Conservatives: "Low-effort Thinking"

One of my favorite political bumper stickers reads Vote Republican.  It's easier than thinking.  Now, there may be a study to back that up.  From David Freeman at The Huffington Post:

As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.



Ouch.


And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.


"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.


Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?


"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."

The first link in the quote is to a different study and story about it on THP.
9 April 2012