Title The association of cognitive ability with right wing ideological attitudes and prejudice A meta analytic review
The cognitive functioning of individuals with stronger endorsement of right wing and prejudiced attitudes has elicited much scholarly interest. Whereas many studies investigated cognitive styles, less attention has been directed towards cognitive ability. Studies investigating the latter topic generally reveal lower cognitive ability to be associated with stronger endorsement of right wing ideological attitudes and greater prejudice. However, this relationship has remained widely unrecognized in literature. The present meta analyses revealed an average effect size of r .20 (CI 95% .23 to .17; based on 67 studies, N 84,017) for the relationship between cognitive ability and right wing ideological attitudes, and an average effect size of r .19 (CI 95% .23 to .16; based on 23 studies, N 27, 011) for the relationship between cognitive ability and prejudice. Effect sizes did not vary significantly across different cognitive abilities and sample characteristics. The effect strongly depended on the measure used for ideological attitudes and prejudice, with the strongest effect sizes for authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. We conclude that cognitive ability is an important factor in the genesis of ideological attitudes and prejudice, and thus should become more central in theorizing and model building. Cognitive ability, ideological attitudes and prejudice 3 The association of cognitive ability with right wing ideological attitudes and prejudice: A meta analytic review Cognitive ability pertains to an individual's capacity to perform higher cognitive processes, such as problem solving, reasoning, remembering, and understanding. Although at first glance cognitive ability may only seem relevant to performance on cognitive and intellectual tasks, it has many social implications as well. Indeed, higher cognitive ability is related to a host of social behaviors and interactions, such as increased interpersonal sensitivity (Murphy Hall, 2011) higher altruism (Millet Dewitte, 2006) and greater (political) trust (Sturgis, Read, Allum, 2010) Furthermore, research has shown that cognitive ability has substantial effects on attitude formation as well, demonstrating correlations with lower levels of religiosity (Zuckerman, Silberman, Hall, 2013) and a greater preference for evolutionary novel ideas (Kanazawa, 2010, 2012) The role of cognitive ability may also be important for our understanding of both prejudice and ideological attitudes, a topic on the agenda of scholars more than 60 years ago (e.g. Adorno, Frenkel Brunswik, Levinson, Sanford, 1950; Allport, 1954; for a review, see Dhont Hodson, 2014) As concluded by Adorno and colleagues, "the most ethnocentric are, on the average, less intelligent than the least ethnocentric" (p. 284) In line with this observation, several recent investigations confirm that greater cognitive ability is negatively related with right wing ideological attitudes and prejudice (e.g. Deary, Batty, Gale, 2008; Hodson Busseri, 2012; Van Hiel, Onraet, De Pauw, 2010) Yet, the vast majority of contemporary theories explaining intergroup attitudes and behavior specify little or no theoretical role for cognitive abilities, instead focusing on factors such as intergroup contact (Hodson Hewstone, 2013; Pettigrew Tropp, 2006) anxiety and threat (Onraet, Van Hiel, Dhont, Pattyn, 2013; Riek, Mania, Gaertner, 2006; Stephan, 2014) social identity concerns (Tajfel Turner, 1979) competition for dominance or resources (Bobo, 1999; Sidanius Pratto, 1999) empathy (Batson et al. 1997) essentialist Cognitive ability, ideological attitudes and prejudice 4 thinking (Hodson Skorska, 2015; Roets Van Hiel, 2011a) outgroup dehumanization (Leyens et al. 2000; Hodson, MacInnis, Costello, 2014) or disgust sensitivity (Hodson et al. 2013) to name a few. Mental or cognitive abilities, as related to ideological attitudes and prejudice, are strikingly absent from the comprehensive Handbook of Social Psychology (Fiske, Gilbert, Lindzey, 2010) and from popular and widely used texts and textbooks that deal specifically with stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination (e.g. Brown, 2010; Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick, Esses, 2010; Nelson, 2009; Schneider, 2004; Whitley Kite, 2010) To the extent that cognitive factors are implicated, the field largely emphasizes cognitive styles, that is, preferences for modes of information processing, such as need for closure or structure (e.g. Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, Sulloway, 2003; Roets Van Hiel, 2011b; Van Hiel et al. 2010) In other words, motivation for simple and ordered thinking drives people toward rightleaning ideologies and prejudice. All of these factors are arguably important correlates of ideological attitudes and prejudice, but what about cognitive abilities? It is possible that contemplating these relations is considered unsavory, contentious, or overly controversial, encouraging researchers to underplay links between, for instance, ability and ideology (e.g. Block Block, 2006; Fraley, Griffin, Belsky, Roisman, 2012) with such topics possibly considered "impolite" for academic discussion (see Hodson, 2014) Moreover, there exist strong doubts in the field about whether mental abilities are actually relevant contributors to the outcomes we seek to explain. For instance, Duarte and colleagues (in press) opine that, based on their reading of the literature, the data do ".not yield a consistent liberal advantage [in abilities] even a small one" This raises the question of whether relations exist between ability on the one hand, and ideology and prejudice, on the other, and whether such relations represent very small effects (and are thus inconsequential) or sizeable (and thus relevant to explaining ideology and intergroup relations) Cognitive ability, ideological attitudes and prejudice 5 In keeping with the Association for Psychological Science (APS) best practices, and an emphasis on the "new statistics" (Cumming, 2014) we bring a cumulative science approach to this research question, conducting a meta analysis of the empirical studies of the association of cognitive ability with right wing ideology and prejudice. We argue that metaanalyses are particularly needed and valuable when relations between variables are relatively unknown or under represented, and when variable inter relations are controversial and contentious, as with the relation between cognitive ability and ideology i In such circumstances, meta analyses not only provide a quantitative review of the existing literature, but offer generative insights for new research and theorizing. In our analysis, we were especially interested in whether the strength of the relations under study depends on the type of cognitive ability. Based on the Cattell Horn Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive ability (McGrew, 2005; Schneider McGrew, 2012) we distinguished between different types of cognitive abilities. We also investigated the potential moderating effects of several other variables such as type of outcome and sample characteristics. Right wing ideological attitudes and prejudice: the role of cognition Prejudice largely involves negative evaluations of and beliefs about out groups, such as other ethnic groups, women, homosexuals, and elderly. Two broad research traditions have historically sought to unveil the psychological basis of prejudice. Whereas some focused on the impact of situational and contextual factors, such as (intergroup) threat (e.g. Riek et al. 2006) others investigated the role of individual differences and personality predispositions (Adorno et al. 1950; Allport, 1954) In their well known book "The Authoritarian Personality" Adorno et al. (1950) argued that authoritarian personality characteristics lead people to adhere to extreme right wing parties and prejudice. Since then, other relevant attitudinal individual differences have been related to right wing ideology and prejudice, including tough mindedness (Eysenck, 1954) dogmatism (Rokeach, 1960) and conservatism Cognitive ability, ideological attitudes and prejudice 6 (Wilson, 1973) These attitudes can all be divided under the category of "right wing sociocultural attitudes" broadly referring to adherence to traditional values and norms and resistance to change (Altemeyer, 1998; Duckitt Sibley, 2009; Jost et al. 2003) Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer 1981, 1998) is a typical indicator of this pattern of broad social beliefs (see Duckitt Sibley, 2009) The three RWA facets uncritically submitting to authorities, adhering to societal norms and traditions, and showing aggressiveness toward individuals who deviate from these conventional norms and values all tap into the socialcultural domain. Most conservatism scales and dogmatism also refer to the social cultural domain. We focus on one prominent research question that has elicited interest among scholars for a long time. Specifically, do individuals with stronger endorsement of right wing and prejudiced attitudes score higher or lower on specific cognitive characteristics, differentiating them from individuals with rather left wing and less prejudiced attitudes? In social psychological literature, there is a long and widely accepted tradition linking limited cognitive resources with intergroup biases and ideological attitudes. For instance, the well known study by Gilbert and Hixon (1991) a staple in most prejudice textbooks, demonstrated that when cognitively busy (e.g. rehearsing a digit sequence, or performing a visual search task while performing the central task) participants are less likely to activate stereotypes but are significantly more likely to apply (i.e. "use" stereotypes that are activated (or salient) Others have observed that people under high (vs. low) cognitive load are more likely to recall stereotypic traits (e.g. Macrae, Hewstone, Griffiths, 1993; Pratto Bargh,