l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 “…there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal
to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world”
January 27, 2012 | Posted by Michael Laprarie
Ugh. Here we go again – “Low IQ and Conservative Beliefs Linked To
Prejudice.” I kid you not:
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, [
researcher Gordon Hodson] wrote in an email to LiveScience.
… Social conservatives were defined as people who agreed with a laundry
list of statements such as “Family life suffers if mum is working full-
time,” and “Schools should teach children to obey authority.” Attitudes
toward other races were captured by measuring agreement with statements such
as “I wouldn’t mind working with people from other races.” (These
questions measured overt prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter
how egalitarian, do hold unconscious racial biases; Hodson’s work can’t
speak to this “underground” racism.)
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.
People with lower cognitive abilities also had less contact with people
of other races.
Unsurprisingly, these are thoroughly meaningless conclusions. How
meaningless? Well, obviously Yahoo! News is spinning this research to apply
to lower middle class, Southern, white, blue collar evangelical Republicans.
But their conclusions could also just as easily apply to perhaps the most
opposite culture in America – poor African Americans.
Don’t believe me? Think about it: African-Americans from low income
neighborhoods make up the majority of students in America’s poorest
performing schools. I haven’t done specific research, but I’d be willing
to bet dollars for donuts that there is a correlation between the
performance of these students and their measured IQ; in other words, it is
probably below average.
Poor African-Americans tend to live in tightly knit, closed communities and
have little real world contact with whites outside of white incursions into
their community, generally in the form of law enforcement. They also tend
to hold very deep religious beliefs and tend to strongly reject non-
traditional lifestyles, particularly same sex relationships. And have I
mentioned the predominance of very close, interdependent (though highly
matriarchal) family structures?
Yet anyone who would argue that these traits are “likely” to be the cause
of the deeply ingrained, racially motivated animosity between Blacks, Asians
and Hispanics would immediately be lambasted as a “RAAAACIST!”
Of course if you are looking for evidence to justify “poorly educated and
easily led” or “bitterly clinging to guns and religion” stereotypes of
Conservative whites, this study has it in spades. I suppose that’s much
easier than actually taking the time to understand why others have differing
value systems or opposite political points of view. |
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