Study Claims Racism, Conservatism Linked to Low I.Q.
Social media has been bombarded by a lot of racists and conservative remarks that came from people from all walks of life. This could mean that there is a truth to the report that racism and conservatism go hand in hand with low intelligence quotient?
A recent report from CBN News claimed that Conservatives from the US and Western Europe were being banned from different social media accounts because of their views and opinions, since they mostly criticize other races and religions.
But while the report did not mention that those individuals were in the lesser intelligence spectrum, there is a possibility that people with lower cognitive ability normally has racist or support conservative views according to research.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
A study that was published by Psychological Science in 2012 claimed that people who earned a low score on their intelligence quotient (I.Q.) tests when they were younger could possibly have a narrow-minded point of view and believe in socially conservative politics when they grow up.
The research found out that those who have low I.Q. tend to believe in socially conservative views which has an inclination to refuse in accepting changes. This will eventually lead to prejudice in different subjects.
Based on the abstract of the research, the result of the study that was conducted in 2012 claimed that a person's cognitive abilities can play an important yet underappreciated role in coming up with prejudice.
According to an email sent by Brock University of Ontario's psychologist Gordon Hodson to LiveScience, prejudice and low intelligence can go hand in hand.
"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," the study's lead researcher stated in the email.
The study explained that the reason why less intelligent people normally believes in conservative ideologies is that they can understand the structure and order faster compared to more complex beliefs.
Another psychologist from the University of Virginia named Dr. Brian Nosek, who was not involved in the study, also agreed to Dodson's claims. In an email sent to The Huffington Post, Nosek said that reality can be more complicated and messier compared to philosophies. "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," Nosek stated.
However, Nosek stated that Hodson's study could open the dam for a very heated argument. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it's bound to upset somebody," he also said.
A report from The Guardian claimed that the study could be considered robust since it gathered information from several thousand responders. It also noted that the study proved that prejudice does not necessarily have the tendency to emerge directly from people with low intelligence. Instead, it came from conservative ideas that those who are considered with low I.Q. are normally drawn into.
According to the report, it is hard to prove the claim of the study that those who can be classified as people with low cognitive abilities are fascinated by traditionalist ideologies that encourage consistency and order.
The study also resulted to a lot of debates, where several opinionated liberals claimed that it proved their opinions about several conservatives while the representatives of the Republican Party argued that the result of the research had been constantly misinterpreted.
While the conclusion of the research remains under debate, people will continue to come up with their own opinions about different subjects and biases even if they have been identified with having higher or lower cognitive abilities.
