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The Association of Cognitive Ability with Right–Wing Ideological Attitudes and Prejudice: A Meta–Analytic Review

October 2015
European Journal of Personality 29(6):n/a-n/a

October 2015
29(6):n/a-n/a

DOI:10.1002/per.2027

Authors:

Alain Van Hiel

Ghent University

Kristof Dhont

University of Kent

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The cognitive functioning of individuals with stronger endorsement of right-wing and prejudiced attitudes has elicited much scholarly interest. Whereas many studies investigated cognitive styles, less attention has been directed towards cognitive ability. Studies investigating the latter topic generally reveal lower cognitive ability to be associated with stronger endorsement of right-wing ideological attitudes and greater prejudice. However, this relationship has remained widely unrecognized in literature. The present meta-analyses revealed an average effect size of r = −.20 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) [−0.23, −0.17]; based on 67 studies, N = 84 017] for the relationship between cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes and an average effect size of r = −.19 (95% CI [−0.23, −0.16]; based on 23 studies, N = 27 011) for the relationship between cognitive ability and prejudice. Effect sizes did not vary significantly across different cognitive abilities and sample characteristics. The effect strongly depended on the measure used for ideological attitudes and prejudice, with the strongest effect sizes for authoritarianism and ethnocentrism. We conclude that cognitive ability is an important factor in the genesis of ideological attitudes and prejudice and thus should become more central in theorizing and model building. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

Forest plot for the meta-analysis for ideological right-wing attitudes, grouped by type of ideological attitude (authoritarianism, conservatism and dogmatism).

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. An overview of all studies included in the meta-analysis

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. Moderators of effect sizes for studies on the relationship of cognitive ability and prejudice

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. Effect sizes based on sensitivity analyses correcting for publication bias and outliers/influential studies

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The Association of Cognitive Ability with Right-wing Ideological Attitudes and

Prejudice: A Meta-analytic Review

EMMA ONRAET

*, ALAIN VAN HIEL

, KRISTOF DHONT

, GORDON HODSON

, MARK SCHITTEKATTE

and SARAH DE PAUW

Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

School of Psychology, University of Kent, Kent, UK

Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario Canada

Testing Laboratory, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Abstract: The cognitive functioning of individuals with stronger endorsement of right-wing and prejudiced attitudes

has elicited much scholarly interest. Whereas many studies investigated cognitive styles,less attention has been

directed towards cognitive ability.Studies investigating the latter topic generally reveal lower cognitive ability to

be associated with stronger endorsement of right-wing ideological attitudes and greater prejudice. However, this re-

lationship has remained widely unrecognized in literature. The present meta-analyses revealed an average effect size

of r =.20 [95% conﬁdence interval (95% CI) [0.23, 0.17]; based on 67 studies, N = 84 017] for the relationship

between cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes and an average effect size of r = .19 (95% CI [0.23,

0.16]; based on 23 studies, N = 27 011) for the relationship between cognitive ability and prejudice. Effect sizes did

not vary signiﬁcantly across different cognitive abilities and sample characteristics. The effect strongly depended on

the measure used for ideological attitudes and prejudice, with the strongest effect sizes for authoritarianism and

ethnocentrism. We conclude that cognitive ability is an important factor in the genesis of ideological attitudes and

Association of Personality Psychology

Key words: attitudes; cognitive processes; social groups

Cognitive ability pertains to an individual’s capacity to per-

form higher cognitive processes, such as problem solving,

reasoning, remembering and understanding. Although at ﬁrst

glance cognitive ability may only seem relevant to perfor-

mance on cognitive and intellectual tasks, it has many social

implications as well. Indeed, a higher cognitive ability is re-

lated to a host of social behaviours and interactions, such as

increased interpersonal sensitivity (Murphy & Hall, 2011),

higher altruism (Millet & Dewitte, 2006) and greater (politi-

cal) trust (Sturgis, Read & Allum, 2010). Furthermore, re-

search has shown that cognitive ability has substantial

effects on attitude formation as well, demonstrating correla-

tions with lower levels of religiosity (Zuckerman, Silberman

& Hall, 2013) and a greater preference for evolutionary,

novel ideas (Kanazawa, 2010, 2012). The role of cognitive

ability may also be important for our understanding of both

prejudice and ideological attitudes, a topic on the agenda of

scholars more than 60 years ago (e.g. Adorno, Frenkel-

Brunswik, Levinson & Sanford, 1950; Allport, 1954; for a

review, see Dhont & Hodson, 2014). As concluded by

Adorno and colleagues, ‘the most ethnocentric are, on the av-

erage, less intelligent than the least ethnocentric’(p. 284). In

line with this observation, several recent investigations con-

ﬁrm that greater cognitive ability is negatively related with

right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice (e.g. Deary,

Batty & Gale, 2008; Hodson & Busseri, 2012; Van Hiel,

Onraet & De Pauw, 2010).

Yet, the vast majority of contemporary theories

explaining intergroup attitudes and behaviour specify little

or no theoretical role for cognitive abilities, instead focusing

on factors such as intergroup contact (Hodson & Hewstone,

2013; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), anxiety and threat (Onraet,

Van Hiel, Dhont & Pattyn, 2013; Riek, Mania & Gaertner,

2006; Stephan, 2014), social identity concerns (Tajfel &

Turner, 1979), competition for dominance or resources

(Bobo, 1999; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), empathy (Batson

et al., 1997), essentialist thinking (Hodson & Skorska,

2015; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a), out-group dehumanization

(Leyens et al., 2000; Hodson, MacInnis & Costello, 2014) or

disgust sensitivity (Hodson et al., 2013), to name a few.

Mental or cognitive abilities, as related to ideological atti-

tudes and prejudice, are strikingly absent from the compre-

hensive Handbook of Social Psychology (Fiske, Gilbert, &

Lindzey, 2010), and from popular and widely used texts

and textbooks that deal speciﬁcally with stereotyping, preju-

dice and discrimination (e.g. Brown, 2010; Dovidio,

Hewstone, Glick & Esses, 2010; Nelson, 2009; Schneider,

2004; Whitley & Kite, 2010). To the extent that cognitive

*Correspondence to: Emma Onraet, Department of Developmental, Person-

ality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000,

Ghent, Belgium.

E-mail: emma.onraet@ugent.be

European Journal of Personality,Eur. J. Pers. 29: 599–621 (2015)

Published online 1 October 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.2027

Received 13 February 2015

Revised 19 August 2015, Accepted 19 August 2015

factors are implicated, the ﬁeld largely emphasizes cognitive

styles, that is, preferences for modes of information process-

ing, such as need for closure (NFC) or structure (e.g. Jost,

Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Roets & Van Hiel,

2011b; Van Hiel et al., 2010). In other words, motivation

for simple and ordered thinking drives people towards

right-leaning ideologies and prejudice.

