Gullibility

Last updated

Illustration by Peter Newell for the poem "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven" (Fables for the Frivolous) by Guy Wetmore Carryl. Frivolous Fables fox and raven.gif
Illustration by Peter Newell for the poem "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven" ( Fables for the Frivolous ) by Guy Wetmore Carryl.

Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tricked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action. It is closely related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence. [1] [2]

Contents

Classes of people especially vulnerable to exploitation due to gullibility include children, the elderly, and the developmentally disabled. [2] [3]

Meaning

The words gullible and credulous are commonly used as synonyms. Goepp & Kay (1984) state that while both words mean "unduly trusting or confiding", gullibility stresses being duped or made a fool of, suggesting a lack of intelligence, whereas credulity stresses uncritically forming beliefs, suggesting a lack of skepticism. [4] Jewell (2006) states the difference is a matter of degree: the gullible are "the easiest to deceive", while the credulous are "a little too quick to believe something, but they usually aren't stupid enough to act on it." [5]

Yamagishi, Kikuchi & Kosugi (1999) characterize a gullible person as one who is both credulous and naïve. [6] Greenspan (2009) stresses the distinction that gullibility involves an action in addition to a belief, and there is a cause-effect relationship between the two states: "gullible outcomes typically come about through the exploitation of a victim's credulity." [7]

Etymology and history

The verb to gull and the noun cullibility (with a C) date back to Shakespeare and Swift, whereas gullibility is a relatively recent addition to the lexicon. It was considered a neologism as recently as the early 19th century. [8] [9] The first attestation of gullibility known to the Oxford English Dictionary appears in 1793, and gullible in 1825. The OED gives gullible as a back-formation from gullibility, which is itself an alteration of cullibility. [10]

Early editions of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language , including those published in 1797 and 1804, do not contain "gullibility" or "gullible". [11] An 1818 edition by Henry John Todd denounces "gullibility" as "a low expression, sometimes used for cullibility". [8] Gullibility does not appear in Noah Webster's 1817 A dictionary of the English language, [12] but it does appear in the 1830 edition of his American dictionary of the English language , where it is defined: "n. Credulity. (A low word)". [13] Both gullibility and gullible appear in the 1900 New English Dictionary . [10]

Examples

Greenspan (2009) presents dozens of examples of gullibility in literature and history:

Deception is a classic theme in war and politics—see The Art of War and The Prince —and Greenspan finds the example most concerned with the gullibility of the deceived to be the Trojan Horse. In the Aeneid's version of the story, the Trojans are initially wary, but vanity and wishful thinking eventually lead them to accept the gift, resulting in their slaughter. Greenspan argues that a related process of self-deception and groupthink factored into the planning of the Vietnam War and the Second Iraq War. [15] In science and academia, gullibility has been exposed in the Sokal Hoax and in the acceptance of early claims of cold fusion by the media. [16] In society, tulipmania and other investment bubbles involve gullibility driven by greed, while the spread of rumors involves a gullible eagerness to believe (and retell) the worst of other people. April Fools' Day is a tradition in which people trick each other for amusement; it works in part because the deceiver has a social license to betray the trust they have built up over the rest of the year. [17]

Theories

Some writers on gullibility have focused on the relationship between the negative trait of gullibility and positive trait of trust. They are related, as gullibility requires an act of trust. Greenspan (2009) writes that exploiters of the gullible "are people who understand the reluctance of others to appear untrusting and are willing to take advantage of that reluctance." [7] In 1980, Julian Rotter wrote that the two are not equivalent: rather, gullibility is a foolish application of trust despite warning signs that another is untrustworthy. [18]

Against gullibility

The relationship between gullibility and trust has led to alternate theories. Neuroscientist Hugo Mercier claims the opposite, that humans are intrinsically skeptical and difficult to persuade; we readily accept unsupported or false statements when they support our beliefs. One reason why we form these beliefs is that scientific theories are often counterintuitive, so we discard them in favour of explanations we find logical. This theory struggles to account for the prevalence of conspiracy theories; Mercier explains these as "reflective beliefs" that are insulated from our "intuitive beliefs", meaning that while we hold them we do not base our actions on them; [19] an example of this is in the Pizzagate conspiracy where, despite many people falsely believing that a restaurant was harbouring child sex slaves, few took proportionate actions. As such, humans are not gullible per se, as we do not tend to trust everyone; indeed, a separate study found that more trusting participants were the best at discerning who to trust. [20] As a result, he claims that humans "make more errors of omission (not trusting when we should) than of commission (trusting when we shouldn’t)". [21] Research into how fake news influenced voting preferences in the 2018 Italian General Election supports this, suggesting that we tend to consume fake news that supports our ideologies and, thus, it does little to influence election outcomes. [22]

