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Jul - News - Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism New poll - New thread - New reply
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FieryIce

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Posted on 03-06-12 07:12:30 PM (last edited by FieryIce at 03-06-12 04:13 PM) Link | Quote
Article on Psychological Science
News article covering it

Originally posted by "The Huffington Post"
Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

"Reality is complicated and messy," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal "simplifying ideologies" as well as conservative ones.


I don't know what to say, I just hope this won't bring up a shitstorm of a debate here. But I am of the opinion that more prejudiced people tend to be ... less educated.
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Posted on 03-06-12 08:20:15 PM (last edited by Reshiram at 03-06-12 05:22 PM) Link | Quote
Possibility doesn't dictate what you can do.
Well, prejudice itself is based in a primitive mental ability of association. So of course, it is something that requires less rationalization/comprehension/is fucking stupid/whatever and is perhaps "animalistic" behavior, so it's not really a surprise it has some tangents to whatever is it that IQ really measures.
It IS a primitive rationalization: Relying on preexisting knowledge over actively analizying a situation, disregarding questioning the validity of this knowledge.


On the other hand, for conservatism... I'd guess having things remain as they are in general as opposed to changes makes them simpler, as changing things mean analizying and questioning all what is already known about them. So perhaps an ideology focused on keeping what has been accepted as it is is attractive to those who don't want to bother questioning it.
Which I guess is this sort of scientific-method analysis what ties it to IQ.

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Posted on 03-06-12 08:39:25 PM Link | Quote
Well, the thread title's pretty misleading. It sounds like people who are conservative don't necessarily have lower IQs, just people who pigeonhole themselves into an ideology all across the political spectrum. Which makes sense, really.

Racism is an incredibly primitive, childish way of thinking, though--it takes a really poor grasp of logic to make snap judgements about someone because they have more/less melanin in their skin (or because they're of a different gender, or because of who they're romantically attracted to... etc.), and that's something I figured people have been aware of for a long time.
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Posted on 03-06-12 09:46:07 PM Link | Quote
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Keep in mind that many intelligent rich people are conservative, so as to preserve their huge piles of money. Any survey will be skewed by the fact that the majority of people aren't rich, hence the flawed correlation (but not causation) between low IQ and conservatism.

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Posted on 03-06-12 09:54:58 PM Link | Quote
Rich people are not necessarily conservative, which is a common misconception; They only want to keep staying rich or, in some cases, get even richer.

If none conservative things help in such goals they will go for them if that is their reason for being conservative.

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Posted on 03-06-12 10:16:04 PM Link | Quote
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No, my point was that there are many conservative people who are rich, but their numbers pale in the number of non-rich people because overall, there are far more poor people.

Rich people can be of all the various alignments, but there is a faction of some rich people who are conservative because, naturally, it saves them a lot of money to get tax cuts.

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Posted on 03-06-12 11:11:39 PM (last edited by FieryIce at 03-06-12 08:16 PM) Link | Quote
There are also many rich people who are not really "intelligent." Especially since wealth can be inherited, and making money is easier if you already have a lot of money.

It seems to me that most of the current people who got rich through innovation (say most of Silicon Valley) are quite liberal ... while a lot of the conservative rich people inherited wealth (say, the Koch Brothers).
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Posted on 03-07-12 01:09:20 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Rambly
Well, the thread title's pretty misleading. It sounds like people who are conservative don't necessarily have lower IQs, just people who pigeonhole themselves into an ideology all across the political spectrum. Which makes sense, really.
The question's more what sort of ideology tends to attract them. Authoritarianism ("tell me what to believe I'm begging you"), bigotry, and fundamentalism all tend to flock together.

If we had a conservative movement that didn't insist on embracing the Robertsons and the Limbaughs and the Santorums (Santora?) of the world, the correlation would probably be a lot weaker.
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Posted on 03-07-12 02:55:35 AM Link | Quote
I'm just surprised it took a study to figure it out.

