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People With Low IQ Tend to be Socially Conservative: New Study (Barf, BS & Junk Science Alert)
International Business Times ^ | 1/27/12 | By AMRUTHA GAYATHRI:

Posted on 01/27/2012 9:33:00 AM PST by Clint N. Suhks

In a new study, bound to stir controversy, researchers have found that people with low IQ tend to have socially conservative ideals and prejudiced attitudes toward others, including people of different races and homosexuals.

The new study published earlier this month in the journal Psychological Science found that British children with lower general intelligence factor (similar to IQ) are more likely to be racially prejudiced as adults.

"We found that lower general intelligence in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology," lead researchers Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri of Brock University, Canada, wrote in the abstract of the paper.

"We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups."

The study was conducted using two "large-scale, nationally representative U.K. data sets (N = 15,874)," and a secondary analysis of a U.S. data set. The secondary analysis confirmed the effect of poor reasoning skills behind homophobia, caused by authoritarianism and low intergroup contacts.

The conservative attitudes were measured by whether people agreed with statements like "Family life suffers if mum is working full-time," and "Schools should teach children to obey authority."

Attitudes towards other races were assessed with statements like "I wouldn't mind working with people from other races," which served to capture overt racism, while excluding people with unconscious and covert racial biases.

"Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice," the researchers told LiveScience.

Since there have been studies which established links between low levels of education and higher levels of prejudice, studying intelligence seemed a logical next step, the researchers said.

Simply put, the research findings are nothing short of calling social conservatives dumb. To be precise, the study, by and large, implicates social conservatives rather than the political conservatives.

However, the researchers have pointed out that the study doesn't imply that all conservatives are stupid and liberals intelligent.

"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.

LiveScience has published an article about the study, discussing its potential to upset people. "They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. "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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: academia; conservatives; culturewars; homosexualagenda; iq; leftismoncampus; psychology; psycobabble; uva
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To: Clint N. Suhks

NYT: “Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public and tend to be Republican, white, male and married.”


21 posted on 01/27/2012 9:47:11 AM PST by ILS21R (Never give up.)
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To: LMAO

Mike Beschloss

http://freedomswings.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/obama-is-our-smartest-president/


22 posted on 01/27/2012 9:47:57 AM PST by Clint N. Suhks (Santorum/Newt 2012)
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To: Clint N. Suhks

Liberal people think Barack Obama is a genius. President Obama does not have a single significant accomplishment in his entire life, but to the liberals he is a genius. They believe that if you need green energy that you simply decide we should switch, and it will work. They think that they can impose a carbon tax on this country and that it will not affect the economy. Liberals are so smart. Everyday and every way I way I am learning how very, very smart they are.


23 posted on 01/27/2012 9:49:22 AM PST by Essie
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To: Clint N. Suhks

People with low IQ’s believe this kind of crap. Word any study the way you want people to respond and you will get the answers you are looking for. This is bogus crap which we will see much more of until the election.

Move along, nothing to see here.


24 posted on 01/27/2012 9:49:49 AM PST by kevinm13 (Tim Geithner is a tax cheat. Manmade "Global Warming" is a HOAX!)
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To: RJS1950

That a$$hole author is AMRUTHA GAYATHRI, an Indian woman coming from very segregated society. Too much cow pee and vegan in her diet.


25 posted on 01/27/2012 9:50:20 AM PST by cambyses
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To: 5thGenTexan
People with high IQs tend to have inflated egos, exaggerate their importance in the universe, deny there is anything greater than themselves, reject the notion of a Higher Power and therefore His universal Truths and Laws

...and might decide they want to blow up their high school because they can.

26 posted on 01/27/2012 9:50:43 AM PST by stayathomemom (Beware of kittens modifying your posts.)
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To: Clint N. Suhks

One word: global warming hoax


27 posted on 01/27/2012 9:51:43 AM PST by y6162
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To: 5thGenTexan

136 here last time I tested.

