Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated
Tim Finin, 5:10pm 25 April 2009“Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated”. How’s that for a provocative opening sentence in an academic paper! Lazar Stankova of the National Institute of Education in Singapore reports this finding in a paper published earlier this year in the Elsevier journal Intelligence.
Lazar Stankova, Conservatism and cognitive ability, Intelligence, v37, n3, pp. 294-304, May-June 2009.
I’ve only scanned the paper, but it looks like a serious study. Here’s the abstract:
“Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated. The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States’ universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education (e.g., gross enrollment at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and performance on mathematics and reading assessments from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project. They also correlate with components of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Conservatism scores have higher correlations with economic and political measures than estimated IQ scores.
The paper describes a meta-analysis based on data from three studies that employed the same set of psychological measures. Twenty-two of these measures were selected, drawn from four domains: personality, social attitudes, values, and social norms. While the paper finds strong support for the hypothesis that low cognitive ability is associated with high conservatism it doesn’t make any statements about causality.
There is room for disagreement about the definition of conservatism and it’s projection to the 22 measures. The following narrative definition of conservatism is given, which is broad and dominated by personal and social aspects. It’s clearly not limited to the political or economic domain.
“The Conservative syndrome describes a person who attaches particular importance to the respect of tradition, humility, devoutness and moderation as well as to obedience, self-discipline and politeness, social order, family, and national security and has a sense of belonging to and a pride in a group with which he or she identifies. A Conservative person also subscribes to conventional religious beliefs and accepts the mystical, including paranormal, experiences. The same person is likely to be less open to intellectual challenges and will be seen as a responsible “good citizen” at work and in the society while expressing rather harsh views toward those outside his or her group.”
If you can’t access the paper on Elsevier’s Science Direct digital library, you can look at three key tables here: Table 1, Table 2, and Table 3.
Ebiquity Blog
April 25th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
sounds like a bunch of made-up stuff to me.
April 25th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
From the definition used, they are talking about *social* conservatives, not economic conservatives – an important difference. For example, Libertarians are more socially liberal that Democracts, although they are often seen as “conservative” for their support of economic freedom.
April 25th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
While my biases would get me to believe the headline, there are way too many exceptions that I can name. Bill Buckley comes immediately to mind.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS! Seriously, was the study necessary though……. it seems pretty self-evident.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:37 am
I know a lot of highly educated conservatives who have a poor grasp of logic.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Seeing as the definition used for ‘conservatism’ is based on party politic rubbish, this study is more of the same bollocks used by party loyal collectivists who are incapable of thinking for themselves. They think they are different even though they are guilty of the same accusations they proclaim the otherside guilty of.
Take for example the fact that many Rep. claim to be fiscally conservative when they spent billions on war and other pet projects and then cry murder when the Dems are doing it. They should be happy that they have continued the same policy. Then you have the Dems who are spending frivilous amounts of money, robbing from the productive economy to prop up the wasteful and unproductive under the pretense of saving the economy. They cried murder when the Rep. were off waging war but have done nothing but continued the same old imperial policy that has been practiced for decades. They merely whine so they can get re-elected and people fall for it.
Both sides wish to perpetuate their social idealologies on one another. The Reps. want to make you a devout christian while the Dems want you to accept homosexuality, atheism, etc… This all is a product of Democracy which is among one of the worst types of governments to have. One side of the mob robs, steals, and murders from the other. Then the other comes into power and does the robbing, stealing, and murder. There are no rights except for the majority where as the losing side and the minority (the minority is the individual in a free society) have none unless they can regain power somehow.
It’s easy to see the hypocrisy of the ‘opposition’ just looking from your own skewed viewpoint but until you step oputside yourself and see that you are no different from ‘them’, you will not see your own hypocrisy nor the puppet master behind the whole illusion who is robbing you all blind! Liberty for all or liberty for none. Stop your childish squabbling and look at the bigger picture and ask yourself who stands to gain from the infighting?
I am convinced that a college or rather public education is designed to make the masses ignorant of their own oppresion. Such is to be expected from a state run education system that all authoritarian regimes need to maintain their power over the masses. Yet people still believe they live in a free society…
April 26th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Hi .. why is my tuition money going to support a post like this? Just to let you libs know, you only make up 50% of this country.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Sounds like the same kind of BS as when “science” decided that blacks weren’t as intelligent as whites back in the first half of the last century.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:50 am
[...] Nota consultada: UMBC Ebiquity [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 10:47 am
what is this Lol
April 29th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
It’s BS masquerading as a legitimate study.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Making studies about conservatism and cognitive ability
is inversely related to
having a social life.
Can’t argue with science : )
April 29th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
“This all is a product of Democracy which is among one of the worst types of governments to have. One side of the mob robs, steals, and murders from the other. Then the other comes into power and does the robbing, stealing, and murder. There are no rights except for the majority where as the losing side and the minority (the minority is the individual in a free society) have none unless they can regain power somehow.
As opposed to other forms of government, where one side supported by a mob robs, steals and murders the other, period, and the minority are in control.
My guess is the study used less than representative subjects. The things listed as being lower all involve critical thinking… if you are brought up to support, and do support the status quo, that involves a lesser degree of critical thinking. This is anecdotal so feel free (in fact, please do) ignore it, but I’ve found the conservatives I’ve debated tended to criticize their own arguments as well as the opposition, and its not hard to see how lacking that skill would correlate to lower scores in some of those tests.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:22 am
“The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States’ universities”
can this even be applied to someone that’s been socialized in the US?
May 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
The very study itself was taken from a pool of students, OF ALL PEOPLE???? Gee, I wonder what these inbred, moronic brainwashed idiot students who haven’t earned a dime in their lives or even managed a McDonalds for that matter are going to say about conservatism??? The guy who wrote this article must be in LA LA land to not know what type of results polling students on this issue will give! IDIOT!
May 7th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
josh, Joe, I95, desertrat2261, Bob, Anonymous, George are the conservatists that are mentioned in the study.
Instead of opposing of the argument with a different study or at least questioning the methods nicely such as Breanna, they posted some RUBBISH…
BTW, conservatists here are not equal to republicans or any other political affiliations if any of you have at least an ounce of a brain, LOLz…
May 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I love how many Americans who have posted here can only apply the finding to the limited context of the U.S. – the study was done outside the U.S. but Americans automatically and in their narrow world view can’t apply it to a larger world context. Do Americans understand that conservatives exist outside America? How many Americans could apply this study to the conservatives that they are familiar with or have knowledge of living in other countries? Expand and evolve your world views, Americans! And understand, Americans, that since this study was done outside the U.S. the results of this study, may not even be applicable to other countries, especially the U.S. as there’s no operational definition of “conservatism” provided to know that we’re all in understanding of how the study treated the same concept – Americans would have to find out what conservatism means in a Sinaporean context and I doubt many Americans know what Singapore is (it’s country) let alone how its culture encapsulates concepts such as conservatism.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
I find this hysterical. Both of my kids are religious conservatives and blow out every standardized test. Both are NM Scholars. The truth is, most people become MORE conservative as they experience life. As they become smarter, they become more conservative.