Study: Conservatives are less intelligent

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday 

The 2021 federal election not only ended the era of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, but also that of the CDU/CSU as the strongest force. In the end, the SPD narrowly prevailed with 25.7 percent and, as is well known, entered into the traffic light coalition with the FDP and the Greens. While supporters yearn for a political upheaval and hope for a more future-oriented coalition with the CDU. Politics critics fear that the interests of the three governing parties will differ too much and that decisions will be made slowly. Other voters, however, fear, particularly with regard to the Greens, that the increased interest of the three Climate course could cost jobs and damage the German economy.
Smart kids choose green or liberal

Various studies have been trying for a long time to find out which group of voters – conservative or liberal, for example – is „smartest“ on average. Mostly measured by the so-called intelligence quotient. In long-term studies in particular, the results are the same – regardless of the countries in which the studies were conducted. In America, for example, it was found that young people who described themselves as „very conservative“ had an average IQ of 95 – five points below the average 100. By contrast, their peers who described themselves as „very liberal“ had an average IQ of 106. According to psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, writing in the journal Social Psychology Quartlery, this is mainly due to the fact that more intelligent people find it easier to behave differently than evolution has imposed.

The results are consistent with two other British long-term studieswhich were evaluated by a group of Canadian scientists from Brock University in Ontario. The intelligence of around 9,000 children aged ten to eleven was determined. More than twenty years later, the test subjects were surveyed again.

It was found that participants tended to hold right-wing views because it gave them a sense of „order“ or „preserving the status quo.“

Overall, it could be concluded that smart young people tend to vote Green or Liberal, whereas rigid mindsets that entail a desire for order tend to vote for more tradition-oriented parties.

„The differences are not large, but they can’t be explained by coincidence either,“ explains Detlef Rost, an intelligence researcher at the University of Marburg, to the SZ. „To be progressive, people need cognitive performance. If you always stay in the known, you don’t have to think much.“

Criticism of the intelligence quotient

However, it must be mentioned that all studies refer to average values. Although these show certain differences, they do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about individual people. To say that someone is dumber or smarter because he or she votes for party XY would be anything but scientific. Moreover, the use of intelligence quotient as a synonym for intelligence is controversial. It is true that studies show that people have an easier time in life with Problems The higher their IQ, the better they are able to cope, but the corresponding tests completely ignore components such as emotional intelligence.


Photo from George Milton frompexels