From the abstract:<p>> ... Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that bullshit ability is predictive of participants’ intelligence and individuals capable of producing more satisfying bullshit are judged by second-hand observers to be higher in intelligence. ...<p>This abstract reads like bullshit.<p>The paper defines "bullshiting," but not "intelligence." Nor do the authors even seem interested in addressing any of the numerous problems in measuring human intelligence.<p>The "intelligence" tests being used appear to be:<p>- Wordsum Task. The Wordsum task is a 10-item vocabulary test commonly used as a measure of verbal intelligence (see Malhotra et al., 2007 for a review). In this task, a word in large print (e.g., “CLOISTERED”) appears above a series of smaller print words (e.g., bunched, secluded, malady, miniature, arched). Participants’ objective is to pick a small print word that is the best synonym for the large print target word. Scores on the Wordsum task were equal to the total number of correct responses provided.<p>- Raven’s Progressive Matrices. We administered Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM) as a measure of abstract reasoning and non-verbal fluid intelligence (Bilker et al., 2012). In this task, participants are presented with a partially obscured visual pattern and must select the available pattern fragment that will successfully complete the pattern. The RPM is comprised of 60 items broken up into five levels of difficulty. In order to decrease time demands on participants, we randomly selected four items from each of the five difficulty levels, resulting in 20 RPM items being presented in Study 1. We calculated an RPM score for each participant by calculating the number of correct responses they provided.<p>Assuming this study was in fact performed and isn't some weird bullshit inception joke, these "intelligence" tests seem flawed at best.