Thread: Right Wing Attitudes and Racism

Hodson and Busseri (2012, Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact, Psychological Science, Vol. 23, pp. 187-195) in a British cohort study are able to conclude:

...our investigation establishes that cognitive ability is a reliable predictor of prejudice. Understanding the causes of intergroup bias is the first step toward ultimately addressing social inequalities and negativity toward outgroups. Exposing right-wing conservative ideology and intergroup contact as mechanisms through which personal intelligence may influence prejudice represents a fundamental advance in developing such an understanding.

In summary: it is argued that right wingers are typically less intelligent and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to be prejudiced. Thoughts?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U[/ame]

I'm more interested in what's behind it. I'd argue that the right wing link reflects authoritarianism. However, one could argue that should make a distinction between innate ability and education (i.e. the right wing authoritarian is less likely to be educated, but ultimately will have the same expected innate abilities than the non-authoritarian). The authors, however, link it to innate ability. Ultimately we could then significantly change the 'racism is natural' angle; i.e. it becomes 'racism is natural if you're not clever'. Personally I don't buy that but...

I know... if someone thinks differently to me I'll just say it's down to lower intelligence. That way I always win without having to experience life on the front lines of a black majority enviroment to see what REALLY causes racism.

You anti-racists crack me up. Anti-racism is mainstream and promoted furiously by the corrupt establishment which is obvious to even the most dimwitted anti-racist. It's very easy to manipulate an "intelligent" scientist or researcher with lots of money to pen a "study" that supports their agenda.

My IQ score is satisfactorily high and I have no issues over my intelligence. Although I wouldn't describe myself as right wing (or left wing for that matter) I'm a proud racist and my views have nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with experience.

Stupid thread really. This is just childish anti-racist propaganda. "I don't like your views, I'll call you dumb." Racism and anti-racism are both ideologies. Who's to say which one is right and which one is wrong? Racism is entirely subjective.

PS - Not to mention some of the world's brightest minds (past and present) were staunch racists or held racist views...

Originally Posted by Zook

I know...

You didn't respond to the thread's purpose. Why has the evidence found such a strong link between right wing attitudes and racism? To what extent can we refer to the standard psychological analysis into the authoritarian personality?

Originally Posted by Reiver

You didn't respond to the thread's purpose. Why has the evidence found such a strong link between right wing attitudes and racism? To what extent can we refer to the standard psychological analysis into the authoritarian personality?

Well I'm not right wing, but I'm a racist. I honestly don't think there's much of a difference between the right wing and the left wing when it comes to racism.

In my honest opinion I think conservatives have a much lower threshold for violence, crime and animalistic behavior on our streets which a lot of darker races bring to the table. Although conservatives have no problem inflicting the same violence, crime and animalistic behavior through war on 3rd world nations.

Liberal left wingers tend to exhibit racism in other ways by being elitists and looking down on darker races. Fighting battles for them and treating them like children who need leg-up programs in order to succeed.

Thus, I think the authoritarian attitude belongs more to the left wing who insist we all collectively think like they do and attempt to brainwash those that refuse to with mainstream media propaganda.

I've been hearing anti-racists use the term "authoritarian" a lot lately to describe racists. Racists just want to avoid blacks or other races and be amongst their own. It's left wing anti-racists that are the true authoritarians who want to force multi-culturalism on those that don't want it and charge you with hate crime laws if you reject their globalist agendas.

I don't think you can tie racism to just right wingers. Racism is literally everywhere and it's completely natural.

I think leftists are trying to delegitimize conservatives as human beings for political purposes. I also believe the OP is part of that effort.

I honestly don't see much of a difference between lefties and righties. They all have the same basic agendas. They manipulate in different ways, but they all want the same goals.

Originally Posted by Zook

I honestly don't see much of a difference between lefties and righties. They all have the same basic agendas. They manipulate in different ways, but they all want the same goals.

This is about the scholarly research. What is behind their findings? They refer to innate ability but, as I mentioned before, I'd refer to the authoritarian personality and its linkages with education. So far you haven't said anything that approaches validity. Take...

Thus, I think the authoritarian attitude belongs more to the left wing who insist we all collectively think like they do and attempt to brainwash those that refuse to with mainstream media propaganda.

This is nonsense. The original authoritarian personality analysis comes from Adorno and the likes of Altemeyer. That has allowed psychology tests of the phenomenon. That it is a right wing characteristic is a matter of fact

Where was the research done?

In either case, right wing ideology is often encased in conservatism, which is basically an affinity for antiquity. They want things to stay the same, or even rolled back to their romanticized past. Prejudice is just a manifestation of fear of new/unfamiliar things.

Of course less intelligent people are more likely to be prejudice as it requires hiding from knowledge to maintain prejudicial ideas.