See also

Notes

  1. Greenspan 2009, pp. 2–3.
  2. 1 2 Sofronoff, Dark & Stone 2011.
  3. Pinsker & McFarland 2010.
  4. Goepp & Kay 1984, p. 198.
  5. Jewell 2006, p. 360.
  6. Yamagishi, Kikuchi & Kosugi 1999, p. 145.
  7. 1 2 Greenspan 2009, p. 3.
  8. 1 2 Mencken & McDavid 1963, p. 24.
  9. Nuttall 1995 , p. 265 "Gullible is not known to the Oxford English Dictionary before the 19th century..."; cited after Greenspan (2009 , p. 23).
  10. 1 2 Oxford English Dictionary online: gullibility, n. Oxford English Dictionary online: gullible, adj.
  11. Johnson 1797 , p.  423; Johnson & Hamilton 1804 , p.  106.
  12. Webster 1817, p.  148.
  13. Webster & Walker 1830, p.  392.
  14. Greenspan 2009, pp. 13–32.
  15. Greenspan 2009, pp. 51–59.
  16. Greenspan 2009, pp. 93–101.
  17. Greenspan 2009, pp. 133–144.
  18. Greenspan 2009 , p. 3, who cites Rotter 1980.
  19. Fleming, Nic. "Why the human race may be less gullible than you think". New Scientist. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  20. Yamagishi, Kikuchi & Kosugi 1999, pp. 145–161.
  21. "Who are you calling gullible?". UnHerd. 2020-03-24. Retrieved 2020-03-27.
  22. Cantarella, Michele; Fraccaroli, Nicolò; Volpe, Roberto (2019-07-11). "The effect of fake news on populist voting: Evidence from a natural experiment in Italy". VoxEU.org. Retrieved 2020-03-27.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angst</span> Intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil

Angst is fear or anxiety. The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictionary</span> Collection of words and their meanings

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

Skepticism, also spelled scepticism in British English, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the person doubts that these claims are accurate. In such cases, skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This attitude is often motivated by the impression that the available evidence is insufficient to support the claim. Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology.

Truth or verity is the property of being in accord with fact or reality. In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences.

<i>A Dictionary of the English Language</i> 1755 dictionary by Samuel Johnson

A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, was published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson. It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motto</span> Short sentence expressing a motivation

A motto is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mottos are usually found predominantly in written form, and may stem from long traditions of social foundations, or from significant events, such as a civil war or a revolution. One's motto may be in any language, but Latin has been widely used, especially in the Western world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scam</span> Attempt to defraud a person or group

A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims ".

Deception is the act of convincing one or many recipients of untrue information. The person creating the deception knows it to be false while the receiver of the message has a tendency to believe it. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight of hand as well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception. It can also be called, with varying subjective implications, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, ruse, or subterfuge.

Webster's Dictionary is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), an American lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honesty</span> Moral quality of truthfulness

Honesty or truthfulness is a facet of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straightforwardness, along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Honesty also involves being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.

A useful idiot or useful fool is a pejorative description of a person, suggesting that the person thinks they are fighting for a cause without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions, and who does not realize they are being cynically manipulated by the cause's leaders or by other political players. The term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and psychological manipulation. A number of authors attribute this phrase to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is not supported by any evidence. Similar terms exist in other languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sincerity</span> The virtue of honest and genuine communication

Sincerity is the virtue of one who communicates and acts in accordance with the entirety of their feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and desires in a manner that is honest and genuine. Sincerity in one's actions may be called "earnestness".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American and British English spelling differences</span> Comparison between U.S. and UK English spelling

Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British/English in the Commonwealth of Nations date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.

Naivety, naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A naïve may be called a naïf.

Oxford spelling is a spelling standard, named after its use by the Oxford University Press, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization instead of -ise endings.

<i>Hello</i> Salutation or greeting

Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1826.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infidel</span> Disbeliever in central tenets of a religion

An infidel is a person who is accused of disbelief in the central tenets of one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or irreligious people.

Credulity is a person's willingness or ability to believe that a statement is true, especially on minimal or uncertain evidence. Credulity is not necessarily a belief in something that may be false: the subject of the belief may even be correct, but a credulous person will believe it without good evidence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Common English usage misconceptions</span> Beliefs about the use of the English language considered by others as wrong

This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir Arthur Wardour</span> Fictional character

Sir Arthur Wardour of Knockwinnock Castle is a character in Walter Scott's 1816 novel The Antiquary, a Scottish Tory baronet who is vain of his ancient family but short of money. He is a friend and neighbour of Jonathan Oldbuck, the novel's title-character.

References

Further reading