People Who Post ‘Profound’ Quotes On Facebook ‘Have Lower Intelligence’

Do you know anyone who is prone to posting ‘profound’ and ‘inspiring’ quotes on Facebook?

We don’t know how you will break this to them, but they’re probably not very smart.

A new study has linked people who are receptive to these buzzword-heavy statements and quotes to lower cognitive scores - ie low intelligence.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, asked 845 volunteers to evaluate a series of statements on how profound they were - and if they agreed with them.

Some of the statements were actually meaningless - such as  'attention and intention are the mechanics of Manifestation' and 'imagination is inside exponential space time events'.

Others were from the author and New Age guru Deepak Chopra, who said, 'nature is a self-regulating ecosystem of awareness.’

Others included, ‘Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty,’ and ‘Imagination is inside exponential space time events.’

The researchers found that people who rated the statements highly as being profound were less intelligent - and more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.

Gordon Pennycook of the University of Waterloo, in Ontario,  'Although bulls**t is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception - critical or ingenuous - has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation.

'We focus on pseudo-profound bulls**t, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.