[URL]http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html[/URL]
[QUOTE]There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward [URL="http://www.livescience.com/16746-conservatives-disgust-political-views.html"]socially conservative ideologies[/URL], the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors[URL="http://www.livescience.com/8189-individuals-rare-disorder-racial-biases.html"]contributing to bias[/URL] are uncovered and understood," he said.
Controversy ahead
The findings combine three hot-button topics.
"They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and [URL="http://www.livescience.com/16257-racial-stereotypes-clothing-social-status.html"]racism[/URL] and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables,
it's bound to upset somebody."
Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other
political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [[URL="http://www.livescience.com/17852-unhealthy-personality-traits-neuroticism.html"]7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You[/URL]]
"The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of this," Nosek said, referring to the new study. "It's not
that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists."
Brains and bias
Earlier studies have found links between low levels of education and higher levels of prejudice, Hodson said, so studying intelligence seemed a logical
next step. The researchers turned to two studies of citizens in the United Kingdom, one that has followed babies since their births in March 1958, and
another that did the same for babies born in April 1970. The children in the studies had their intelligence assessed at age 10 or 11; as adults ages 30
or 33, their levels of social conservatism and racism were measured. [[URL="http://www.livescience.com/17534-life-extremes-democrat-republican.html"]Life's Extremes: Democrat vs. Republican[/URL]]
In the first study, verbal and nonverbal intelligence was measured using tests that asked people to find similarities and differences between words,
shapes and symbols. The second study measured cognitive abilities in four ways, including number recall, shape-drawing tasks, defining words and
identifying patterns and similarities among words. Average IQ is set at 100.
Social conservatives were defined as people who agreed with a laundry list of statements such as "Family life suffers if mum is working full-time," and
"Schools should teach children to obey authority." Attitudes toward other races were captured by measuring agreement with statements such as "I
wouldn't mind working with people from [URL="http://www.livescience.com/8299-feel-pain-race.html"]other races[/URL]." (These questions measured overt prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter how
egalitarian, [URL="http://www.livescience.com/16339-culture-racism.html"]do hold unconscious racial biases[/URL]; Hodson's work can't speak to this "underground" racism.)
As suspected, [URL="http://www.livescience.com/3375-children-older-men-suffer-iq.html"]low intelligence in childhood[/URL] corresponded with racism in adulthood. But the factor that explained the relationship between these two
variables was political: When researchers included social conservatism in the analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains
and bias.
People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people of other races.
"This finding is consistent with recent research demonstrating that intergroup contact is mentally challenging and cognitively draining, and consistent
with findings that contact reduces prejudice," said Hodson, who along with his colleagues published these results online Jan. 5 in the journal
Psychological Science.
A study of averages
Hodson was quick to note that the despite the link found between low intelligence and[URL="http://www.livescience.com/16746-conservatives-disgust-political-views.html"]social conservatism[/URL], the researchers aren't implying that all
liberals are brilliant and all conservatives stupid. The research is a study of averages over large groups, he said.
"There are multiple examples of very bright conservatives and not-so-bright liberals, and many examples of very principled conservatives and very
intolerant liberals," Hodson said.
Nosek gave another example to illustrate the dangers of taking the findings too literally.
"We can say definitively men are taller than women on average," he said. "But you can't say if you take a random man and you take a random woman
that the man is going to be taller. There's plenty of overlap."
Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.
"Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," Hodson said, explaining why these beliefs might draw those with low intelligence.
"Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."
In another study, this one in the United States, Hodson and Busseri compared 254 people with the same amount of education but different levels of
ability in abstract reasoning. They found that what applies to racism may also apply to homophobia. People who were poorer at abstract reasoning
were more likely to exhibit prejudice against gays. As in the U.K. citizens, a lack of contact with gays and more acceptance of right-wing
authoritarianism explained the link. [[URL="http://www.livescience.com/13409-myths-gay-people-debunked-sexual-orientation.html"]5 Myths About Gay People Debunked[/URL]]
Simple viewpoints
Hodson and Busseri's explanation of their findings is reasonable, Nosek said, but it is correlational. That means the researchers didn't conclusively
prove that the low intelligence caused the later prejudice. To do that, you'd have to somehow randomly assign otherwise identical people to be [URL="http://www.livescience.com/16797-intelligence-smart-dumb-brain.html"]smart
or dumb[/URL], liberal or conservative. Those sorts of studies obviously aren't possible.
The researchers controlled for factors such as education and socioeconomic status, making their case stronger, Nosek said. But there are other
possible explanations that fit the data. For example, Nosek said, a study of left-wing liberals with stereotypically naïve views like "every kid is a genius
in his or her own way," might find that people who hold these attitudes are also less bright. In other words, it might not be a particular ideology that is
linked to stupidity, but extremist views in general.
"My speculation is that it's not as simple as their model presents it," Nosek said. "I think that lower cognitive capacity can lead to multiple simple ways
to represent the world, and one of those can be embodied in a right-wing ideology where 'People I don't know are threats' and 'The world is a
[URL="http://www.livescience.com/18056-conservatives-liberals-biology-threats.html"]dangerous place[/URL]'. ... Another simple way would be to just assume everybody is wonderful."
