Gordon Pennycook is a Canadian psychologist widely recognised for his work on reasoning, decision-making, and the dissemination of misinformation. Born in Carrot River, Saskatchewan, Pennycook earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saskatchewan. He subsequently completed his Master’s and PhD at the University of Waterloo, where he co-authored On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit, which explored people’s propensity to accept profound-sounding but essentially nonsense statements as true. The study was the winner of the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in 2016, which “honors achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”.
Following his doctoral studies, Pennycook received the Governor General’s Gold Medal for outstanding scholastic achievements and pursued a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University. There, his research focused on understanding the dynamics of fake news and the sharing of misinformation on social media platforms.
In 2017, Pennycook joined the University of Regina’s Hill and Levene Schools of Business as an assistant professor of Behavioural Science. His work delved into the role of analytic reasoning in belief formation, particularly regarding religious beliefs and susceptibility to fake news. His contributions to the field were recognised in 2020 when he was elected as a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Since 2021, Pennycook has served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. His research continues to explore the interplay between intuitive and analytic thinking processes, aiming to understand their impact on decision-making and the spread of misinformation.
He has co-authored studies examining public perceptions of artificial intelligence and the psychological factors influencing belief in AI-generated content. Pennycook is also associate editor of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review and a member of the editorial boards for Thinking & Reasoning and the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology.
