In a study sure to upset no one at all…..

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.

This is a great opening line to an article, not just because of what it says, but because of what it doesn’t say. It implies that this article will offend some people, and that controversy will abound, but then says something that has been pretty uncontroversial for some time. And avoids stating the link that will really piss people off.

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.

And now we come to it. The slap in the face that is going to rub the right in the wrong way is not that low IQ and predjudice can be linked. We would then simply hear about how the left is really the party of racism, and they have always known it, and blah blah blah something about Lincoln. We have seen that before. No, the fun connection is that low IQ individuals also gravitate to socially conservative ideologies. Which we also have seen before. But here they are linked in one study. Couple that with the simple observation that socially conservative thinking, by definition, endourses athoritarian thinking and fear of change, and we have a great deal of fun ahead.

“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 racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it’s bound to upset somebody.”

In other news, Brian is in the running for the “under statement of the year” award.

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. “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.”

Speaking of comments that are going to piss people off, a study shows that on average less intelligent people are conservative, prejudiced, and fear change. In responce, a psychologist says (roughly translated) “No shit, we have known that, like, forever! Duh. The real question is why?”

Someone order Rush some extra “meds” he is going to need them.

…As suspected, low intelligence in childhood 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.

Hold on, the findings get interesting. Low intelligence makes for a tendency to later prejudice if you throw in a political factor? This implies that being a social conservative literally is training for being predjudiced. But the training doesn’t stick as well if you have any brain cells to bang together.

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.

So how do we reduce predjudice? Exposure to difference. But that is hard work, and draining, and people with less mental ability will try to avoid that. I wonder if there is a good way to avoid thinking about icky ethnic people that could be imposed to make life easier for social conservatives wishing to protect their predjudice. Like watching a heavily biased news channel where all your thoughts are echoed back at you and nothing to challenge your world view could come up. Maybe you could send your kids to a private school where everyone is lilly white and your religion is the only one discussed. Maybe you could even pass a law removing study of other cultures from the cirriculum. (Note to self, ask AZ how that is working out)

The article moves into damage control at that point, with talk of averages and difference within groups. They are quick to point out that the study isn’t saying that you, gentle reader, are the one they discussed. There are plenty of stupid liberals and brilliant conservatives. Biased liberals and conservatives who have no outward exibition of predjudice. This is just the average of the group. Or as J.S. Mill once pointed out, “it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, however it is true that the majority of stupid people are conservative.” (Sorry, I don’t have the exact quote on hand, but that is pretty damn close. Correct me if I am wrong…)

Doesn’t it worry the average conservative that you belong to a group where “average” is defined as less intelligent and more likely to be predjudice? Even if you are neither? These are your people…

In another (US based) study (t)hey 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.

Again, we needed a study?

We have jokes about this. It is hardly new. “What do you call a conservative who actually knows a gay person, an ethinic minority, and thinks of his wife as a human being? A liberal.” This isn’t ground breaking people.

“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 dangerous place’. … Another simple way would be to just assume everybody is wonderful.”

Fair eneough. One of these makes a person who may be simple minded, but has a positive outlook, the other makes a KKK member. Which concerns me more?

The question we might wonder about, is whether or not there are ways that the natural assumptions in any given political group help to recruit and reinforce those predjudices. You might think of it as a large scale exercise in social evolution. If your method of forming the group is to attract those people with less intelligence, and less empathy, and less imagination, you then get policy dictated by that group. People lacking intelligence imagination and empathy. Which means the parties platform changes slowly to one with less imagination, empathy or understanding. Which reinforces the method of atracting the least well informed, least understanding, least caring among the populace. Which makes your platform even less caring, less reasonable…

How many generations of this type of artificial “inbreeding” does it take to get the latest group of GOP presidential hopefuls?

Martha Nussbaum has claimed that the best reason to teach the humanities to all students is because the humanities have a particular way of engaging the imagination and forcing most people to learn some type of empathy. Empathy that she thinks is vital to being able to overcome predjudice. Hodson might agree.

“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 feelings toward outgroups,” rather than thoughts.

All of which leads me to hope that a combination of humanities education and exposure to freely available information would eventually help everyone, no matter their intelligence level to overcome the types of predjudice being studied here. The internet may actually be good for something besides cute cat pictures. At least it has the potential. Well, if combined with certain attitudes and some education. It almost makes me hopeful that someday…

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday hailed the benefits of silent reflection to stop being “bombarded” by information from the internet. “People today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware,” the pope said in his now traditional yearly message on the Vatican and social communications.

Son of a bitch.

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

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