Employees Who Buy Corporate Buzzwords Perform Worse

The employees most impressed by phrases like “synergizing scalable paradigms” and “pressure-testing adaptive coherence” are also the worst at analytical thinking, cognitive reflection, and practical decision-making. A Cornell study tested over 1,000 office workers using a tool the researcher is openly calling the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale. The findings confirm what everyone who has ever sat through an all-hands meeting already suspected.

Cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell built an AI-powered “corporate bullshit generator” that produces sentences like “We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing.” He then asked workers to rate the “business savvy” of these generated statements alongside real quotes from Fortune 500 CEOs. The people who couldn’t tell the difference scored lower on every measure of workplace competence the study tested.

The twist is that these same employees also reported higher job satisfaction, rated their bosses as more charismatic and visionary, and felt more inspired by company mission statements. They were also more likely to use the same language themselves. The study found that people who fall for corporate bullshit don’t just consume it. They reproduce it, creating what Littrell describes as a negative feedback loop in which organizations elevate leaders who speak in buzzwords, who then attract and promote employees who are impressed by buzzwords, who then become the next generation of leaders who speak in buzzwords.

“Rather than a ‘rising tide lifting all boats,'” Littrell said, “a higher level of corporate BS in an organization acts more like a clogged toilet of inefficiency.”

The study identifies several categories of corporate bullshit, including “pseudo-profound bullshit,” “persuasive bullshit,” and “evasive bullshit.” Among the real-world examples cited: Pepsi’s 2009 marketing plan, which included the sentence “The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillation,” and a Microsoft executive’s layoff email that described firing thousands of workers as accomplishing strategy “within an appropriate financial envelope.”

The implications cut deeper than office comedy. If the people most susceptible to empty language are also the ones most likely to rate their leaders as visionary and get promoted into leadership roles themselves, then corporate bullshit isn’t just annoying. It’s a selection mechanism. Organizations that tolerate it are systematically filtering for people who can’t tell the difference between a strategy and a sentence that sounds like one.