for truth,” they treat it primarily as nonsensical profundity, which may not capture the full range of bullshit as a communicative act (p. 659).

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🖼️ Narrow Artistic Focus on Abstract Art

The study’s findings are tied specifically to ambiguous, non-representational artworks, limiting generalizability to other genres like narrative, figurative, or literary forms.

“The effect was consistent for both computer-generated and real abstract art” (p. 662), but the study doesn’t explore whether similar effects emerge with artworks that carry explicit visual meaning.

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🧩 Framing vs. Interpretation Not Fully Disentangled

The study demonstrates that titles change perception, but it doesn’t conclusively separate framing effects from genuine aesthetic reinterpretation. Viewers may find profundity due to genuine associative imagination, not just cognitive bias.

“Titles may function as semantic anchors” (p. 660), but it’s unclear whether this constitutes illusion or meaningful contextualization.

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📈 Potential Overinterpretation of Statistical Effects

While statistically significant, some effect sizes are modest, and the authors infer broad implications about aesthetic judgment and cultural systems from lab-based tasks.

For example, “the effect sizes in Studies 1 and 2 ranged from d = 0.45 to 0.63” (p. 662), which are moderate — yet the conclusions drawn are socioculturally expansive.

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🎓 Possible Elitist Assumptions About Art Discourse

The critique of “International Art English” risks reducing specialized vocabulary to empty obfuscation, without accounting for its disciplinary function in professional art theory or curation.

The authors say IAE is “vague and impenetrable” (p. 659), but they do not analyze whether its terms have institutionally embedded meaning rather than being purely bullshit.

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🔄 No Long-Term or Behavioral Follow-Up

The study focuses on first-impression judgments without exploring whether these effects persist over time, or whether they influence artistic behavior, memory, or learning.

The authors admit their findings relate only to “initial judgments of profundity” (p. 668), leaving longitudinal validity untested.