You are on page 1of 4

Page semi-protected

Gullibility
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration by Peter Newell for the poem "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible
Raven" (Fables for the Frivolous) by Guy Wetmore Carryl.
Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tric
ked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action. It is closely related t
o credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are uns
upported by evidence.[1][2]
Classes of people especially vulnerable to exploitation due to gullibility inclu
de children, the elderly, and the developmentally disabled.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Meaning
1.1 Etymology and History
2 Examples
3 Theories
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
Meaning
The words gullible and credulous are commonly used as synonyms. Goepp & Kay (198
4) state that while both words mean "unduly trusting or confiding", gullibility
stresses being duped or made a fool of, suggesting a lack of intelligence, where
as credulity stresses uncritically forming beliefs, suggesting a lack of skeptic
ism.[3] Jewell (2006) states the difference is a matter of degree: the gullible
are "the easiest to deceive", while the credulous are "a little too quick to bel
ieve something, but they usually aren't stupid enough to act on it."[4]
Yamagishi, Kikuchi & Kosugi (1999) characterize a gullible person as one who is
both credulous and nave.[5] Greenspan (2009) stresses the distinction that gullib
ility involves an action in addition to a belief, and there is a cause-effect re
lationship between the two states: "gullible outcomes typically come about throu
gh the exploitation of a victim's credulity."[6]
Etymology and History
A popular test of gullibility is to tell a friend that the word gullible isn't i
n "the" dictionary; a gullible person might respond "Really?" and go to look it
up. Unsurprisingly, modern English language dictionaries do indeed contain the w
ord, although some of the earliest dictionaries did not.
The verb to gull and the noun cullibility (with a C) date back to Shakespeare an
d Swift, whereas gullibility is a relatively recent addition to the lexicon. It
was considered a neologism as recently as the early 19th century.[7][8] The firs
t attestation of gullibility known to the Oxford English Dictionary appears in 1
793, and gullible in 1825. The OED gives gullible as a back-formation from gulli
bility, which is itself an alteration of cullibility.[9]
Early editions of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, includi
ng those published in 1797 and 1804, do not contain "gullibility" or "gullible".
[10] An 1818 edition by Henry John Todd denounces "gullibility" as "a low expres
sion, sometimes used for cullibility".[7] Gullibility does not appear in Noah We
bster's 1817 A dictionary of the English language,[11] but it does appear in the
1830 edition of his American dictionary of the English language, where it is de
fined: "n. Credulity. (A low word)".[12] Both gullibility and gullible appear in
the 1900 New English Dictionary.[9]
Examples
Greenspan (2009) presents dozens of examples of gullibility in literature and hi
story. In the fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio, the title character is a g
ullible puppet who is repeatedly duped by other characters; part of his transfor
mation into a human being is learning to avoid gullibility while still exercisin
g empathy. In the first part of "Little Red Riding Hood", the title character is
deceived by a wolf; from this experience she learns to feign gullibility in ord
er to deceive a second wolf. In "The Emperor's New Clothes", the emperor and his
staff display gullibility in being swindled, while the crowd displays credulity
in believing in the invisible cloth. Mark Twain depicts mass gullibility in The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, among others. Sha
kespeare explores gullibility in the title characters of Romeo and Juliet, Macbe
th, and especially Othello. Of the examples of deception found in the Bible, the
tale that most concerns the behavior of the deceived is Samson in the Book of J
udges, a character who is destroyed by his gullibility in the face of love. The
best-known example is Eve's gullibility in the Book of Genesis.[13]
Deception is a classic theme in war and politics see The Art of War and The Prince a
nd Greenspan finds the example most concerned with the gullibility of the deceiv
ed to be the Trojan Horse. In the Aeneid's version of the story, the Trojans are
initially wary, but vanity and wishful thinking eventually lead them to accept
the gift, resulting in their slaughter. Greenspan argues that a related process
of self-deception and groupthink factored into the planning of the Vietnam War a
nd the Second Iraq War.[14] In science and academia, gullibility has been expose
d in the Sokal Hoax and in the acceptance of early claims of cold fusion by the
media.[15] In society, tulipmania and other investment bubbles involve gullibili
ty driven by greed, while the spread of rumors involves a gullible eagerness to
believe (and retell) the worst of other people. April Fools' Day is a tradition
in which people trick each other for amusement; it works in part because the dec
eiver has a social license to betray the trust they have built up over the rest
of the year.[16]
Theories
Some writers on gullibility have focused on the relationship between the negativ
e trait of gullibility and positive trait of trust. The two are related, as gull
ibility involves an act of trust. Greenspan (2009) writes that exploiters of the
gullible "are people who understand the reluctance of others to appear untrusti
ng and are willing to take advantage of that reluctance."[6] In 1980, Julian Rot
ter wrote that the two are not equivalent: rather, gullibility is a foolish appl
ication of trust despite warning signs that another is untrustworthy.[17]
See also
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Sheeple
Suggestibility
Swampland in Florida