All of these factors are arguably important correlates of

ideological attitudes and prejudice, but what about cognitive

abilities? It is possible that contemplating these relations is

considered unsavoury, contentious or overly controversial,

encouraging researchers to underplay links between, for

instance, ability and ideology (e.g. Block & Block, 2006;

Fraley, Grifﬁn, Belsky & Roisman, 2012), with such topics pos-

sibly considered ‘impolite’for academic discussion (Hodson,

2014). Moreover, there exist strong doubts in the ﬁeld about

whether mental abilities are actually relevant contributors to

the outcomes we seek to explain. For instance, Duarte et al. (in

press) opine that, based on their reading of the literature, the data

do ‘…not yield a consistent liberal advantage [in abilities], even

asmallone’. This raises the question of whether relations exist

between ability, on the one hand, and ideology and prejudice,

on the other, and whether such relations represent very small

effects (and are thus inconsequential) or sizeable (and thus

relevant to explaining ideology and intergroup relations).

In keeping with the Association for Psychological Sci-

ence best practices and an emphasis on the ‘new statistics’

(Cumming, 2014), we bring a cumulative science approach

to this research question, conducting a meta-analysis of the

empirical studies of the association of cognitive ability with

right-wing ideology and prejudice. We argue that meta-

analyses are particularly needed and valuable when relations

between variables are relatively unknown or under-

represented and when variable inter-relations are controver-

sial and contentious, as with the relation between cognitive

ability and ideology.

In such circumstances, meta-analyses

not only provide a quantitative review of the existing litera-

ture but also offer generative insights for new research and

theorizing. In our analysis, we were especially interested in

whether the strength of the relations under study depends

on the type of cognitive ability. Based on the Cattell–

Horn–Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive ability (McGrew,

2005; Schneider & McGrew, 2012), we distinguished between

different types of cognitive abilities. We also investigated the

potential moderating effects of several other variables such as

type of outcome and sample characteristics.

Right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice: the role of

cognition

Prejudice largely involves negative evaluations of and beliefs

about out-groups, such as other ethnic groups, women,

homosexuals and the elderly. Two broad research traditions

have historically sought to unveil the psychological basis of

prejudice. Whereas some focused on the impact of situational

and contextual factors, such as (intergroup) threat (e.g. Riek

et al., 2006), others investigated the role of individual differ-

ences and personality predispositions (Adorno et al., 1950;

Allport, 1954). In their well-known book The Authoritarian

Personality, Adorno et al. (1950) argued that authoritarian

personality characteristics lead people to adhere to extreme

right-wing parties and prejudice. Since then, other relevant

attitudinal individual differences have been related to right-

wing ideology and prejudice, including tough-mindedness

(Eysenck, 1954), dogmatism (Rokeach, 1960) and conserva-

tism (Wilson, 1973). These attitudes can all be divided under

the category of ‘right-wing socio-cultural attitudes’, broadly

referring to adherence to traditional values and norms and re-

sistance to change (Altemeyer, 1998; Duckitt & Sibley,

2009; Jost et al., 2003). Right-wing authoritarianism

(RWA; Altemeyer 1981, 1998) is a typical indicator of this

pattern of broad social beliefs (Duckitt & Sibley, 2009).

The three RWA facets—uncritically submitting to authori-

ties, adhering to societal norms and traditions and showing

aggressiveness towards individuals who deviate from these

conventional norms and values—all tap into the social–

cultural domain. Most conservatism scales and dogmatism

also refer to the social–cultural domain.

We focus on one prominent research question that has

elicited interest among scholars for a long time. Speciﬁcally,

do individuals with stronger endorsement of right-wing and

prejudiced attitudes score higher or lower on speciﬁc cogni-

tive characteristics, differentiating them from individuals

with rather left-wing and less prejudiced attitudes? In the

social psychological literature, there is a long and widely ac-

cepted tradition linking limited cognitive resources with

intergroup biases and ideological attitudes. For instance, the

well-known study by Gilbert and Hixon (1991), a staple in

most prejudice textbooks, demonstrated that when cogni-

tively busy (e.g. rehearsing a digit sequence or performing a

visual search task while performing the central task), partici-

pants are less likely to activate stereotypes but are signiﬁ-

cantly more likely to apply (i.e. ‘use’) stereotypes that are

activated (or salient). Others have observed that people under

high (versus low) cognitive load are more likely to recall

stereotypic traits (e.g. Macrae, Hewstone & Grifﬁths, 1993;

Pratto & Bargh, 1991). With regard to ideological attitudes,

Eidelman, Crandall, Goodman and Blanchar (2012) have

demonstrated that inducing low-effort thinking (e.g. alcohol

consumption, cognitive load and time pressure) results in

stronger endorsement of politically conservative ideologies,

such that ‘conservatism may be a process consequence of

low-effort thought’(Eidelman et al., 2012, p. 808). Underly-

ing each of these experimental methodologies is the assump-

tion that lower availability of cognitive resources elicits more

social conservatism and prejudice-relevant thinking. This

basic premise, when framed experimentally within a social

psychology context, courts little controversy. Yet, when

exported to the realm of individual differences, such that

those lower in cognitive abilities are purportedly higher in

social conservatism and prejudicial attitudes, this idea has less

Despite being under-represented in theoretical accounts of ideological atti-

tudes and prejudice, there exists considerable interest in this topic, among ac-

ademics and lay people; the paper by Hodson and Busseri (2012) was the

most downloaded article of any American Physical Society journal in that

year, with over 56 000 downloads (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/re-

design/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Journals.pdf). Topics generating this

degree of interest clearly warrant, we argue, a quantitative review.

600 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

traction. However, the underlying principles are very closely

related if not analogous—to the extent that lesser mental ability

is related to these outcomes; this should be true whether the

ability limitation is based on an individual difference or is ex-

perimentally induced (see E. T. Higgins, 2000, for a discussion

of ‘general principles’across person and situation effects).

Indeed, some scholars have argued that individuals with

lower cognitive skills are relatively ill-equipped to process

complex and new social information and to understand con-

stantly changing societal contexts. Therefore, they are more

likely to stick to what is presently known and considered ac-

ceptable, rather than being open-minded and appreciating

multidimensional perspectives (Deary et al., 2008; Heaven,

Ciarrochi & Leeson, 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken,

Tellegen & Keyes, 1999; Stankov, 2009). By emphasizing

societal traditions, the preservation of the status quo and

strict group boundaries, ideologies endorsing resistance to

social change, that is, right-wing ideologies (Jost et al.,

2003), should be particularly appealing to those with lower

cognitive abilities (e.g. Heaven et al., 2011; Keiller, 2010;

Stankov, 2009). According to this theoretical perspective,

therefore, right-wing ideologies provide well-structured and

ordered views about society and intergroup relations, thereby

psychologically minimizing the complexity of the social

world. Theoretically, therefore, those with fewer cognitive

resources drift towards right-wing conservative ideologies

in an attempt to increase psychological control over their

context. Furthermore, studies have shown that being cogni-

tively restricted when engaging in complex mental process-

ing and high-effort thinking (Eidelman et al., 2012)

facilitates reliance on simple heuristics in social judgments,

which in turn lead to quick and biased views about other

groups (Heaven et al., 2011; Hodson & Busseri, 2012;

Keiller, 2010). Although initially under-investigated, cogni-

tive ability has gradually gained importance in the ﬁeld of

ideological attitudes and prejudice (e.g., Deary et al., 2008;

Dhont & Hodson, 2014; Hodson, 2014; Van Hiel et al.,

2010). In the next sections, we provide an overview of the

empirical studies investigating associations of cognitive abil-

ity with both right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice.

Cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes

Adorno et al. (1950) already investigated the relationship

between cognitive ability and authoritarianism, and many

studies followed this ﬁrst inquiry, reporting negative relations

between cognitive ability and authoritarianism (e.g. Adorno

et al., 1950; Christie, 1954; Davids & Eriksen, 1957;

Jacobson & Rettig, 1959; Siegel, 1956). Similar results were

obtained with the Dogmatism Scale (Long & Ziller, 1965;

Thompson & Michel, 1972; Uhes & Shaver, 1970) and, more

recently, for a range of measures tapping right-wing ideolog-

ical attitudes (e.g. Bouchard, Segal, Tellegen, McGue, Keyes

& Krueger, 2003; Kanazawa, 2010; Keiller, 2010; McCourt

et al., 1999). Further evidence for this association was ob-

tained on the cross-national level by Stankov (2009), who

found that inhabitants of conservative countries typically

show lower average performance across different ability tests.

A meta-analysis (Van Hiel et al., 2010), including data from

50 studies, reported an average correlation of r=.26 be-

tween cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes,

including conservatism, authoritarianism and dogmatism.

Moreover, several longitudinal studies, some using large rep-

resentative samples, provided evidence for the direction of the

relation, demonstrating that lower general cognitive ability in

childhood relates to stronger endorsement of conservative

and authoritarian attitudes later in life (Block & Block,

2006; Deary et al., 2008; Fraley, et al., 2012; Heaven et al.,

2011; Schoon, Cheng, Gale, Batty & Deary, 2010).

Remarkably, despite the use of various cognitive ability

measures across studies, scholars paid little attention to the

potential differential impact of the various types of cognitive

ability. However, a few studies simultaneously contrasted

various types of cognitive abilities. For instance, Heaven

et al. (2011) reported that among 12- to 13-year-olds, lower

verbal abilities predict RWA ﬁve years later in time, whereas

numerical abilities did not show such longitudinal effect.

Kemmelmeier (2008) observed weak signiﬁcant negative as-

sociations of verbal ability with two of three indicators for

conservative attitudes and a positive association with a third

indicator (i.e. anti-regulation attitudes), yet numerical ability

did not yield any signiﬁcant association. Choma, Hodson,

Hoffarth, Charlesford and Hafer (2014) similarly found nu-

merical reasoning to be unrelated to RWA. Deary et al.

(2008) reported negative relationships of comparable

strength between conservatism (i.e. items tapping into politi-

cal distrust, social conservatism and anti-working women) on

the one hand and two verbal ability tasks (mean racross

sexes = .18 and .17), a reasoning task (mean r=.15)

and a short-time memory task (mean r=.10) on the other

hand. In sum, the results of these few studies yielded rather

mixed ﬁndings with respect to potential differences between

cognitive ability types.

Cognitive ability and prejudice

In the early studies, ethnocentrism, a form of prejudice

towards ethnic out-groups in general, was particularly stud-

ied. Adorno et al. (1950) devoted an entire chapter on the

relationship between cognitive ability and ethnocentrism,

which was found to be negative. This initial ﬁnding was rep-

licated in other studies across diverse samples and with di-

verse indicators of cognitive ability, such as reasoning tests

(e.g. Eysenck, 1954; Kutner & Gordon, 1964; O’Connor,

1952), verbal ability tests (e.g. Egan, 1989) and general

cognitive ability tests (Rokeach, 1951). More recently,

Meeusen, de Vroome and Hooghe (2013) also revealed

negative correlations between measures of verbal and mathe-

matical abilities and ethnocentrism.

Other studies recently focused on prejudice expressed

towards speciﬁc out-groups. Keiller (2010) reported that

abstract reasoning is negatively related to prejudice against

homosexuals. Costello and Hodson (2014) found that White

children who are more able to comprehend hierarchical rela-

tions among objects (e.g. that cars and trucks belong to the

superordinate category vehicles) express less racial bias

towards Black children. Furthermore, longitudinal studies

provided evidence for the effect of cognitive ability early in

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 601

DOI: 10.1002/per

life on subsequent levels of prejudice. Analysing large, repre-

sentative datasets, Deary et al. (2008), Schoon et al. (2010)

and Hodson and Busseri (2012) demonstrated that cognitive

ability in childhood leads not only to increased right-wing

ideological attitudes but also to increased racism later in

adulthood. A recent literature review on this topic by Dhont

and Hodson (2014) concluded that ‘the ﬁeld will beneﬁt from

a recognition of, and open discussion about, differences in

cognitive abilities between those lower versus higher in

prejudice’(p. 454).

Similar to the literature on cognitive ability and right-

wing ideological attitudes, little attention has been devoted

to the possible differential impact of distinct types of cogni-

tive ability. Only one study (Deary et al., 2008), using a large

and representative dataset, reported associations of various

strengths between racism and two verbal ability tasks (mean

rs across sexes = .23 and .19), a reasoning task (mean

r=.15) and a short-time memory task (mean r=.12).

The present study

The present study is a meta-analytic integration of empirical

research on the relationship of cognitive ability with both

right-wing social–cultural ideological attitudes and inter-

group prejudice. The present meta-analyses extend the

meta-analysis on cognitive ability by Van Hiel et al. (2010)

in three important ways. First, since Van Hiel et al. collected

samples for their meta-analysis in early 2009, several impor-

tant studies, some with large samples or longitudinal data,

have been published (e.g. Heaven et al., 2011; Hodson &

Busseri, 2012; Kanazawa, 2010; Keiller, 2010; Schoon

et al., 2010; Stankov, 2009; Xu, Mar & Peterson, 2013),

which we included in the present analysis. Based on this lit-

erature and the meta-analysis of Van Hiel et al. (2010), we

expected that lower cognitive abilities predict more right-

wing ideological attitudes and greater prejudice. Second,

whereas Van Hiel et al. only examined relationships with

ethnocentrism as an indicator of prejudice, we also in-

cluded studies that administered other indicators of preju-

dice (e.g. Costello & Hodson, 2014; Keiller, 2010).

Third, the present meta-analysis aimed to investigate the

potential differential effects of speciﬁc types of cognitive

ability, which was not examined by Van Hiel and colleagues.

Research to date has typically used very diverse types and

measures of cognitive ability, but little attention has been di-

rected towards the question of whether particular types of

cognitive ability might be especially relevant in ideology

and prejudice. In other words, is the association between cog-

nitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes and preju-

dice consistent across all types of cognitive ability, or are

these relationships largely driven by particular types of cogni-

tive abilities? To investigate this, we divided all samples

included in our meta-analysis into categories according to

the measure of cognitive ability employed. The cognitive

ability measures were classiﬁed according to the CHC theory

of cognitive abilities (McGrew, 2005; Schneider & McGrew,

2012), considered one of the most empirically well-supported

and widely accepted comprehensive theoretical frameworks

of the structure of cognitive abilities (e.g. Flanagan, Genshaft

& Harrison, 2012). Speciﬁcally, the CHC model proposed

three levels: gis the highest level, representing general cogni-

tive ability. Underlying gare nine primary broad domains

who each contribute to the higher-order g-factor. These nine

primary domains are: ﬂuid reasoning (Gf), the broad ability

to reason and solve novel problems; comprehension–

knowledge ability (Gc), static abilities based on one’s previ-

ously acquired knowledge; short-term memory (Gsm), the

ability to encode, maintain and manipulate information in

the immediate situation; long-term storage and retrieval

(Glr), the ability to store and retrieve information in long-term

memory; visual–spatial processing (Gv), the ability to per-

ceive, generate, store and retrieve visual and spatial informa-

tion; auditory processing (Ga), abilities involved in detecting

and interpreting sounds; cognitive processing speed (Gs), the

ability to quickly and ﬂuently perform relatively simple cog-

nitive tasks; reading and writing (Grw), individual’s depth

and breadth of reading and writing knowledge and skills;

and ﬁnally, quantitative knowledge (Gq), the individual’s

depth and breadth of quantitative or mathematical knowledge

and skills.

