Abstract art with “pseudo-profound” BS titles seen as more meaningful

A new study out of the University of Waterloo found that giving abstract paintings "pseudo-profound bullshit titles" made subjects rate the art as more profound than paintings with mundane titles, or no titles at all.

Abstract art often gets an underserved bad rap. Many people famously dismissed Jackson Pollack's signature drip paintings in the 1950s, for instance, as being something that a trained chimpanzee could produce. But there might be a strategy to increasing the likelihood of people rating one's art as being more meaningful. Researchers from the University of Waterloo found that providing so-called "pseudo-profound bullshit" titles primes people to perceive a given work of abstract art as being more profound and helps them infer meaning from the art. They described their work in a paper last fall in the Journal of Judgement and Decision Making, with the provocative title "Bullshit makes the art grow profounder."

That's certainly one way to snag some attention for a study. But it's not without risks, as it opens up the group to sharp criticism, especially from artists who might understandably take umbrage at the use of the term "bullshit" with respect to abstract art. But the Waterloo team also argues that the ability to produce convincing pseudo-profound BS might confer a distinct social advantage, bringing rewards of prestige, status or material goods, particularly in fields (like abstract art) where there is a fair amount of subjectivity in the evaluation of meaning or value.

It's worth pointing out upfront that the term "bullshit," as used here, is a technical term. Really. This is not BS in the colloquial sense, with all the negative connotations that implies. In the academic literature, "pseudo-profound" BS is not defined by being false but by being fake, with no concern for truth or meaning. "Bullshit may be true, false, or meaningless," the authors wrote. "What makes a claim bullshit is an implied yet artificial attention to truth and meaning."

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