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Posted on 03-07-12 02:57:00 AM (last edited by Peardian at 03-06-12 11:57 PM) Link | Quote
Without a formalized study, an observation is still just an observation, no matter how obvious it may be.

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Posted on 03-07-12 04:11:24 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by FieryIce
There are also many rich people who are not really "intelligent." Especially since wealth can be inherited, and making money is easier if you already have a lot of money.

It seems to me that most of the current people who got rich through innovation (say most of Silicon Valley) are quite liberal ... while a lot of the conservative rich people inherited wealth (say, the Koch Brothers).


Actually, central California is pretty conservative, from what I know. It's northern California and southern California that are really liberal--and of course, that's what you hear about more often, because no one really seems to give a fuck about central California save for the whole Silicon Valley thing.

I may be mistaken there, though.

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Posted on 03-07-12 12:14:15 PM Link | Quote
Hold the phone. There's a central California?

Joking, but you're right. Nobody hears about central California much anyway.

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FieryIce

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Posted on 03-07-12 01:29:49 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Aux
Originally posted by FieryIce
There are also many rich people who are not really "intelligent." Especially since wealth can be inherited, and making money is easier if you already have a lot of money.

It seems to me that most of the current people who got rich through innovation (say most of Silicon Valley) are quite liberal ... while a lot of the conservative rich people inherited wealth (say, the Koch Brothers).


Actually, central California is pretty conservative, from what I know. It's northern California and southern California that are really liberal--and of course, that's what you hear about more often, because no one really seems to give a fuck about central California save for the whole Silicon Valley thing.

I may be mistaken there, though.


I thought it was inner California that was conservative, and all of the coast was very liberal. Silicon Valley is pretty close to San Francisco, so I have a hard time believing that area is conservative.
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Posted on 03-20-12 03:57:25 PM Link | Quote
I doubt simply being conservative makes you stupid. Linking prejudice and racism to low IQ sure, but there are plenty of smart conservatives out there.

It's just that the stupid ones are louder, as with any group.

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Posted on 03-20-12 04:06:40 PM Link | Quote
I would theorize that the reason that low IQ leads to conservatism is that it doesn't really require a lot of questioning.

If you cannot correctly analyze a problem, then chances are that you will stick to what already "works" which leads to conservatism.


Not to say that conservatism needs to be a bad thing, it's just a my two cents on why the low IQ part would make sense.

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Posted on 03-20-12 04:46:09 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Girlydragon
I would theorize that the reason that low IQ leads to conservatism is that it doesn't really require a lot of questioning.

If you cannot correctly analyze a problem, then chances are that you will stick to what already "works" which leads to conservatism.

Not to say that conservatism needs to be a bad thing, it's just a my two cents on why the low IQ part would make sense.

I'm not really sure this logic holds, though- if you cannot correctly analyze a problem, it doesn't mean that you can't analyze it, and act according to that incorrect analysis. (Indeed, you could easily run into the classic problem of people who don't know much being far more confident in their beliefs than those who do)

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Posted on 03-31-12 12:30:21 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Nicole
Originally posted by Girlydragon
(Indeed, you could easily run into the classic problem of people who don't know much being far more confident in their beliefs than those who do)

Hi, entire internet!

I showed this to my mom and dad the other week. My mom's leaning towards liberalism and she's incredibly intelligent (she has a phd), while my dad is hardcore right wing, born in an era where prejudice was cool. My mom is skeptical of the results, figuring it's another liberal agenda to pat themselves on the back (despite having liberal views and being a registered Democrat, she's ridiculously critical of a lot of things that side of the spectrum does), while my dad didn't really give a shit.

IQ tests are usually inherently flawed anyways. Some people are smart and can memorize a lot of important facts, mathematical equations and literary information, but the "count the number of red and yellow dots in this clusterfuck of rainbow dots in 10 seconds" completely fucks their score over.

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Jul - News - Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism New poll - New thread - New reply


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