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"Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated. The evidence is based on 1254community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States'universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively withSAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scorescorrelate 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 withcomponents of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Conservatism scores have higher correlations with economic andpolitical measures than estimated IQ scores."
"Jost et al.'s (2003) meta-analysis confirms that severalpsychological variables predict political conservatism. The listincludes death anxiety; system instability; dogmatism;intolerance of ambiguity, low openness to experience, anduncertainty; need for order, closure, and negative integrativecomplexity; and fear of threat and loss of self-esteem." (p.294)
"One antecedent is the approach advocated by Wilson's (1973) dynamic theory that also saw conservatism as a motivated response to uncertainty. The threat or uncertainty may derive from fear of death, anarchy, foreigners, dissent, complexity, novelty, ambiguity, and social change. Responses to these sources of uncertainty include superstition, religious dogmatism, ethnocentrism, militarism, authoritarianism, punitiveness, conventionality, and rigid morality. Wilson postulated that political conservatism derives from genetic sources (anxiety proneness, stimulus aversion, low intelligence, and physical unattractiveness) as well as environmental influences (parental coldness, punitiveness, rigidity, inconsistency, and low social class). Jost et al. (2003) summarize their own positionin the following way: “The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat." (p.295)
"I examine the hypothesis that low cognitive ability may be related to conservative syndrome (or conservatism, for short) which, in turn, is defined in terms of measures of personality, social attitudes, values, and social norms. There are two ways to arrive at this assumption. First, we can assume that cognitive ability affects conservatism directly. Thus, the perceived threat may vary depending on cognitive level —sources of threat such as complexity, novelty, and ambiguity may be more threatening to those who scorelow as opposed to those who score high on cognitive tests. Second, we can postulate that there exists an independent process that influences both conservatism and cognitive functioning. A candidate for this role may be mental rigidity. My primary aim in this paper is to present evidence of correlation, not to test these two causal models." (p.295)
"Our work that led to the finding of the above four factors was motivated in part by interest in cross-cultural comparisons. In one of our studies, the participants came from boththe U.S. and foreign countries. Within the tradition of cross-cultural psychology, total variances on measures of interest are split into two components —within level (or individual level) and between level (or country level). The country level variance–covariance matrix can be arrived at by calculating an aggregate measure such as arithmetic mean for all participants from a given country [...] Thus, each of the 35 countries in our cross-cultural study will have a score on each of the 22 measures employed in this study, and a data reduction procedure like factor analysis can be applied to this 35 by 22 matrix. One issue of interest is whether the structures at individual and country levels are the same or different. If they are the same, it can be concluded that the same influences operate at both levels. If different, the assumption has to be that influences are not the same and the argument may be that the country level, not individual level, structure reflects true cultural differences.
Since our interest is in the relationship between con-servatism and cognitive ability, the between-countries scoresprovide an opportunity to examine the same question fromthe cross-cultural perspective. Thus, if countries differ interms of conservatism, how are these differences related tomeasures of countries' cognitive performance and educa-tional achievements ? What may be the cause(s) of country-level differences in conservatism ?" (p.296)
"First, I present struc-tural evidence for the existence of stable factors at both theindividual- and country-levels of analysis. Although the over-all structure at the individual and country levels may differ, a conservatism factor is expected to emerge at both levels. Second, correlations between factor scores from both levels of analysis with individual- and country-level cognitive measures are presented. Individual cognitive measures are scores on typical aptitude tests. Country-level proxies for cognitive measures are both statistics regarding educational enrolment and scores from the objective achievement tests. My expectation is that the strength of the individual- and country-level conservatism will be negatively correlated with cognitive ability scores. Third, I report on the relationship between Conservatism and a host of country-level economic and sociological variables. The aim is to compare predictive validities of IQ and Conservatism scores." (p.296)
-Lazar Stankov, "Conservatism and cognitive ability", Intelligence, 37, (2009) 294–304 : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222682950_Conservatism_and_cognitive_ability
"Jost et al.'s (2003) meta-analysis confirms that severalpsychological variables predict political conservatism. The listincludes death anxiety; system instability; dogmatism;intolerance of ambiguity, low openness to experience, anduncertainty; need for order, closure, and negative integrativecomplexity; and fear of threat and loss of self-esteem." (p.294)
"One antecedent is the approach advocated by Wilson's (1973) dynamic theory that also saw conservatism as a motivated response to uncertainty. The threat or uncertainty may derive from fear of death, anarchy, foreigners, dissent, complexity, novelty, ambiguity, and social change. Responses to these sources of uncertainty include superstition, religious dogmatism, ethnocentrism, militarism, authoritarianism, punitiveness, conventionality, and rigid morality. Wilson postulated that political conservatism derives from genetic sources (anxiety proneness, stimulus aversion, low intelligence, and physical unattractiveness) as well as environmental influences (parental coldness, punitiveness, rigidity, inconsistency, and low social class). Jost et al. (2003) summarize their own positionin the following way: “The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat." (p.295)
"I examine the hypothesis that low cognitive ability may be related to conservative syndrome (or conservatism, for short) which, in turn, is defined in terms of measures of personality, social attitudes, values, and social norms. There are two ways to arrive at this assumption. First, we can assume that cognitive ability affects conservatism directly. Thus, the perceived threat may vary depending on cognitive level —sources of threat such as complexity, novelty, and ambiguity may be more threatening to those who scorelow as opposed to those who score high on cognitive tests. Second, we can postulate that there exists an independent process that influences both conservatism and cognitive functioning. A candidate for this role may be mental rigidity. My primary aim in this paper is to present evidence of correlation, not to test these two causal models." (p.295)
"Our work that led to the finding of the above four factors was motivated in part by interest in cross-cultural comparisons. In one of our studies, the participants came from boththe U.S. and foreign countries. Within the tradition of cross-cultural psychology, total variances on measures of interest are split into two components —within level (or individual level) and between level (or country level). The country level variance–covariance matrix can be arrived at by calculating an aggregate measure such as arithmetic mean for all participants from a given country [...] Thus, each of the 35 countries in our cross-cultural study will have a score on each of the 22 measures employed in this study, and a data reduction procedure like factor analysis can be applied to this 35 by 22 matrix. One issue of interest is whether the structures at individual and country levels are the same or different. If they are the same, it can be concluded that the same influences operate at both levels. If different, the assumption has to be that influences are not the same and the argument may be that the country level, not individual level, structure reflects true cultural differences.
Since our interest is in the relationship between con-servatism and cognitive ability, the between-countries scoresprovide an opportunity to examine the same question fromthe cross-cultural perspective. Thus, if countries differ interms of conservatism, how are these differences related tomeasures of countries' cognitive performance and educa-tional achievements ? What may be the cause(s) of country-level differences in conservatism ?" (p.296)
"First, I present struc-tural evidence for the existence of stable factors at both theindividual- and country-levels of analysis. Although the over-all structure at the individual and country levels may differ, a conservatism factor is expected to emerge at both levels. Second, correlations between factor scores from both levels of analysis with individual- and country-level cognitive measures are presented. Individual cognitive measures are scores on typical aptitude tests. Country-level proxies for cognitive measures are both statistics regarding educational enrolment and scores from the objective achievement tests. My expectation is that the strength of the individual- and country-level conservatism will be negatively correlated with cognitive ability scores. Third, I report on the relationship between Conservatism and a host of country-level economic and sociological variables. The aim is to compare predictive validities of IQ and Conservatism scores." (p.296)
-Lazar Stankov, "Conservatism and cognitive ability", Intelligence, 37, (2009) 294–304 : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222682950_Conservatism_and_cognitive_ability