In sum, the present meta-analysis extends the meta-

analysis of Van Hiel et al. (2010) by the following actions:

(i) including new and recent studies for the relationship be-

tween cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes;

(ii) including various measures of prejudice and (iii) investi-

gating whether the speciﬁc type of cognitive ability inﬂu-

ences the strength of the relationship. Because it is widely

acknowledged that right-wing ideological attitudes and prej-

udice are conceptually distinct (e.g. Altemeyer, 1981;

Duckitt, 2001), we perform two separate meta-analyses,

one for the relationship between cognitive ability and right-

wing ideological attitudes and one for the relationship

between cognitive ability and prejudice (including both

measures of generalized prejudice and prejudice towards spe-

ciﬁc groups).

METHOD

Selection of studies: search strategies and inclusion

criteria

Studies for this meta-analysis were selected by using a vari-

ety of search strategies. First, we identiﬁed the relevant stud-

ies included in Van Hiel et al.’s (2010) meta-analysis,

excluding the studies focusing on education rather than pure

cognitive abilities. Second, we searched the databases ISI

Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar for studies pub-

lished until November 2014. We used a variety of keywords

in various combinations. Keywords for right-wing ideologi-

cal attitudes were authoritarianism, conservatism and dogma-

tism. Keywords for intergroup prejudice were racism,

sexism, ethnocentrism, prejudice, ethnic prejudice, racial

prejudice and intolerance. Keywords for cognitive ability

were cognitive ability, mental ability, reasoning, intelligence

and IQ. Third, we checked the references list of each relevant

article for additional studies of interest. Finally, we contacted

researchers in the ﬁeld to share relevant unpublished data.

602 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

We distributed our call for unpublished data via the websites

or mailing lists of the International Society of Political Psy-

chology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Eu-

ropean Association of Social Psychology and the Social

Psychology Network. Three researchers contacted us and

shared their unpublished data.

Studies had to meet several criteria to be included in the

meta-analysis. First, studies had to administer at least one

measure of right-wing ideological attitudes or intergroup

prejudice and at least one measure of cognitive ability. Fur-

thermore, no sample overlap was allowed because samples

included in a meta-analysis have to be statistically indepen-

dent (Card, 2012; Mullen, 1989). When studies included

multiple types of ideological or out-group attitudes or multi-

ple types of cognitive ability in the same sample, we selected

the type least prevalent across the other samples (see also

Onraet et al., 2013; Van Hiel et al., 2010). When multiple

indicators of a single type of right-wing ideological or out-

group attitudes (e.g. multiple subscales of a conservatism

scale) or multiple indicators of a single primary domain of

cognitive ability (e.g. different indicators of ﬂuid ability)

were administered, the mean correlation was calculated and

used for the analyses.

Study characteristics and coding

For the relationship between cognitive ability and right-wing

ideological attitudes, we found 67 samples, with a total of

84 017 unique participants, meeting the inclusion criteria

for the meta-analysis. For the relationship between cognitive

ability and prejudice, we found 23 samples, with a total of

27 011 unique participants, meeting the inclusion criteria

for the meta-analysis. All studies are displayed in Table 1,

and forest plots with each study’s effect size and 95% conﬁ-

dence intervals (CIs) are displayed in Figure 1 (for right-

wing ideological attitudes) and Figure 2 (for prejudice). In

total, over both meta-analyses combined, we now have 82

unique samples, with 94 398 unique participants. We re-

trieved 32 additional studies, which comprised 78 840 extra

participants compared with the meta-analysis of Van Hiel

et al. (2010).

We coded each sample for design, sample and publica-

tion characteristics. First, we coded each study according to

the speciﬁc type of right-wing ideological attitudes or preju-

dice used: authoritarianism, conservatism

or dogmatism for

right-wing ideological attitudes and ethnocentrism or preju-

dice towards speciﬁc groups as types of prejudice. Next,

we also coded the type of cognitive ability according to the

CHC model. We decided to create two moderator variables

for the distinction between different types of cognitive. First,

we distinguished between different levels of cognitive abil-

ity. More speciﬁcally, we coded whether the measure tapped

the following: (i) a higher-order factor of general ability

(studies using scores of entire intelligence tests or studies

combining several types of broad abilities into one factor)

or (ii) one speciﬁc type of broad primary ability (without

specifying which type of broad primary ability). For the sec-

ond moderator variable, we coded the latter studies according

to the speciﬁc type of primary broad domains of the CHC

model. For this second moderator analysis on type of cogni-

tive ability, the studies using general ability measures were

not included.

Sample characteristics were according to age group in

which cognitive ability was administered [children (0–11 years

old), adolescents (12–17 years old), young adolescents

(18–27 years old) and adults (27+ years old)], sex composi-

tion (mixed sex, males only and females only) and geographic

location of the sample (United States/Canada, Europe and

other). As an indicator of publication characteristic, the year of

data acquisition was coded into three categories, 1950–1969,

1970–1989 and 1990–present.

Statistical analyses

Pearson product–moment correlation coefﬁcients (rs) be-

tween cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes/

prejudice were used as effect size estimates. For studies

reporting mean differences in scores on right-wing ideologi-

cal attitudes or prejudice across groups with low or high cog-

nitive ability, the reported test statistics (F-value, t-value or

p-values) were used for calculating the effect sizes

(Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins & Rothstein, 2005). Three

samples only reported a p-value. In these cases, we used

the lower limit effect size estimates from the reported signif-

icance level. This meta-analytic decision is commonly used

but a conservative strategy that tends to underestimate the

true magnitude of effect sizes (Durlak & Lipsey, 1991).

For the statistical meta-analyses, we used the software

COMPREHENSIVE META-ANALYSIS version 2.2 (Borenstein

et al., 2005) in combination with metafor, a meta-analysis

package for R (Viechtbauer, 2010). We applied a random-

effects model to compute the overall effects, because we

assumed that effect sizes would vary across studies.

Random-effects models produce results that can be general-

ized to future studies with different designs (Hedges &

Vevea, 1998). First, Fisher-Zcoefﬁcients were calculated

based on the Pearson correlations to permit an unbiased com-

parison of effect sizes. Second, we computed mean weighted

effect sizes and 95% CIs around the point estimate of the

combined estimates. Next, for interpretation convenience, the

effect size estimates were transformed back to correlations. Ac-

cording to Cohen (1988), effect sizes (rs) of .10 are considered

small effects, .30 are considered moderate effects and .50 are

considered large effects. Based on an analysis of meta-analysis

in psychological research, Hemphill (2003) recommended

interpreting effect sizes of .10, .20 and .30 as small, moderate

and large effects, respectively, to better reﬂect effect sizes in

psychology per se.

