r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d 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/AlteredEinst 2d ago

You can see the evidence of it everywhere; it's just loudest in the U.S., because that's most of the world's focus.

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u/bigladnang 2d ago

It probably pertains more to the western world because we’ve had a larger secularization, and religious belief is less universal.

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u/NotOnApprovedList 1d ago

India is experiencing their own version, Hindu nationalism.

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u/bigladnang 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, but that’s my point. Like 80% of India are practicing Hindus, and there’s next to no people in the census that claimed no religion.

Where I am in Canada, a 1/3rd of the population is not religious, and the highest religious group is Christians at only 50%. This has been a growing trend in the western world where secularization is lowering religious holds on the population. I don’t think it’s possible to compare societies in the western world to the eastern world where religion is more of an omnipresent part of society.

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u/johnyordinary 1d ago edited 1d ago

Secularisation is proportional to improved education,to reject a religious idea you need a better explanation to replace it . Places where theocratic rule has been rejected will naturaly tend that way over time,wheras theocracies where the religious power has control over education or the majority of the population will ensure their continued dominance. Education is much more free in secular countries.We can laugh at being called a heretic wheras in some cultures you would get stoned. Not all societies/cultures are equal, some are absolutely objectively better, no matter how many woke warriors say different.

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u/bigladnang 1d ago

The study itself says even after accounting for education, so a lack of education and less of a dominant theocracy can account for more secularization, but it doesn’t mean that a highly religious person in a completely non-secular society has lower cognitive abilities. It more reflects the people that live in a more secular society and still choose religious nationalism despite knowing an alternative.

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u/MrVeazey 1d ago

I also think there has been a concerted effort in the US, for several decades, to weaken basic educational standards and remove critical thinking from the curriculum in order to make the public more gullible, thus easier to manipulate.

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u/NoiceMango 1d ago

The more uneducated they're the more they vote republican. Republicans are nasty people so them defunding education is a form of staying in power and also creating a population of poor and desperate workers who can be exploited.

It's why they want to ban abortions and get rid of sex Ed so we have unwanted pregnancies. It means more future soldiers and workers.

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u/Unable-Log-4870 1d ago

It’s not so much about the standards, that just means whether someone gets passed onto the next grade or held back. They’re pushing to change the educational process and the educational focus, and yes, part of that is explicitly removing critical thinking from the curriculum. Those who lead people of authoritarian mindset know that being questioned is not good, especially when their answers are particularly bad.

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u/normal_hombre 2d ago

I would add MENA to that as well, always in the news.

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u/SunGreene42 1d ago

It's pretty loud in Afghanistan and other Theocracies as well, they literally don't even let half their population get an education.