Those who 'circle back' and 'synergize' also tend to be crap at their jobs
- Reference: 1773567015
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/15/corporate_jargon_research/
- Source link:
Researchers from [1]Cornell University have developed what they call "the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale," a tool designed to measure how impressed people are by business school-style jargon that sounds strategic but says very little.
The findings, [2]described in a recent study, suggest that employees who rate this sort of language as insightful are more likely to struggle with analytical thinking and workplace decision-making.
[3]
To build the scale, researchers ran four studies involving more than 1,000 working adults in the US and Canada. Participants were shown a mix of genuine corporate statements and nonsense lines generated by what the researchers call a "corporate bullshit generator" – effectively a tool that mashes together buzzwords into sentences that sound like they came straight out of a quarterly strategy meeting.
[4]
[5]
Examples included lines such as "actualize a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing" and "pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence." Participants were then asked to rate how meaningful or insightful the statements appeared.
The idea was to measure how easily someone interprets impressive-sounding language as legitimate business insight. According to the researchers, that trait turns out to correlate with some less flattering cognitive patterns.
[6]
People who scored higher on the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale tended to perform worse on tests measuring analytical thinking, cognitive reflection, and fluid intelligence. They also made poorer judgments in workplace decision-making scenarios designed to mimic common business problems.
In other words, the employees most impressed by corporate jargon were also the ones least likely to think critically about it.
That doesn't mean the buzzword enthusiasts were miserable at work, though. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.
[7]
According to the researchers, people with higher receptivity to corporate jargon were more likely to view their bosses as charismatic leaders and to feel inspired by corporate messaging. They were also more likely to use the same language themselves, helping to keep the buzzword cycle alive.
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The researchers say the result can create a feedback loop within organizations. Leaders who speak in vague, buzzword-heavy language may be seen as visionary by employees who find that style persuasive, which only encourages more of the same corporate word salad.
The work builds on earlier research into what psychologists call "bullshit receptivity," effectively the tendency to see deep meaning in statements designed to sound impressive while saying very little.
Applied to the workplace, the idea suggests that corporate jargon sticks around not just because executives enjoy using it, but because many people respond to it as if it were genuine insight.
So the next time someone proposes "synergizing scalable paradigms," it may not be a bold strategic breakthrough. It might simply be a quick way to find out who in the room is nodding along and who is quietly wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean. ®
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[1] https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400597536_The_Corporate_Bullshit_Receptivity_Scale_Development_validation_and_associations_with_workplace_outcomes
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2abaRUgbc6oq1cEhHy_Qx0AAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abaRUgbc6oq1cEhHy_Qx0AAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abaRUgbc6oq1cEhHy_Qx0AAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abaRUgbc6oq1cEhHy_Qx0AAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abaRUgbc6oq1cEhHy_Qx0AAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/11/ig_nobel_prize_leaves_us/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/27/uk_copper_struck_off_after/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/17/night_time_soundscapes_solve_problems/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/17/palliser_capital_toto/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: No kidding.
I think this study is less about the bullshit bingo itself, but far more a genuine confirmation of what we all suspected. Those that drink the Koolaid, are generally crap at their jobs.
I think we all have suspected as much on many occasions, but it is nice to have that officially confirmed (well as officially as you can get fro trick cyclists).
I think I will be forwarding this article to a few select people around the office. I wonder if they'll recognise themselves... :P
Re: No kidding.
TLDR. Is there a Powerpoint summary?
No Surprises
After first checking the date to see it wasn't April 1st, I'd say this is pretty much on the money. After 30-odd years of working in corporate environments the level of bullshit bingo you have to plough through on a regular basis is just staggering, and I have never understood why there is this blind insistence on using such shitty wording in the first place when using plain English is just more straightforward and less vague. It really does look like a lot of the people using this bullshittery are only doing it to make themselves seem better than they are without actually saying anything. And yes, the work colleagues who lapped this word salad up were pretty mediocre in their jobs as well.
They probably 'reach out' all the time as well
And don't just 'call' or 'contact'.
Many moons ago when I was still a cog in the corporate BS machine there was a conference call led by a middle manager, and hundreds of techies from her organisation attended it. After the call, one of them told me he had no clue wtf she was going on about. I think I got maybe half of it.
Re: They probably 'reach out' all the time as well
Yeah - reach out really pisses me off. I had a boss who used it all the time. He was a decent bloke and one day I told him that babies reach out, adults ask. It didn't stop him using it but sometimes, in the right situation, when he used it I used to raise my arms like a baby wanting to be picked up.
Re: They probably 'reach out' all the time as well
I hear you - if I'd have done that, eventually my arms would never come down as just about everybody started to use it eventually - made my skin crawl.
Re: They probably 'reach out' all the time as well
In today's world reaching out ought to me enough to get cancelled by the woke.
Office politics 101 ... Chapter. 1.
"The findings, described in a recent study, suggest that employees who rate this sort of language as insightful are more likely to struggle with analytical thinking and workplace decision-making."
This defines where the word salad comes from ... people who cannot think analytically BUT need to communicate 'something' to their minions ... hence create a long-winded word salad that sounds convincing to the ears of the speaker and to few others, the managers and similar who are looking up at the role they covet will nod as if it makes sense and try to pass the message on to prove their loyalty to the speaker.
"Send Three & four pence we are going to a dance."
:)
"People who scored higher on the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale tended to perform worse on tests measuring analytical thinking, cognitive reflection, and fluid intelligence."
"Analytical thinking" is fine. "Cognitive reflection", border-line but surely "fluid intelligence" must be one of their test phrases that escaped and was slotted in to see what the paper's audience made of it.
They mention a feedback loop. The worst feedback loop isn't that, it's the fact that those who fall for the bullshit are the ones that get promoted to spout more of it themselves, the rest of us are in the awkward squad. I've long held what I call the workers and wankers hypothesis of how employees divide. Each type, in charge, will appoint and promote its own but there's a distinct risk that a wanker will get promoted by mistake and when that happens the business is doomed because they'll eventually take over and there'll be nobody left to do the work.
I would punt…
"cognitive reflection" is "introspection" after a quick passage through the entrails of corporate crap machine.
"fluid intelligence" either a "brilliant" manglement idea conceived after a liquid lunch or a the result of an Ebola like virus liquifying manglement brain — differential diagnosis always problematic.
"workers and wankers"
The difference between the two is just an or. ;)
" they'll eventually take over and there'll be nobody left to do the work. " — I suspect they have and there'll soon won't be but lots of confused warking and wonking fluffing it in the meantime.
Herding the Cattle
You need to sound impressive when you intend to herd the cattle to conform to your ways. You treat them like children with bombastic language and gestures to be impressive in form but are completely non-committal and conveying no real content.
It really should be seen in the divide and conquer scheme, where you appease the large(st) flock with bullshit and create an environment where dissent is suppressed and self censuring is encouraged and enforced. If effect, it is all about power and control .
No kidding.
One wonders how much grant money this "study" managed to elicit.
Seriously, we've been laughing at this corporate bombastic bullshit for as long as I can remember. The first "boardroom bingo" cards I remember were run off on either a mimeograph or spirit duplicator, long before "xerox" became a verb.