Prejudice is of particular interest because understanding the roots of racism and bias could help eliminate them, Hodson said. For example, he said,
many [URL="http://www.livescience.com/14962-anti-prejudice-campaign-increase-prejudice-bias.html"]anti-prejudice programs[/URL]encourage participants to see things from another group's point of view. That mental exercise may be too taxing for
people of low IQ.
"There may be cognitive limits in the ability to take the perspective of others, particularly foreigners," Hodson said. "Much of the present research
literature suggests that our prejudices are primarily emotional in origin rather than cognitive. These two pieces of information suggest that it might be
particularly fruitful for researchers to consider strategies to change [I]feelings [/I]toward outgroups," rather than thoughts.
[/QUOTE]
This is a really old article, but I haven't seen it before, so I figured FP might enjoy the read.
In other news:
grass is green
sky is blue
ocarina of time is the best game ever
Not surprising, though it's always nice to have evidence to point to .
Common knowledge. But nice to have a study that indicates as such.
[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;36448288]In other news:
grass is green
sky is blue
ocarina of time is the best game ever[/QUOTE]
Have to agree with you on the last one.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best game ever.
This was posted a few months ago, I actually saw it in my subscribed threads earlier while looking for something.
When you said it's a "really old" article, I was thinking a few years, not just six months...
Either way, yeah, makes sense.
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;36448394]Have to agree with you on the last one.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best game ever.[/QUOTE]
you agree but post a different game???
I feel like the title of this thread could just as easily be "Breaking News: Dyeing Things Red Makes Them Appear Red."
Hm. Damn conservatives.
[video=youtube;DkdibuG79bM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkdibuG79bM[/video]
[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;36448288]In other news:
grass is green
sky is blue
Scout hurts people
XCOM:UFO Defence is the best game ever[/QUOTE]
Fixed for accuracy.
[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;36448288]In other news:
grass is green
sky is blue
ocarina of time is the best game ever[/QUOTE]
OoT isn't even the best Zelda game
i like how FP will tend to circle-jerk each other over how dumb racists and conservatives are in relation to them, only to later agree en-mass with some horrible racist shit.
talk about confirmation bias.
[QUOTE=thisispain;36448729]i like how FP will tend to circle-jerk each other over how dumb racists and conservatives are in relation to them, only to later agree en-mass with some horrible racist shit.
talk about confirmation bias.[/QUOTE]
Hello Mr.Hypocrite
You're going to do exactly this pretty soon, every does.
I love how casually we derailed this.
Wasn't the last survey on this done by some guy who is the reason that Evolutionary Psychology has a bad name?
[QUOTE=FlubberNugget;36448767]Hello Mr.Hypocrite
You're going to do exactly this pretty soon, every does.[/QUOTE]
What?
Thisispain is up there with Lankist on the anti racist scale.
Low IQ [B]AND[/B] Conservative Beliefs.
[I]not[/I]
Low IQ [B]OR[/B] Conservative Beliefs. There's a difference.
No shit, I don't have to be a scientist to tell you that.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;36449164]What?
Thisispain is up there with Lankist on the anti racist scale.[/QUOTE]
it's true him and i often come together for coffee and discussion of how racist everyone on FP is.
you can't blame us for that though, y'all niggas are racist as fuck.
[QUOTE=thisispain;36449335]it's true him and i often come together for coffee and discussion of how racist everyone on FP is.
you can't blame us for that though, y'all niggas are racist as fuck.[/QUOTE]
So what makes you less racist then?
what the fuck he's just not okay
what are you talking about
[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;36448652]Fixed for accuracy.[/QUOTE]
Terror from the Deep was better.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;36449367]So what makes you less racist then?[/QUOTE]
the lack of racial prejudice maybe?
[QUOTE=Lachz0r;36449977]the lack of racial prejudice maybe?[/QUOTE]
And how much more racial prejudice do "Facepunchers" have then?
[QUOTE=thisispain;36448729]i like how FP will tend to circle-jerk each other over how dumb racists and conservatives are in relation to them, only to later agree en-mass with some horrible racist shit.
talk about confirmation bias.[/QUOTE]
Well Facepunch is on level with Fox News when it comes to bias. That kind of comes naturally with having a majority of posters with a monopolitical view on an Internet forum. It's all right as long as you know how to take everything with a grain of salt.
[QUOTE=archangel125;36448370]Common knowledge. But nice to have a study that indicates as such.[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't it be technically "common theory" until there's a study that indicates such?
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36450516]Wouldn't it be technically "common theory" until there's a study that indicates such?[/QUOTE]
I don't know. I think that when enough indications point towards a result, we've got one, albeit unconfirmed in the strictly academic sense. It's kinda obvious that dumb people would be the ones to hold everyone back.
[QUOTE=Bomimo;36450610]I don't know. I think that when enough indications point towards a result, we've got one, albeit unconfirmed in the strictly academic sense. It's kinda obvious that dumb people would be the ones to hold everyone back.[/QUOTE]
I'd rather stick to what is confirmed and unconfirmed before making assumptions, even if based on what is perceived to be obvious. But that's just me.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
