Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice

http://news.yahoo.com/low-iq-conservative-beliefs-linked-prejudice-180403506.html

"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 socially conservative ideologies, 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."

Yeah yeah, it's completely predictable how this will play out in this thread but hell, we all know Romeo and Juliet die at the end but that doesn't stop a lot of people from going to the show anyway.

Game on!

 

So you're saying there's no overlap between people who hold "socially conservative" beliefs and those who hold "economically conservative" beliefs? I don't have proof, of course, but I strongly suspect a heavy overlap between the two - and for much the same reasons. "Stupidity" manifests itself in such things as habitually failing to do any fact checking, listening only to people you already know you'll agree with, etc. you can do this just as easily with economic beliefs as with social ones. In fact, given the time and effort that must by spent to gain a solid working knowledge of economics, it's probably far more likely that such behavior will occur with economic thought than social thought. And fewer belief systems are more childishly simplistic than the teabagger "government = evil/billionaires = good" CEO-worshipping Market Fundamentalism.

That said, what I really suspect is going on is not necessarily "conservatives are stupid" but more like "extremists are stupid". The problem is that there are so few lefty extremists remaining in the US compared to the righty variety that it's easier to find and therefore study extremist reactionaries. My bet is that if you rounded up a cross section of whatever is left of radical lefties, you'd find many of the same suboptimal characteristics that the studies authors noted in the extreme right. Of course, the problem in the US is that due to our economic imbalances, it's the right wing stupid crazies who are far more prevalent in positions of political, economic and social power than left wing stupid crazies which makes right wing stupid crazies far more dangerous to the rest of us.

This is why, on a more personal note, I feel sorry for the subset of my friends who are very moderately conservative whenever these kind of studies show up because they sure don't fit the picture painted in this study. And by "conservative", I mean the classical definition and I have to make that clear because whenever most people say someone is "conservative" these days they're usually (but not always) really describing a radical reactionary like the Religious Right or the tea party. My center-right friends all have at least a good college education, are all doing quite well for themselves. Most live in "nice" outer ring suburbs or exurbs. We're all basically HENRYs. The guys tend to work in IT, listen to metal, watch VH-1 classic a lot, smoke cigars and drink whisky and their wives tend to work for financial firms or stay home with the kids and think us guys are all 45 going on 15 (which is a fair cop, of course). They believe traditional moral standards and common decency have declined - especially on TV. They still believe in meritocracy, they want life to be fair and they think if you work hard and work smart, you'll be rewarded more than those who don't. They want an internationally "strong America" and while they aren't ashamed that we're an empire even when they cringe at the excesses of what it takes to keep us going as the world's imperial center. They believe in law and order and, while they'd likely never put it this way, I think they sort of accept the idea of social hierarchies and authority because some people are just smarter or stronger willed than others. Some believe in the death penalty. Some of them are quietly religious.

At the same time, they don't hate gays or Muslims. They don't buy flat taxes, union-busting, "trickle down" or other far right wing economic snake oil. They can admit that we do evil things abroad to maintain our empire. They know our state apparatus is far from perfect but they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater like many glibertarians do. The economic events of the past five years have taught them that bad things happen to good hard working people and that "government" should help those who want to work get back on their own feet. They're absolutely not anti-intellectual. They're not "tiger parents" but they definitely value education and want their kids to be smart and get at least a bachelors degree, hopefully more. They're embarrassed by the likes of Perry, Bachmann and the rabid Paulistas. They really wish Ted Nugent would just STFU already.

They'd be the natural audience for the real Mitt Romney (or, even better, Huntsman) and the fact that Romney has had to struggle mightily against a bunch of clowns shows that many of these people have spent the last decade or so becoming utterly disenfranchised from the GOP and wondering how all these stupid and crazy people have taken it over. A few have even recognized that the GOP has abandoned the center right and they held their noses last time and voted for Obama although they don't like him and wold not vote for him if a staunchly moderate Reep was nominated. Not only do my moderately conservative friends have to put with their party being hijacked but they also have to be lumped in with the idiots in studies like this.