Homogeneity analyses were conducted to test whether

the sets of effect sizes were homogeneous at the population

level and allowed us to examine the role of potential

moderator variables. We conducted these moderation analy-

ses using categorical testing procedures (Lipsey & Wilson,

2001). A signiﬁcant within-groups Q(Q

) indicates that

the effect sizes within each moderator category are

Conservatism consists of measures of political conservatism and social con-

servatism and measures combining both social and economic conservatism.

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 603

DOI: 10.1002/per

Table 1. An overview of all studies included in the meta-analysis

Study NAge group

Gender

composition Location

Type of ideological

attitudes/prejudice

General or

broad ability

Type of primary

broad ability

Effect size

(r)

Adams and Vidulich (1962) 36 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Short-term memory 0.44

Adorno et al. (1950) 342 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Writing and reading 0.20

Adorno et al. (1950) 168 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Ethnocentrism Broad Writing and reading 0.08

Adorno et al. (1950) 104 Adults Male only USA/Canada Ethnocentrism General —0.32

Adorno et al. (1950) 104 Adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.48

Adorno et al. (1950) 77 Adults Male only USA/Canada Ethnocentrism General —0.28

Berkowitz and Wolkon (1964) 76 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.27

Bettinghaus et al. (1970) 120 Mix Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Fluid 0.19

Block and Block (2006) 46 Children Male only USA/Canada Conservatism General —0.30

Block and Block (2006) 49 Children Female only USA/Canada Conservatism General —0.28

Bobo and Licari (1989) 1473 Adults Mix USA/Canada Prejudice Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.22

Boshier (1973) 100 Mix Mix Other Conservatism Broad Short-term memory 0.03

Bouchard et al. (2003) 355 Adults Mix Other Conservatism General —0.23

Carl (2014) 12589 Adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.22

Choma et al (2014) 198 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Fluid 0.09

Christensen (1963) 117 Young adults Female only USA/Canada Dogmatism General —0.01

Christensen (1963) 49 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Dogmatism General —0.00

Christie (1954) 182 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.48

Clark (1968) 35 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.52

Costello and Hodson (2014) 20 Children Mix USA/Canada Prejudice Broad Fluid 0.39

Costello and Hodson (2014) 53 Children Mix USA/Canada Prejudice General —0.45

Costin (1965) 67 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.11

Crowson et al. (2007) 276 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism General —0.02

Davids (1955) 20 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.40

Davids and Eriksen (1957) 48 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.24

Deary et al. (2008) 3412 Children Male only Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Short-term memory 0.12

Deary et al. (2008) 3412 Children Male only Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Short-term memory 0.13

Deary et al. (2008) 3658 Children Female only Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Short-term memory 0.13

Deary et al. (2008) 3658 Children Female only Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Short-term memory 0.13

Egan (1989) 94 Adolescents Mix Europe/UK Ethnocentrism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.43

Egan (1989) 94 Adolescents Mix Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.54

Eidelman (Unpublished data) 55 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Fluid 0.15

Eisenman and Cherry (1970) 263 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Long-term memory 0.20

Eysenck (1954) 86 Adults Male only Europe/UK Ethnocentrism Broad Fluid 0.25

Eysenck (1954) 86 Adults Male only Europe/UK Authoritarianism Broad Fluid 0.28

Fraley et al. (2012) 635 Children Mix USA/Canada Conservatism General —0.12

Francis (1997). 711 Adolescents Mix Europe/UK Dogmatism Broad Fluid 0.18

Gough (1951) 271 Adolescents Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.43

Heaven et al. (2011) 375 Adolescents Mix Other Authoritarianism Broad Writing and reading 0.26

Hello et al. (2006) 301 Young adults Mix Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.17

Hello et al. (2006) 301 Young adults Mix Europe/UK Authoritarianism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.25

Himmelweit and Swift (1971) 614 Adolescents Male only Europe/UK Authoritarianism General —0.27

Iyer et al. (2012) 8651 Adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.05

Jacobson and Rettig (1959) 354 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.22

(Continues)

604 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

Table 1. (Continued)

Study NAge group

Gender

composition Location

Type of ideological

attitudes/prejudice

General or

broad ability

Type of primary

broad ability

Effect size

(r)

Jones (1957) 220 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.22

Kanazawa (2010) 13058 Adolescents Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.24

Kanazawa (2010) 13034 Adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.07

Katz (1988) 100 Young adults Mix Other Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.21

Katz (1988) 110 Young adults Mix Other Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.03

Katz (1990) 100 Young adults Mix Other Conservatism Broad Processing speed 0.20

Keiller (2010) 257 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Prejudice General —0.36

Keiller (2010) 257 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.28

Kemmelmeier (2008) 5893 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.04

Kranou (2013), unpublished data 425 Young adults Mix Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.12

Kutner and Gordon (1964) 33 Children Mix USA/Canada Ethnocentrism Broad Fluid 0.32

Lapsley and Enright (1979) 94 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Fluid 0.26

Long and Ziller (1965) 72 Young adults Female only USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Visual–spatial 0.20

Marks and McDougall (1959) 57 Adolescents Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.68

McCourt et al. (1999) 274 Adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.37

Meeusen et al. (2013) 1910 Mix Mix Europe/UK Ethnocentrism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.29

Messick and Frederiksen (1958) 232 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Visual–spatial 0.01

Moore et al. (1984) 40 Adolescents Mix USA/Canada Prejudice General —0.00

O’Connor (1952) 57 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Ethnocentrism Broad Fluid 0.37

Oskarsson et al. (in press) 1946 Adults Male only Europe/UK Conservatism General —0.18

Rokeach (1951) 144 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Ethnocentrism General —0.28

Rubinstein (2003) 111 Young adults Mix Other Authoritarianism Broad Long-term memory 0.67

Scarr (1981) 914 Mix Mix Usa/Canada Authoritarianism General 0.35

Schoon et al. (2010) 4537 Children Female only Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Fluid 0.15

Schoon et al. (2010) 4537 Children Female only Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.15

Schoon et al. (2010) 4267 Children Male only Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Fluid 0.17

Schoon et al. (2010) 4267 Children Male only Europe/UK Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.18

Shook and Fazio (2009) 58 Young adults Mix Usa/Canada Conservatism Broad Short-term memory 0.08

Sidanius and Lau (1989) 5655 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Prejudice General —0.18

Siegel (1956) 60 Young adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism General —0.19

Siegel (1956) 60 Adults Male only USA/Canada Authoritarianism General 0.21

Stankov (2009) 732 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism General —0.35

Stankov (2009) 430 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.40

Stankov (2009) 288 Young adults Mix Other Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.23

Taylor and Dunnette (1974) 79 Adults Male only USA/Canada Dogmatism General —0.29

Thompson and Michel (1972) 379 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism General —0.20

Uhes and Shaver (1970) 316 Adolescents Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Long-term memory 0.26

Vezzali et al. (2013), unpublished data 122 Children Mix Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Fluid 0.13

Vezzali et al. (2013), unpublished data 395 Children Mix Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Fluid 0.06

(Continues)

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 605

DOI: 10.1002/per

heterogeneous, whereas a signiﬁcant between-groups Q(Q

)

estimate indicates that the effect sizes of the moderator sub-

groups are signiﬁcantly different. I

indices (J. P. T. Higgins

& Thompson, 2002) indicate the percentage of variability in

point estimates due to between-study heterogeneity, rather

than sampling error (I

= 0 indicates that all variability in

effect estimates is caused by sampling error; I

values on

the order of 25, 50 and 75 represent low, moderate and high

between-study heterogeneity).

