The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact
Abstract
Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets ( N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence ( g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations.
Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2002) · Psychological Methods · doi:10.1037/1082-989x.7.4.422 · Cited by 11,335
A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory.
Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006) · Journal of personality and social psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751 · Cited by 9,708 · cited 2×
“…endorsement (e.g., characterizing groups as “lazy” or “aggressive”) and prejudice (r = .25; Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, & Gaertner, 1996) and between intergroup contact and prejudice (r = −.21, Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), and the g-prejudice relation appears to be independent of this latter effect.”
BackgroundPolitical conservatism as motivated social cognition.
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339 · Cited by 4,904 · cited 12×
“…been conceptualized as “legitimizing myths”: Although they are often rooted in socially acceptable values and traditions, such ideologies nonetheless facilitate negative attitudes toward out-groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; see also Jost et al., 2003; Sidanius et al., 1996; Van Hiel et al., 2010).”
BackgroundInfluentialHodson, G., & Costello, K. (2007) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01962.x · Cited by 497 · cited 1×
“…with this apprehension is the wellestablished relation between right-wing ideologies and attitudes toward out-groups, whereby both conservatism (Van Hiel et al., 2004) and authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996; Hodson & Costello, 2007; Sibley & Duckitt, 2008) are associated with heightened prejudice.”
BackgroundSelf-citationLinks between Educational Status and Prejudice: Ethnic Attitudes in West Germany
Wagner, U., & Schönbach, P. (1984) · Groups in Contact · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-497780-8.50009-7 · Cited by 28
Cited by
Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology
Jost, J. T. (2017) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12407 · Cited by 696
The Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis: Intolerance Among Both Liberals and Conservatives
Brandt, M. J., Reyna, C., Chambers, J. R., Crawford, J. T., & Wetherell, G. (2014) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721413510932 · Cited by 432
The person-based nature of prejudice: Individual difference predictors of intergroup negativity
Hodson, G., & Dhont, K. (2015) · European Review of Social Psychology · doi:10.1080/10463283.2015.1070018 · Cited by 244
Self-citationFalse Equivalence: Are Liberals and Conservatives in the United States Equally Biased?
Baron, J., & Jost, J. T. (2019) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691618788876 · Cited by 213
Azevedo, F., & Jost, J. T. (2021) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430221990104 · Cited by 113
Metadata
- Authors
- Hodson, G., & Busseri, M. A.
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2012-01-05
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 187-195
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2137079503
- Cited by
- 198
- References
- 5
- FWCI
- 57.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/0956797611421206
- The paper
- Hodson, G., & Busseri, M. A. (2012). Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611421206
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
