Study: Does low intelligence make you a bigot?

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

A new study suggests that, while we are all inclined to hate those who are different from us, the question of what kind of people we hate depends on how intelligent we are.

According to Mark Brandt and Jarret Crawford, who ran the study, people with low intelligence are more prejudiced toward people who are considered to be non-conventional or liberal as well as those who have no choice in their differences, such as those who are from a different race, gender, or sexual orientation.

On the other hand, people with high intelligence tended to be more prejudiced against people who are considered to be more conventional as well as those perceived to have a “high choice” in their associated group, such as conservatives.

“People dislike people who are different from them,” Brandt and Crawford told Broadly. “Derogating people with different worldviews can help people maintain the validity of their own world view.”

Brandt and Crawford conducted the study by measuring intelligence and then asking a group of 5,914 volunteers whether or not they felt stereotypes about a specific group were justified. While people of both high and low intelligence showed the same amount of bias, the difference was not in how biased they were but in who they were biased toward.

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