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US researcher unveils scale measuring receptivity to corporate jargon

June 21, 2026 at 00:25 EDT

Research & Papers
Recruiting & HR

Shane Littrell, a cognitive psychologist at Cornell University, has developed the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR), a measure that quantifies how receptive people are to abstract, near-empty corporate jargon, and a validation study of roughly 1,000 office workers found that those with higher receptivity scored lower on analytical thinking and problem-solving.

Personality and Individual Differences · Vol. 255 (2026)

Loving Corporate Buzzwords May Mean You're Worse At Your Job

A Cornell cognitive psychologist built the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR) — and found that workers most impressed by hollow business jargon tend to think less analytically and make weaker workplace decisions.

1,018

Office workers studied across the US & Canada

Separate studies used to validate the scale

5-pt

CBSR rates phrases by perceived "business savvy"

The core correlation

Higher receptivity to empty corporate-speak lined up with lower scores on analytic thinking and on a situational judgment test of real workplace decisions.

LOW receptivity

Stronger analytic thinking & decisions

HIGH receptivity

Weaker performance & leadership

The detector that fooled people

Real Fortune 500 executive quotes were mixed with machine-generated jargon — and some genuine quotes were nearly indistinguishable from the algorithm's output.

Generated example

"We will actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing."

Why it's useful

First tool to quantify receptivity to empty corporate-speak and tie it, with data, to weaker real-world decision-making — a fresh lens on corporate culture.

A note of caution

Promising as a research instrument, but too immature for high-stakes use like hiring — branding high scorers as "unfit" would be premature.

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