There's a sucker born every minute
Vulnerabilities exploited by manipulators
Notes
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, pp. 2 3.
^ Jump up to: a b Sofronoff, Dark & Stone 2011.
Jump up ^ Goepp & Kay 1984, p. 198.
Jump up ^ Jewell 2006, p. 360.
Jump up ^ Yamagishi, Kikuchi & Kosugi 1999, p. 145.
^ Jump up to: a b Greenspan 2009, p. 3.
^ Jump up to: a b Mencken & McDavid 1963, p. 24.
Jump up ^ Nuttall 1995, p. 265 "Gullible is not known to the Oxford English Dict
ionary before the 19th century..."; cited after Greenspan (2009, p. 23).
^ Jump up to: a b Oxford English Dictionary online: gullibility, n. Oxford Engli
sh Dictionary online: gullible, adj.
Jump up ^ Johnson 1797, p. 423; Johnson & Hamilton 1804, p. 106.
Jump up ^ Webster 1817, p. 148.
Jump up ^ Webster & Walker 1830, p. 392.
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, pp. 13 32.
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, pp. 51 59.
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, pp. 93 101.
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, pp. 133 144.
Jump up ^ Greenspan 2009, p. 3, who cites Rotter 1980.
References
Goepp, Philip H.; Kay, Mair Weir (June 1984), Gove, Philip B., ed., Merriam-Webst
er's Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonym
s and Analogous and Contrasted Words, Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, ISBN 0-8
7779-341-7
Greenspan, Stephen (2009), Annals of gullibility: why we get duped and how to av
oid it, Praeger Publishers, ISBN 978-0-313-36216-3
Jewell, Elizabeth, ed. (2006), Pocket Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus (2nd America
n ed.), New York: Oxford University Press US, ISBN 0-19-530715-1
Johnson, Samuel (1797), A Dictionary of the English Language (11th ed.), Edinbur
gh: Brown, Ross, and Symington
Johnson, Samuel; Hamilton, Joseph (1804), Johnson's Dictionary of the English la
nguage, in miniature (1st American, from the 14th English ed.), Boston, MA: W. P
. and L. Blake
Mencken, Henry Louis; McDavid, Raven Ioor (1963), The American language: an inqu
iry into the development of English in the United States, 1, New York: Knopf
Nuttall, Anthony David (1995), "Gulliver among the horses", in Rawson, Claude Ju
lien, Jonathan Swift: A collection of critical essays, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pre
ntice-Hall, pp. 264 279. Reprinted from Nuttall, Anthony David (1988), "Gulliver a
mong the Horses", The Yearbook of English Studies, 18: 51 67, JSTOR 3508189
Sofronoff, Kate; Dark, Elizabeth; Stone, Valerie (23 March 2011), "Social vulner
ability and bullying in children with Asperger syndrome" (PDF), Autism, doi:10.1
177/1362361310365070
Webster, Noah (1817), A dictionary of the English language: compiled for the use
of common schools in the United States, Hartford, Connecticut: George Goodwin &
Sons
Webster, Noah; Walker, John (1830), American dictionary of the English language:
exhibiting the origin, orthography, pronunciation, and definitions of words (3r
d ed.), New York: S. Converse
Yamagishi, Toshio; Kikuchi, Masako; Kosugi, Motoko (April 1999), "Trust, gullibi
lity, and social intelligence" (PDF), Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 2 (1):
145 161, doi:10.1111/1467-839X.00030, retrieved 3 April 2011
Further reading
Greenspan, Stephen; Loughlin, Gail; Black, Rhonda S. (2001), "Credulity and gull
ibility in people with developmental disorders: A framework for future research"
, International Review of Research in Mental Retardation, 24: 101 135, doi:10.1016
/s0074-7750(01)80007-0
Rotter, Julian B. (January 1980), "Interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and gul
libility", American Psychologist, 25 (1): 1 7, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.35.1.1
[hide] v t e
Psychological manipulation
Reinforcement
Attention Bribery Child grooming Flattery Gifts Ingratiation Love bombing Nudgin
g Praise Seduction Smiling Superficial charm Superficial sympathy
Punishment
Anger Character assassination Crying Emotional blackmail Fear mongering Frowning
Glaring Guilt trip Inattention Intimidation Nagging Nit-picking criticism Passi
ve aggression Relational aggression Sadism Shaming Silent treatment Social rejec
tion Swearing Threats Victim blaming Victim playing Yelling
Other techniques
Bait-and-switch Deception Denial Deprogramming Disinformation Distortion Diversi
on Divide and rule Double bind Entrapment Evasion Exaggeration Gaslighting Good
cop/bad cop Indoctrination Low-balling Lying Minimisation Moving the goalposts P
ride-and-ego down Rationalization Reid technique Setting up to fail Trojan horse
You're either with us, or against us
Contexts
Abuse Advertising Bullying Catholic guilt Confidence trick Guilt culture Interro
gation Jewish guilt Jewish mother stereotype Moral panic Media manipulation Mind
control Mind games Mobbing Propaganda Salesmanship Scapegoating Shame culture S
mear campaign Social engineering (blagging) Spin Suggestibility Whispering campa
ign
Related topics
Antisocial personality disorder Assertiveness Blame Borderline personality disor
der Dumbing down Enabling Fallacy Femme fatale Gaming the system Gullibility His
trionic personality disorder Impression management Machiavellianism Narcissism N
arcissistic personality disorder Personal boundaries Persuasion Popularity Power
and control in abusive relationships Projection Psychopathy
Categories: DeceptionPsychological manipulation
Navigation menu
Not logged inTalkContributionsCreate accountLog inArticleTalkReadView sourceView
historySearch
Search Wikipedia
Go
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
?????
Srpskohrvatski / ??????????????
Edit links
This page was last modified on 15 October 2016, at 04:56.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; add
itional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and P
rivacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, I
nc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersContact WikipediaDevelopersCookie statem
entMobile viewWikimedia Foundation Powered by MediaWiki

You might also like