A study conducted in Germany found that men with higher IQs are less inclined to traditional values, but the lead author, psychologist and intelligence researcher Maximilian Krolo of Saarland University, said the researchers did not find these differences among women.
Of course. There’s a reason why conservatives don’t want the masses educated. Because they’d see how much they’re getting fucked by said conservatives.
Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.
Plenty of dumb dumbs among us, don’t worry.
There’s a reason universities lean heavily left
I would disagree on the “heavily” unless you accept the US definition of the right-left paradigm.
What university did you go to?
Sure, but perhaps take solace that we’re less deliberately hateful and that stupidity isn’t celebrated as it is among the arch conservatives?
I think that political allegiance is often much more about emotions and sociological relations than intellect. Class thinking is more prevalent than we assume nowadays
…and are cunning linguists too!
hello ladies
I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a lussy picker.
So you’re saying I’m the smartest man alive? Thanks?
IQ testing is pseudoscience. It’s one of the preferred methods of the far right to try to differentiate between races for that very reason. Pseudoscience is a lot more malleable for their purposes than the settled science that says race doesn’t exist biologically.
Having a “high IQ” is only proof that you’re good at IQ tests.
I think that extreme upper and lower bounds do say something, but few point differences are entirely worthless. Scoring a 70 is rather significant, and 160 probably is too, but 100 vs 90 vs 110? Meaningless.
It’s not completely pseudo-science, as there are a lot of correlations with things like academic success or job performance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations
Oh yea, so does your zip code.
I’m going to ignore all the issues with this study, and just be happy there are people out there finding the data that shows conservatism is stupidity.
That sounds pretty stupid to me :D
All in good fun
I know, that’s why I added the “:D”
Still less stupid than “the bible says so!” when they clearly haven’t read it
Or anything…
This is because reality itself has a strong left-leaning bias, and intelligence makes you encounter that a lot more as you interact with reality.
Sure, there are highly intelligent right-wingers, but intelligence only gives you the cognitive tools to discover reality, it doesn’t force you to use them. Just because a person is intelligent doesn’t mean they can’t slide off into wharrderp fantasy land.
Well there are also a lot of rich intelligent conservatives who are only there because it’s the best place from which to exploit everyone else for further gain.
Yep
Plenty of psychopaths and sociopaths amongst them
“The current study showed that high intelligence does not, as one might assume, lead to radical political positions. Instead, highly gifted adults are on average just as politically diverse and moderate as the rest of the population.”
I’m confused. More intelligence means more liberal but very high intelligence aka gifted — diverse views?
My take is that high IQ correlates to “left”, but extreme high IQ doesn’t mean “extreme left” (for a lack of a better expression).
Basically, your ideology won’t be an outlier just because your IQ is very high. It will only tend to be less conservative than those with lower IQ.
I would rather see the opposite, how extreme ideologies correlate to very low IQ.
Not a super fan of IQ in general and this story is probably massaging our biases a bit too much for me to lean too much into it with limited understanding.
Lots of very bright people support the right wing of politics because they stand to personally gain
Being smart doesn’t mean that you’re ethical or capable of empathy
Thoughts:
You have to be in a position of power to make meaningful change.
To rise to such a position requires sacrificing some morals and breaking a few eggs.
The higher you rise the more wealth you need to punch up to accomplish your goals from those who don’t respect you.
As the richest person in the world you now need to fend off all detractors, keep your frenemies happy to stop them turning on you, and use your power to finally make meaningful change, through several layers of lost perspective and forgotten empathy
What a surprise!
Fuck IQ. Literally political stance is a better measurement of intelligence.
Wait…
To be liberal requires empathy. A deep understanding of others and their situations and the knowledge that your own personal needs dont always automatically outweigh others.
Empathy requires emotional intelligence.
Its easy to see it in action. Pick a problem and then look at the solutions offered by populist politicians to solve them.
In the UK one of the problems is immigrants arriving on small boats. The populist “solution”? “STOP THE BOATS” shouted far and wide.
How we ask?
And then silence. And when pressed, the likes of Reform offer more soundbites like “use the navy” and “send them back” but without any substance.
Meanwhile Liberal politicians offer actual solutions that are not sound bites, and they won’t work quickly. Things like working with the French to find and arrest the people organising it. Helping to improve facilities in France and the rest of Europe so the UK isn’t seen as somewhere an immigrant needs to travel to.
Basically, intelligent people aren’t fooled by meaningless slogans. Morons aren’t able to understand that deep problems require deep and complex solutions.
To be liberal requires empathy. A deep understanding of others and their situations and the knowledge that your own personal needs dont always automatically outweigh others.
Not strictly necessarily. For me, it comes down to logic, reason, and evidence.
I’m neurodivergent. This means that among some mild cognitive superpowers, I also have some significant weaknesses, such as an inability to understand or even recognize the inner workings of others. Essentially, the first half of your second sentence, above. That simply isn’t in my wheelhouse, no matter how hard I try. It’s analogous to asking a blind person to pick out the colour red.
But I reach the same place - the second half of the second sentence - by using logic and reason and evidence (usually via science) to come to an understanding of what is correct and good and right and how the needs of others simply don’t restrict my own personal needs in any way, and so carry equally as much importance and have all the same ability to be fulfilled without conflict. And because some of these people are disadvantaged or oppressed, it is my duty as a fucking human being to have their back whenever I have a decent opportunity to do so.
So interesting… to me (I don’t think my brain profile particularly gets in the way of my daily life) what you describe is the prefrontal cortex version of empathy, but empathy nontheless.
Salutations, fellow human :)
As an another neurodivergent lacking some essential emotional stuff: also being nice and kind to others is smart for maximizing your personal well-being. If people think nicely of you, they are more inclined to listen to you, and help you, and that gets you way further in life than just being a selfish prick people don’t want to be around. It is also logical to apply this not only to people immediately next to you, but to people far away as well, since being mean and evil towards them will not get you shit in the long run or might even make things worse, but it’s more likely it might benefit you later.
Or sure, you can be as mean as you want and might even end up some bitter asshole with all the money you could imagine if you have good enough start and lot of luck. But that’s pretty far from a good life in itself; you can get all your needs met a lot easier and even have nice people around you.My theory is that we never find the actually smart sociopaths (or psychopaths or whatever the term is here), since they’re intelligent enough to hide themselves with kindness
It is not just a question of emotional intelligence. As an autistic person, this is really a weak point in my statistics.
I’m simply not stupid enough ti fall for their ideas.
I agree, there are always occasions where things will be different as you demonstrate
Equating left with lib. Love it. Thanks, appropriator.
Stop sniffing your own farts and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
What a well thought out response, perfectly formulated to start an informed discussion.
Traditional values are a crutch for the intellectually unambitious and a cudgel for the ambitious.
Okay but I’m not smart.
Knowing you aren’t smart makes you smarter than all the people who think they are smart but actually aren’t.
Reminds me of an old Rehab lyric:
I know I'm stupid so I must be smarter than youThat was a complete sentence with punctuation and a clause. Youre smarter than every living ‘conservative’.
from a logical standpoint, conservatism is lacking any kind of sense or logic. I think it’s safe to assume that, in order to follow blindly an idea that crumbles as soon as you critically think about it, you have to lack the ability to critically think.
What I think tho is that it’s empathy what we should link to intelligence (or whatever you want to call the skill set that allows you to question and critizice everything).
Conservatism is a lack of empathy (which comes with a lack of said “intelligence”).
And in an unrelated news, study call dumb to right wingers.