Finally, we addressed the robustness of the meta-

analytical estimates by performing sensitivity analyses. These

evaluate (and adjust for) the impact of publication bias as well

as the impact of outliers and inﬂuential studies. The accuracy

of a meta-analysis strongly depends upon the representative-

ness of the sample of studies analysed. Publication bias is

one source that potentially jeopardizes the representativeness

of a meta-analytical sample set because the likelihood that a

study becomes published hinges upon the presence of signif-

icant results (Kepes, Banks, McDaniel & Whetzel, 2012;

Kepes, McDaniel, Brannick & Banks, 2013; Rothstein,

Sutton & Borenstein, 2005). Hence, publication bias might

overestimate the meta-analytical effect sizes. Another impor-

tant source that potentially questions meta-analytic conclu-

sions is the presence of outliers and inﬂuential cases (Kepes

et al., 2013; Viechtbauer & Cheung, 2010). Even though it

is not uncommon to observe extreme effect size values when

conducting a meta-analysis, it is mandatory to illuminate to

which extent these outliers/inﬂuential cases weigh upon the

meta-analytic conclusions.

These sensitivity analyses involved the combination of

four recommended techniques (Kepes et al., 2012, 2013;

Stanley & Doucouliagos; 2014; Viechtbauer & Cheung,

2010). First, we addressed the presence of publication bias

and outliers by visually inspecting contour-enhanced funnel

plots (Peters, Sutton, Jones, Abrams & Rushton, 2008; Kepes

et al., 2013; Sterne et al., 2011). Contour-enhanced funnel plots

display the magnitude of each study’s effect size as a function

of the sample’s standard error (Sterne et al., 2011), allowing

visual inspection of the symmetry of the meta-analytical study

distribution. In the funnel plots, the grey-shaded areas indicate

different levels of statistical signiﬁcance, whereas the white

(unshaded) area indicates the non-signiﬁcance of the study

effect sizes. In the presence of publication bias, it is expected

that the bottom of a plot (where the smaller studies are located)

will show a higher concentration of studies on one side of the

mean than the other. The missing studies in the underrepre-

sented area would primarily be located in the white (non-signif-

icant) regions of the plot. If these two visual features are

present, this would reﬂect publication bias, resulting from the

phenomenon that smaller studies only become published if

they have larger-than-average effects, because this makes them

more likely to attain statistical signiﬁcance criteria (Peters

et al., 2008; Sterne et al., 2011).

Second, we applied the trim-and-ﬁll method (Duval &

Tweedie, 2000) to identify and adjust for publication bias.

This method is an iterative, statistical procedure based upon

the notion that—in the absence of publication bias—the

funnel plot would be symmetrically dispersed around

the summary effect. The trim-and-ﬁll procedure estimates

Table 1. (Continued)

Study NAge group

Gender

composition Location

Type of ideological

attitudes/prejudice

General or

broad ability

Type of primary

broad ability

Effect size

(r)

Von Stülpnagel and Steffens (2010) 148 Young adults Mix Europe/UK Prejudice Broad Processing speed 0.13

Wegmann (1992) 50 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Fluid 0.42

Wegmann (1992) 29 Adults Mix USA/Canada Authoritarianism Broad Fluid 0.49

Xu et al. (2013) 486 Adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.17

Xu et al. (2013) 540 Adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.10

Xu et al. (2013) 460 Adults Mix USA/Canada Conservatism Broad Fluid 0.12

Zagona and Zurcher (1965) 60 Young adults Mix USA/Canada Dogmatism Broad Comprehension–knowledge 0.18

606 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

the number of missing studies in a dataset by ‘trimming’the

funnel plot until it is symmetrical and then ‘ﬁlling’in both

sides of the funnel in a way that maintains symmetry. Based

upon the imputation (‘ﬁlling’) of missing effect sizes, the

procedure then re-estimates an adjusted pooled effect size

as sensitivity analysis. We added the trim-and-ﬁll imputa-

tions to the contour-enhanced funnel plots because they

help to inform the likely location of missing studies (Peters

et al., 2008).

Third, because the trim-and-ﬁll method has recently been

criticized in the literature (e.g. lower ability to detect publi-

cation bias and tendency for under-correction of publication

bias; Carter & McCullough, 2014; Peters et al., 2008), we

also applied Egger’s linear regression procedure (Egger,

Smith, Schneider & Minder, 1997; Sterne & Egger, 2001).

This test is also based upon the funnel plot but does not im-

plicitly assume that publication bias is the only cause of fun-

nel plot asymmetry. Egger’s test can be described as a

weighted least squares regression model in which the effect

size is predicted by the standard error. The (non-)signiﬁ-

cance of the coefﬁcient associated with the standard error

(i.e. the slope, b

) is interpreted as a test of funnel plot asym-

metry and leads to a conclusion on the absence/presence of

publication bias (Sterne & Egger, 2001). Interestingly, the

use of this model is recently expanded by the recognition

that in Egger’s regression equation, the model’s intercept

Figure 1. Forest plot for the meta-analysis for ideological right-wing attitudes, grouped by type of ideological attitude (authoritarianism, conservatism and

dogmatism).

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 607

DOI: 10.1002/per

) can be interpreted as an estimate of the underlying effect

size, which is theoretically uninﬂuenced by publication bias

(see, for extensive discussions, Carter & McCullough, 2014;

Stanley & Doucouliagos, 2014). This expansion of the use

of Egger’s test is referred to as the ‘precision-effect test’

(PET; Stanley & Doucouliagos, 2014). Simulation studies

have now shown that PET estimations are highly accurate

when the true meta-analytic effect is zero but tend to over-

correct when the true effect is non-zero. In these cases, the

intercept of a regression model in which the effect size is

predicted by the variance (i.e. standard error squared) pro-

vides more optimal estimates of the adjusted pooled effect

size. This is referred to as a ‘precision-effect with standard

error’(or PEESE; Carter & McCullough, 2014; Stanley &

Doucouliagos, 2014). We adopted this conditional PET–

PEESE procedure (i.e. if b

using PET is signiﬁcant,

PEESE-adjusted estimates should be interpreted as unbiased

effects) to calculate more accurate pooled effects adjusted

for publication bias.

In the ﬁnal step of the sensitivity analyses, we addressed

the impact of potential outliers and inﬂuential cases in the

two core meta-analyses. In addition to the contour-enhanced

funnel plot providing a ﬁrst visual sense of potential outliers

(Kepes et al., 2013), we applied the set of outlier and inﬂuence

diagnostics for the meta-analyses proposed by Viechtbauer

and Cheung (2010). This allows identiﬁcation of particularly

inﬂuential studies in both meta-analyses. Subsequently, we

re-ran the meta-analyses without these outliers to evaluate to

what extent these inﬂuential cases distort the conclusions of

the meta-analyses. This type of sensitivity analyses may either

strengthen the conclusions of the meta-analyses or leave some

doubts regarding their robustness (Viechtbauer & Cheung,

2010). All sensitivity analyses were conducted using the

metafor package in R (Viechtbauer, 2010).

