r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 9h 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/Weewoofiatruck 6h ago

As much as I believe this... I can't take this article seriously.

This link leads to a website, not even the research. BUT the website does link to the research... which is this

And that research is nothing but a long paragraph abstract. No work, no evidence, nothing.

My gut says this is true, but this is just a click bait headline leading to a click bait article referencing a nothing burger study with nothing concrete.

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u/RegularOrMenthol 4h ago

If you read the data sources below the abstract, it details that the “GSS wordsum vocabulary test” was used to measure both vocabulary and critical thinking skills. It’s apparently a classic test that is a kind of shorter precursor to the IQ test.

So obviously, people with Christian nationalist beliefs scored lower on that test. Make whatever conclusions you will about that.

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u/pridento 3h ago

I’m not an IQ test designer but I’m highly skeptical of the value of verbal tests as a proxy for IQ since the questions filter for a very specific kind of traditional humanities education.

Take the question about “madrigal,” for example. I do not imagine anyone outside of an English-speaking fine arts program knows what a madrigal is. If you walked into NASA and asked people what a madrigal was, you’d probably get blank stares.

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u/freebleploof 3h ago

The wordsum test seems pretty reliable but I wish the abstract had said how they measured Christian Nationalism. I don't have access to the full study.