It’s of course another poke in the eye of red state flyover country inhabitants liberals like to smear because can’t understand why people would live there.


28 posted on 01/27/2012 9:54:40 AM PST by Clint N. Suhks (Santorum/Newt 2012)
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To: Clint N. Suhks

I guess all those nativist rebels killing the white Afrikaner farmers in Rhodesia were all geniuses.


29 posted on 01/27/2012 9:55:54 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: dead

Looks like we’re on the same page with the motivations behind this study (see my post following yours)...

The way the “strata” works is this:

those in the upper echelon of wealth and power tend to be communists.
They use those in the lowest echelon of wealth and power (who tend to be “democrats”) to further their own power (through “democracy”), and bribe them with a pittance of the wealth they confiscate from the middle group, the working people and producers in this country, who tend to be “republican”.


30 posted on 01/27/2012 9:56:16 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: SMARTY

This soundslike the left laying a false foundation to eventually justify Hitler style eugenics in the name of stopping intolerance and racism.
It’s what Bill Ayers (Zero’s buddy) wanted from the beginning. He wants the death of 25 million Christians to begin a fresh new start for America.


31 posted on 01/27/2012 9:57:23 AM PST by Clump (the tree of liberty is withering like a stricken fig tree)
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To: Clint N. Suhks

Wasn’t there a study that graded Obama’s SOTU speech at an 8th grade comprehension level? His base is so smart, that he had to dumb the speech down to a middle school comprehension level? Liberals have always been bad, but their propoganda attempts now don’t even have effort put into them anymore.


32 posted on 01/27/2012 10:01:15 AM PST by BloodAngel
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To: Clint N. Suhks

Libruls r mor smartr then consrvtvis.

33 posted on 01/27/2012 10:01:15 AM PST by Joe the Pimpernel (Too many lawmakers, too many laws, too many lawyers.)
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To: Clint N. Suhks
"People With Low IQ Tend to be Socially Conservative"

What the liberals are saying (not that I agree with them) is that only they are smart enough to break taboos and avoid the law and get away with it. If you are so dumb that you cannot do this, then you 'support' the traditional values.

34 posted on 01/27/2012 10:09:42 AM PST by I am Richard Brandon
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To: Clint N. Suhks

there IS something wrong with many inner city blacks though....they are very racist....very violent....and they do carry “conservative” social values against gay marriage, homosexuals in general,etc....


35 posted on 01/27/2012 10:13:05 AM PST by cherry
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To: Clint N. Suhks

let me get this straight..

Democrats are that party of the poor... Republicans are the party of the rich..

Yet... according to this conservatives (ie Republicans) have lower IQ’s

which means they are arguing that Rich people have low IQ’s and poor people have high IQ’s

ROFL

right.


36 posted on 01/27/2012 10:13:37 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Go Newt!)
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To: Clint N. Suhks

I’ve been around and I can tell you without a doubt, the dumbest and most ignorant people all had leftist leanings or are democrats. The people I know who are conservative are smart honest and hardworking. They care about their fellow man. Pure hogwash.


37 posted on 01/27/2012 10:14:40 AM PST by vpintheak (Occupy your Brain!)
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To: Essie
Liberal people think Barack Obama is a genius. President Obama does not have a single significant accomplishment in his entire life, but to the liberals he is a genius.

Why, just the other year we learned from Barry the correct pronunciation of corpsman is "corpse man". I never knew, because I is dumb.

38 posted on 01/27/2012 10:14:51 AM PST by 6SJ7 (Meh.)
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To: LMAO
...this president has an IQ that’s off the charts...

They were looking at the wrong end of the chart.

39 posted on 01/27/2012 10:19:38 AM PST by Max in Utah (A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: SMARTY

131???? that’s it??? mine is at 138 and holding.. between you and me we have more IQ than the majority of so called college “professors”...


40 posted on 01/27/2012 10:20:22 AM PST by joe fonebone (Project Gunwalker, this will make watergate look like the warm up band......)
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