Stupidity, conservatism, and racism: more than meets the eye »«
Are we ‘getting it’?  Does stupidity make you racist?  If you
read the other FTBlogs (and you should), you may have noticed
discussion of a study about cognitive ability, conservative
ideology and outgroup prejudice. JT talked about it, and so did
Jason. Basically, to read the coverage of the study, a team of
psychologists from Brock University in Ontario have demonstrated
that a lower level of cognitive ability is predictive of
negative attitudes toward other races and gay people, but that
political conservatism plays a significant role in that pathway.
In a nutshell: conservatives are a bunch of hateful dummies, and
now we can prove it!  While I would certainly love for that to
be the case, I have spent far too much time wading in the muck
of junk science about racism to hop so readily on board. I can
certainly confess to my own non-trivial amount of outgroup
antipathy toward ideological conservatives. Knowing what I know
about confirmation bia