BS Artist

Many years ago, I found a book that made working in a man’s world a lot easier.

It was the mid-90’s, and I had just been promoted to Marketing VP in the small software company where I worked. I was the only woman on the management team – and the only tea member who didn’t have the VP title. I made my case and got the promotion. But no increase in pay.

Hmmm. That didn’t seem quite fair.

Somewhere in there, I came across a book by Adrienne Mendell: How Men Think: The Seven Essential Rules for Making It in a Man's World.

I seem to recall finding it online. It may even have been my first Amazon purchase.

Anyway, I don’t recall what those seven essential rules were – one may have been don’t say “I think” and “I feel”; just declare that something is. But my prime takeaway from the book was that men don’t usually admit to weaknesses. Women do. This puts men at an advantage. What we hear from them is that they’re great at everything. What they hear us saying is, ha-ha, she just admitted she’s no good at X.

The explanation was that most men had grown up playing team sports, and when teams were choosing sides for pick-up games, no little boy wants to be chosen last. So they did this “pick-me-pick-me-pick-me” thing, “I’m great at hitting/I’m great at fielding/I’m really fast.” No one wanted to be the forlorn kid sitting on the end of the bench, waiting to see which team was going to be stuck with him.

The explanation is dated  - more women in today’s work world have played sports – and maybe even a bit sexist, but it makes sense to me. Sure, after one pick-up game, everyone will know who’s any good. But for starters, who’s going to pick the kid who admits “I suck at batting but I’m mostly good at catch” when the other kid is yelling “I can do it all!”

I do know that I did follow some of those rules and ended up with a 20% raise, an increase that put me into six-figure territory for the first time.

It may have been in the Mendell book, or something I read later, but somewhere I came across a reference to study in which they asked boys and girls how the thought they did on a test. Girls tended to be a lot more pessimistic about their efforts than boys were – even those who had done well downplayed their probable grades - but for the most part were able to pretty accurately access outcomes. Boys, on the other hand, wildly overestimated how well they thought they did.

I thought of all this when I saw an article in the Washington Post on BS artistry. The article described a study that ended up finding that “males are much more likely than females to profess expertise they don’t really have.”

Study participants were asked to assess their knowledge of 16 math topics on a five-point scale ranging from “never heard of it” to “know it well, understand the concept.” Crucially, three of those topics were complete fabrications: “proper numbers,” “subjunctive scaling” and “declarative fractions.” Those who said they were knowledgeable about the fictitious topics were categorized as BSers.

Using a data set spanning nine predominantly English-speaking countries, researchers delineated a number of key findings. First, men are much more likely than women to master the art of hyperbole, as are the wealthy relative to the poor or middle class. North Americans, meanwhile, tend to slip into this behavior more readily than English speakers in other parts of the globe. (Source: Washington Post)

The one surprise in there: Canadians were bigger BSers than those from the US. Maybe they just need to compensate for not being their American cousins…

The boys as bigger BSers than girls held across all nine countries, but there were significant differences in the BS gap between boys and girls, depending on the country.

The widest gaps were observed in England and Ireland. The gaps were quite a bit less in Canada and the US. Nice to see that our girls are catching up to boys in something. I guess.

There’s also a significant class-based difference, with respondents from the wealthier classes BSing more than those less advantaged. Again, the gaps were the lowest in Canada and the US. Nice to see that our poor are catching up to the rich in something. I guess.

Does make you wonder why there’s a wealth gap. Are those with less money just so beaten down and fearful that they’ll be found out if they BS, that they avoid it?

Taken as a whole, the results appear to suggest that the countries with the greatest propensity toward bombast also have the smallest variances between groups living within them. In the U.S. and Canada, for instance, there may simply be so much BS going around that everyone ends up partaking in it.

Interestingly, the Celtic countries – Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland – were the least BS-y. Is it harder to BS in Gaelic?

The study also suggests that men’s higher propensity toward this behavior “could help them earn higher wages and explain some of the gender wage gap,” said study co-author Nikki Shure. “This has important implications for thinking about tasks in job interviews and how to evaluate performance.”

Hey, I could have told them that. But that would be bragging, maybe even BSing.