Is your intelligence linked to your level of prejudice?
According to a recent study by Mark Brandt and Jarret Crawford, the answer is yes.
The study proves that individuals of lower intelligence, as measured by cognitive ability, are usually more prejudiced against non-conventional or more liberal groups, as well as minorities. More specifically, prejudiced people tend to judge the others based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, and other similar factors.
On the contrary, individuals of higher intelligence are more likely to be more open-minded and accept the differences among people. High intelligent people are usually against prejudice and, as a matter of fact, against conservative, close-minded thinking. That, of course, would also mean that intelligent people are prejudiced against prejudice!
As the study's authors, Mark Brandt and Jarret Crawford told Broadly:
“People dislike people who are different from them. Derogating people with different worldviews can help people maintain the validity of their own world view.”
The reason why all people, despite their level of intelligence, tend to keep some or more distance from those who are different from them, is not as simple as 'pure dislike'.
For instance, the researchers stated that less intelligent people often tend to view others as being distinctly different from them. That helps help see others as distant and, as a result, less of a threat.
Fortunately, a separate study discovered that prejudice against transgender individuals could often be resolved with a simple ten-minute conversation with a transgendered person.
It might seem like an obvious answer, but, according to science, sometimes it works really well. Sometimes, the only thing that can destroy prejudice is giving time to people to show you that, despite all their differences, they still have a common with you: they're people, so they laugh, cry, love, have fun, fear.
Of course, one has to do a lot more than just a ten-minute conversation to get rid of the stereotypes in their mind. That's usually easier for highly intelligent people, but sometimes it's harder since they tend to rely on their intelligence too much. The best thing someone can do to get rid of prejudice is to understand the issue and care to solve it, but conversations, by studying, by traveling, and by trying to meet new people and truly know them.
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