Think before declaring yourself a Conservative!

I'm quoting below from the Huffington Post, Science Division, but the news is hardly news to me.  I figured it out when I was in high school.

Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

I.Q., or intelligence quotient, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he toldLiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

"Reality is complicated and messy," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."

This has been out there for a while but I thought of it again this morning after reading that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had recently called Obama stupid, the same Grassley who can't write a  coherent sentence, or a grammatically correct one.  Says a lot, regrettably, about the people of Iowa who keep electing him.

All these funded studies when all one has to do is listen to the bleached blondes on Fox to come to the same conclusion.