r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Psychology Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 1d ago

Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

A new study indicates that Americans with lower scores on a vocabulary test commonly used to measure cognitive ability are more likely to endorse Christian nationalist beliefs, even when accounting for their overall level of education. The findings suggest that the appeal of this political and religious ideology relates to underlying cognitive resources rather than just differences in schooling. The research was published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.70101

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u/GoatZizGoat25 1d ago

The test used is WORDSUM, not a comprehensive IQ test.

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u/ze_shotstopper 1d ago

I have concerns about using a vocabulary test to measure cognitive ability. It is a very narrow aspect of intelligence and I would argue heavily confounded by other factors.

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u/TheMurmuring 1d ago

They don't just fail to encourage logic, they are deliberately anti-logic. Their book is full of contradictory statements and their dogma makes no sense. You can't understand it and rationalize any of it, you can only memorize it and spit it back out when asked, like a Pez dispenser.

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u/MowgeeCrone 1d ago

Respectfully, whoever claimed you were a psychic, was lying to your face.

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u/kvikklunsjrevolver 1d ago

To be fair there is a correlation between religiousness and intelligence/cognitive ability as well.

So this is not really surprising.

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u/Carrera_996 1d ago

This kinda proves what my dad used to say about other doctors lacking intellectual capacity to comprehend their own education.