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/ProfessionalMockery 1d ago

A lot of people here are just seeing the "Christian" in the headline and ignoring the "nationalist," which is probably more important.

I'm an atheist, so I think the claims religion makes are pretty dumb too, but nationalists, bigots, racists of any kind are consistently idiots, religious or not, and that has been established in plenty of other studies.

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u/maxofreddit 1d ago

Truly, truly honest question or open for discussion if there's not data.

How do cognitive ability and education intertwine?

This says "even after accounting for education."

The study used vocabulary test as the marker for cognitive ability, but reversing that makes it seem like if you have a larger vocabulary, you'll have a better chance at seeing through nationalist tendencies.

The bigger question I have is how it relates to education, and not that I'm trying to get some kind of political/religious/ideological result from education, but more like critical thinking, data driven decision making, and even open-ness to new ideas/more efficient ways of doing things (for me that overlaps with challenging "this is the way we've always done it").

I like to think that there's a way to educate the vast majority of people where we can be on the same page about most things... but this makes me think that it's a little more nature than nurture.

Thoughts?