RESULTS

We performed two separate meta-analyses, one for the rela-

tionship between cognitive ability and right-wing ideological

attitudes and one for the relationship between cognitive ability

and prejudice.

Cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes

Fifty-seven studies showed negative relations, nine showed pos-

itive relations and one showed a correlation of approximately 0.

The meta-analysis (for all results, see Table 2) revealed an over-

all moderate negative relation, r=.20, p<.001. In other

words, lower cognitive ability was associated with the stronger

endorsement of right-wing ideological attitudes.

Moderator analyses

Further analyses revealed that the effect size was heteroge-

neous, indicating that moderator variables might explain the

differences in effect size among the samples. We tested seven

potential moderators (i.e. general or broad primary ability,

type of broad ability, measure of right-wing ideological atti-

tudes, age group, sex composition, location and time period).

Because we investigated more than one moderator variable,

we corrected for multiple comparisons using a signiﬁcance

level of .007 (=.05/7). Three moderator variables reached this

signiﬁcance level. First, the type of right-wing ideological at-

titudes was a signiﬁcant moderator. More speciﬁcally, the

strongest effect sizes were found for authoritarianism

(r=.30), whereas weaker but still signiﬁcant effect sizes

were found for dogmatism (r=.17) and conservatism

(r=.13). Second, the moderator type of primary broad abil-

ity was also signiﬁcant. More speciﬁcally, the strongest ef-

fect sizes were obtained for long-term memory (r=.39),

Figure 2. Forest plot for the meta-analysis for prejudice, grouped by type of prejudice.

608 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

comprehension–knowledge (r=.23) and writing and read-

ing (r=.23). Weaker, but still signiﬁcant, effect sizes were

found for ﬂuid abilities (r=.13) and short-term memory

(r=.12). Third, effect sizes signiﬁcantly differed across

age groups. More speciﬁcally, the effect size was strongest

when cognitive ability was measured among adolescents

(r=.32), compared with children (r=.15), young adults

(r=.19) or adults (r=.15).

Cognitive ability and prejudice

We found 23 studies reporting correlations between cogni-

tive ability and prejudice, with 21 studies showing negative

relations, 1 showing a positive relation and 1 showing a cor-

relation of approximately 0. The overall effect size for this

relationship (Table 3) was comparable with the effect size

for right-wing ideological attitudes, r=.19, p<.001,

indicating that lower cognitive ability was associated with

stronger endorsement of prejudice.

Moderator analyses

We performed moderator analysis, revealing that the effect

size was heterogeneous. As a result, we investigated moder-

ator variables that might explain the differences in effect size

among the samples. We looked at the same moderator vari-

ables as in the previous meta-analysis, with the exception

of types of prejudice instead of types of right-wing ideologi-

cal attitudes. Again, we corrected for multiple comparisons

using a signiﬁcance level of .007 (=.05/7). We found evi-

dence for two signiﬁcant moderators. First, the type of preju-

dice was a signiﬁcant moderator. More speciﬁcally, the effect

size was strongest for ethnocentrism (r=.28) compared

with prejudice towards speciﬁc groups (r=.16). Second,

age group was a signiﬁcant moderator, with stronger effect

sizes in groups of adolescents (r=.24), adults (r=.23)

Table 2. Moderators of effect sizes for studies on the relationship of cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes

Moderator Nk r 95%CI Q

Total set 84 017 67 0.20*** [0.23, 0.17] 1058.06*** 93.76

General or primary broad ability 1.64 39.16

General ability 7 820 25 0.24*** [0.34, 0.14] 442.18*** 94.57

Primary broad ability 76 197 42 0.17*** [0.21, 0.14] 614.59*** 93.33

Type of primary broad ability

†

27.41*** 78.11

Comprehension–knowledge 45 915 11 0.23*** [0.30, 0.16] 385.15*** 97.40

Fluid 21 207 18 0.13*** [0.18, 0.09] 102.01*** 83.34

Short-term memory 7 264 5 0.12*** [0.17, 0.07] 9.67 58.64

Long-term memory and retrieval 690 3 0.39** [0.62, 0.11] 30.33*** 93.41

Processing speed 100 1 0.20 [0.00, 0.38] 0.00 0.00

Visual–spatial processing 304 2 0.07 [0.27, 0.13] 2.40 58.33

Writing and reading 717 2 0.23*** [0.30, 0.16] 0.71 0.00

Type of ideological attitudes 24.13*** 91.71

Authoritarianism 18 142 27 0.30*** [0.34, 0.24] 147.22*** 82.34

Conservatism 63 740 27 0.13*** [0.17, 0.08] 657.63*** 96.05

Dogmatism 2 135 13 0.17*** [0.25, 0.09] 35.60*** 66.29

Age group 21.36*** 81.27

Children 16 604 7 0.15*** [0.17, 0.13] 9.5 36.85

Adolescents 15 496 8 0.32*** [0.39, 0.25] 42.52*** 84.62

Young adults 12 090 35 0.19*** [0.25, 0.13] 239.18*** 88.40

Adults 38 693 14 0.15*** [0.22, 0.07] 442.50*** 84.62

Mix 1 134 3 0.19 [0.40, 0.05] 15.85*** 87.38

Gender composition of sample 10.23** 80.45

Female only 8 433 5 0.14*** [0.16, 0.12] 4.06 1.42

Male only 11 168 15 0.18*** [0.28, 0.08] 256.26*** 94.54

Mix 64 416 47 0.21*** [0.25, 0.17] 775.46*** 94.07

Location 1.59 0.00

USA/Canada 62 427 48 0.21*** [0.25, 0.18] 710.10*** 93.38

Europe/UK 20 051 11 0.17*** [0.24, 0.10] 244.78*** 95.91

Other 1 539 8 0.14 [0.31, 0.04] 86.32*** 91.89

Time of data collection 4.86 58.88

1950–1969 2 462 20 0.28*** [0.36, 0.19] 85.07*** 77.66

1970–1989 3 269 13 0.17*** [0.27, 0.07] 86.82*** 86.18

1990–present 78 286 34 0.17*** [0.21, 0.13] 821.27*** 95.98

Note: All cognitive ability measures are coded so that higher scores reﬂect higher cognitive ability.

N, number of participants; k, number of studies; CI, conﬁdence interval; Q

, homogeneity statistic between classes; Q

, homogeneity statistic within classes. I

homogeneity statistic (percentage of heterogeneity).

*p<.05;

**p<.01;

***p<.007 (.05/7).

†

For this moderator analyses, we excluded the 27 samples measuring general ability, because these studies relate to a combination of different types of cognitive

ability. Hence, this moderator analysis is based only on the 42 samples with measures for one speciﬁc type of broad ability.

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 609

DOI: 10.1002/per

and young adults (r=.21) compared with children

(r=.13). However, we acknowledge that only few samples

were included for each of these age groups, making this

moderator effect difﬁcult to meaningfully interpret.

