Childhood Intelligence Linked to Voting Preferences in Later Life
Children with higher IQs are more likely to vote for Green Party or Liberal Democrats as adults, a new study has found.
Children with higher IQs are more likely to vote for Green Party or Liberal Democrats as adults, a new study has found.
The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.
Crucially, people's educational level is not what determines whether they are racist or not, it's innate intelligence, according to the academics.
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Followers of classic cult films would have loved Henry Fonda's character that sways a jury with his quiet, persistent intelligence in the classic film 12 Angry Men .
The study claims that right-wing ideology forms a "pathway" for people with low reasoning ability to become prejudiced against groups such as other races and gay people.
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We all are racist to a certain extent and it is not entirely our fault that we are so. New research seems to blame the TV, the internet and even the books that we read for this attitude.
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"Individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate towards more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo.
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The study used information from two UK studies from 1958 and 1970, where several thousand children were assessed for intelligence at age 10 and 11, and then asked political questions aged 33.
The 1958 National Child Development involved 4,267 men and 4,537 women born in 1958.
The British Cohort Study involved 3,412 men and 3,658 women born in 1970.
In adulthood, the children were asked whether they agreed with statements such as, "I wouldn't mind working with people from other races," and "I wouldn't mind if a family of a different race moved next door."
They were also asked whether they agreed with statements about typically right-wing and socially conservative politics such as, "give law breakers stiffer sentences," and "schools should teach children to obey authority."
The researchers also compared their results against a 1986 American study, which included tests of cognitive ability and questions assessing prejudice against homosexuals.
The authors claim that there is a strong correlation between low intelligence both as a child and an adult, and right-wing politics.
They also claim that conservative politics is part of a complex relationship that leads people to become prejudices.
"Conservative ideology represents a critical pathway through which childhood intelligence predicts racism in adulthood," the paper said.
"In psychological terms, the relation between intelligence and prejudice may stem from the propensity of individuals with lower cognitive ability to endorse more right wing conservative ideologies because such ideologies offer a psychological sense of stability and order.
"Clearly, however, all socially conservative people are not prejudiced, and all prejudiced persons are not conservative," it added.
The study has been published in Psychological Science.
Source-ANI
