Who remembers fake historical figures? Differentiating between passing knowledge and dispositional openness in cultural research

• *Passing knowledge and dispositional openness are two frameworks to explain self-reported breadth in cultural tastes. • *Integrating research on “pseudo items” with Bourdieu’s observations about survey research and the “right to speak” can help adjudicate between passing knowledge and dispositional openness. • *Results indicate that in addition to a known gender effect, childhood arts exposure, network diversity, and formal education in business associate with claiming knowledge of fictitious historical figures. • *Pseudo items can be productively integrated into our methodological took-kit to help answer long-standing questions in cultural research. What does it mean when individuals report having a wide variety of cultural knowledge and taste? Core contemporary theories propose different answers to this question, suggesting that cultural breadth is either rooted in the development of “passing knowledge” across multiple domains, or the expression of more general “dispositional openness” to a wide variety of culture. To adjudicate between these two perspectives I introduce the use of pseudo items into culture research, and integrate their usage with Bourdieu’s observations about “competence” and the “right to speak.” I find evidence for a dispositional openness account to claimed cultural knowledge, in addition to a known gender effect that is likely also rooted in dispositions. In closing I discuss how my findings may be suggestive of a new form of allodoxia for elites. I also discuss how pseudo items and other productively weird methodological tools can help refine our analyses of longstanding culture questions, while also generating new ones.