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Written by WiG
Jan 27, 2012
A new study finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to gravitate to right-wing ideals and prejudices as adults.
Researchers participating in the study discovered a vicious cycle whereby low-intelligence people identify with socially conservative principles that stress attitudes that contribute to prejudice, such as hierarchy and resistance to change.
“Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood,” said Gordon Hodson, lead researcher at Brock University in Ontario.
“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,” concluded LiveScience.com in reporting the results of the study.
Polling data and social and political science research have already shown that prejudice is more common among people who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions.
“The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of (this new study),” said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the Brock University study. “It’s not that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists.”
And one of the answers, apparently, is sub-normal intelligence.
