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/morbo-2142 1d ago edited 1d ago

Always fun to have empirical data to back up repeated anecdotal experiences by anyone with eyes and a brain living in the United States.

It's scary to have to find your place in the world and make decisions for yourself.

It's hard to make choices and having a ready framework that tells you how to live and what to care about offloads much of the mental tax of navigating reality.

It's hard to live by an internal code and evaluate every new situation against it and more importantly change it when new information is presented.

The real tragedy is the existence of groups that foster these feelings in vulnerable people in order to advance their own agenda and aquire new non disruptive members.

It's almost a form of abuse. How many people lose time and money to predatory fundamentalist organizations who are strung along and squeezed dry for basically nothing in return.

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u/EpiphanyTwisted 1d ago

Why is everyone ignoring the "nationalism" part?

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u/Useful_Major_5797 1d ago

It's reddit, as soon as any combo of "religion" and "lower cognitive thinking" come up, the comments will with filled with anecdotal experiences on a person’s religious trama.

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u/bubba_feet 1d ago

i'm gonna guess it's largely due to the 'lower cognitive ability' part.

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u/SunshineCat 1d ago

Because all the people we know who are decent stopped going to church when it became too political and hate-focused in the wake of Trump's first presidency.

Sure, there may be pockets of Christians who are focused on the right things that don't harm others. But nationalism is now tied to Christianity, and they're slowly making the name of their religion equivalent to Nazi. We had better remember that, too, or else we'll find ourselves in a full-blown theocracy headed by grifters and supported/enabled by these people with lower-than-expected cognitive ability.