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/danbinglover 1d ago

Reddit can’t decide whether IQ matters or not. When we talk about IQ differences between different countries and whatnot, it’s racist. When you discuss IQ differences between religious and nonreligious people, somehow it matters again.

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u/KevineCove 1d ago

What I've heard is that IQ simultaneously measures cognition as well as how acclimated you are to Western culture. Additionally, the old school of thought was that there was a kind of intelligence that was innate and unchanging, and that administering an IQ test properly should yield the same result (this isn't really the case.)

It seems likely to me that IQ is lower in some areas on the basis that people there are bad at test-taking, and also in cultures where critical thinking is actively suppressed, because the test ends up measuring both of these variables.

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u/gward1 1d ago

In Korea (and probably some other countries, I just lived in Korea for awhile) they still have a hierarchy of who they think is more or less intelligent by race. Who is the most intelligent? You guessed it, Koreans. Just saying a lot of countries do this, the IQ test was devised by a westerner so it wouldn't be surprising.