Each country was given an overall bullshit score based on its take on the three fake subjects and controlled for things like actual mathematical achievement. Canada topped the list, followed closely by the United States. Australia and New Zealand followed, with England bringing up the back of the pack in terms of a tendency to bullshit. Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland all ended up with negative scores. Although there are undoubtedly bullshitters in these three countries, apparently math isn’t their preferred topic for exercising this artistry.

Data showed that the boys in all of the countries are more likely to claim they’ve mastered a nonexistent skill. The same held true for people with higher socioeconomic status, who invariably engaged in some bullshitting. People at the lower end of the economic scale, in contrast, had negative BS scores in all of the countries examined.

Things aren’t all bad for North Americans, though, as they’re remarkably egalitarian in their bullshit. Both the gap between genders and the gap between low and high socioeconomic status were smallest in the US and Canada. The US was also unique in that there was no significant gap between immigrants and native-born bullshitters (in other countries, immigrants were more likely to claim they knew the nonexistent math). England, Ireland, and Scotland had the largest gender gaps; Scotland and New Zealand the largest gap based on economic status; and the European countries all clustered together with larger differences between native populations and immigrants.