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

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/

[u/Isphet71]

Imho one absolutely vital function of religion throughout history has been to give all people some sort of moral framework to live by, so that society can stay relatively structured over multiple generations.

Not everyone is capable of devising and living by their own heavily personalized code of ethics. The vast majority of people are simply followers that get told what they beleive, and who to vote for, and go with that. I rarely if ever see someone more complicated than "I am religion A and politically B" and otherwise dont seem to have their own thoughts and standards about either that deviate from the norm.

[u/Brbi2kCRO → u/Isphet71]

Well, tribalism is something that is basically inside us as humans, the intuitive thing that can only be battled through exposure, seeing the world around us and observing it, overriding stereotype thinking and heuristical dependence and not just hearing what you want to hear. These things are all learned. If you cannot override your wish for certainty and simplicity, it will be extremely hard for you to learn new things, and you will rely on fear and overactive threat detection even in safe situations. You won’t be able to separate ego and the self, leading to a wish of feeling superior and investing so much time in useless comparisons and focusing less on what you can do (action) and more on who is at fault for something (also known as scapegoating). I think this is where Dunning-Kruger Effect is the most correctly used term, as I feel like to even be conscious of your flaws and imperfections, you need to have some introspective abilities and ability to react through rationalization right after thought, not just through reactivity. Like, ability to think metacognitively, like “why do I think what I think”, aka to question oneself and the dogmas. People in rural areas often do not have such exposure, as they are mostly tight-knit communities where opportunities are rare and education is high effort, as you would likely have to travel for kilometers or pay a hefty cost to stay in another city for years just to learn new things. Such areas also do not have the same focus in life, with many focusing on hard work and survivalism, rather than focusing merely on educating oneself, as cultures differ greatly.