Sensitivity analyses

The validity of these two meta-analyses was addressed with

sensitivity analyses evaluating the impact of publication bias

and potential outliers/inﬂuential studies. These results are or-

ganized as an answer to three questions: (1) ‘Is there evi-

dence of publication bias?’; (2) ‘How do the pooled effect

sizes change if we adjust for potential publication bias?’;

and (3) ‘Which studies are outliers and how do they affect

the meta-analytic estimates?’. Publication bias and outlier

analyses were run on the full set of studies for the two

meta-analyses, with the publication bias analyses also run

on smaller sub-distributions (Kepes et al., 2012). We chose

to analyse publication bias for each type of right-wing ideo-

logical attitudes and prejudice, as analyses identiﬁed these as

the strongest moderator variables (explaining 93% and 42%

of between-study variance, respectively).

Is there evidence of publication bias?

This question is addressed by the joint interpretation of

three procedures: contour-enhanced funnel plots, the trim-

and-ﬁll procedure and signiﬁcance of Egger’s regression

tests (Kepes et al., 2012; Peters et al., 2008). Figure 3 pre-

sents the contour-enhanced funnel plot with trim-and-ﬁll

imputations for the (sub-)meta-analyses on cognitive ability

and right-wing ideological attitudes. The trim-and-ﬁll

method on the overall meta-analysis (Figure 3A) suggests

that 11 studies are missing at the right of the mean effect

size. As the contour-enhanced funnel plot allows evaluation

of the missing studies in the context of statistical signiﬁ-

cance, it can be noted that 10 of 11 studies are located in

the grey-shaded areas of the plot. This suggests that funnel

plot asymmetry primarily results from factors other than

publication bias. Indeed, the separate publication bias anal-

yses for each type of right-wing ideological attitudes

(Figure 3B–D) strengthen this hypothesis as there is strong

Table 3. Moderators of effect sizes for studies on the relationship of cognitive ability and prejudice

Moderator Nk r 95% CI Q

Total set 27 011 23 0.19*** [0.23, 0.16] 109.78*** 79.96

General or primary broad ability 3.6 72.21

General ability 6 330 7 0.27*** [0.36, 0.18] 18.67** 67.86

Primary broad ability 20 681 16 0.17*** [0.21, 0.13] 85.76*** 82.51

Type of primary broad ability

†

12.58* 68.21

Comprehension–knowledge 3 778 4 0.26*** [0.32, 0.19] 10.70* 71.97

Fluid 9 517 8 0.15*** [0.21, 0.08] 25.41*** 72.45

Short-term memory 7 070 2 0.13*** [0.15, 0.10] 0.18 0.00

Processing speed 148 1 0.13 [0.29, 0.03] 0.00 0.00

Writing and reading 168 1 0.08 [0.23, 0.07] 0.00 0.00

Type of prejudice 11.78*** 91.51

Ethnocentrism 2 673 9 0.28*** [0.34, 0.22] 10.87 26.37

Prejudice towards speciﬁc groups 24 338 14 0.16*** [0.19, 0.13] 56.49*** 76.99

Age group 29.36*** 86.38

Children 16 497 9 0.13*** [0.17, 0.09] 30.57*** 73.83

Adolescents 134 2 0.24 [0.60, 0.20] 5.56* 82.03

Young adults 6 730 7 0.21*** [0.28, 0.14] 15.25* 60.66

Adults 1 740 4 0.23*** [0.27, 0.19] 1.37 .00

Mix 1 910 1 0.29*** [0.33, 0.25] 0.00 0.00

Gender composition of sample 6.81* 70.64

Female only 8 195 2 0.14*** [0.16, 0.12] 0.84 0.00

Male only 8 114 6 0.16*** [0.21, 0.11] 11.38* 56.04

Mix 10 702 15 0.23*** [0.28, 0.17] 72.27*** 80.63

Location 5.17* 80.67

USA/Canada 18 930 12 0.25*** [0.30, 0.19] 25.14** 56.24

Europe/UK 8 081 11 0.16*** [0.21, 0.11] 74.14*** 86.51

Time of data collection 2.75 27.28

1950–1969 583 6 0.25*** [0.34, 0.16] 6.98 28.37

1970–1989 7 348 5 0.22*** [0.28, 0.15] 10.25* 60.97

1990–present 19 080 12 0.17*** [0.22, 0.12] 83.51*** 86.83

Note: All cognitive ability measures are coded so that higher scores reﬂect higher cognitive ability.

N, number of participants; k, number of studies; CI, conﬁdence interval; Q

, homogeneity statistic between classes; Q

, homogeneity statistic within classes; I

homogeneity statistic (percentage of heterogeneity).

*p<.05;

**p<.01;

***p<.007 (.05/7).

†

For this moderator analyses, we excluded the seven samples measuring general ability, because these studies relate to a combination of different types of cog-

nitive ability. Hence, this moderator analysis is based only on the 16 samples with measures for one speciﬁc type of broad ability.

610 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

moderator-induced between-study heterogeneity. More spe-

ciﬁcally, within the sub-distributions for both authoritarian-

ism (Figure 3B) and conservatism (Figure 3C), trim-and-ﬁll

method no longer imputes studies at any side of the mean.

Only for dogmatism (Figure 3D) are two studies imputed

in the grey area. However, as this sub-distribution only in-

cludes 13 studies, these imputations can also be caused by

the small set of studies in this meta-analysis. For all (sub-)meta-

analyses, Egger’s regression tests for funnel plot asymmetry

were performed. However, in none of these regression

models were signiﬁcant slope coefﬁcients found. This also

strengthens the conclusion that publication bias is unlikely

to distort the pooled estimate between cognitive ability and

right-wing ideological attitudes.

Similar results are found for the (sub-)meta-analyses on

the association between cognitive ability and prejudice.

Figure 4 presents the contour-enhanced funnel plot with

trim-and-ﬁll imputations for the overall meta-analysis on

prejudice (Figure 4A) and the speciﬁc types of prejudices:

ethnocentrism (Figure 4B) and prejudice towards speciﬁc

groups (Figure 4C). The trim-and-ﬁll method on the overall

meta-analysis imputes four studies at the right of the mean,

with only two of them located in the white (non-signiﬁcant)

area of the plot. The trim-and-ﬁll method imputed three miss-

ing studies in the meta-analysis of ethnocentrism and one in

the meta-analysis prejudice towards speciﬁc groups. How-

ever, funnel plot asymmetry in these subsets might be pri-

marily related to the limited number of included studies.

Also, for all (sub-)meta-analyses, Egger’s regression tests

yield no signiﬁcant slope coefﬁcients. This strengthens the

conclusion that publication bias is unlikely to distort the rela-

tion between cognitive ability and prejudice.

How do the pooled effect sizes change if we adjust for po-

tential publication bias?

Table 4 presents the original and adjusted effect sizes pro-

vided by the trim-and-ﬁll procedure and extended Egger’s

regression procedure (i.e. PET–PEESE estimators). In line

with the previous analyses, adjusted effect sizes are strongly

similar to the original meta-analytic estimates. All estimates

remain signiﬁcant (p<.001), and hence, the PEESE results

can be regarded as the best estimates of the effect sizes

Figure 3. Contour-enhanced funnel plots with trim-and-ﬁll imputations for cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes. The black points represent the

real studies; the white points represent the imputed studies. If missing studies are imputed in areas where non-signiﬁcant studies would be plotted (no shading),

the observed asymmetry may be due to publication bias. If missing studies are imputed in areas of statistical signiﬁcance (darker shading), publication bias is less

likely.

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 611

DOI: 10.1002/per

corrected for publication bias (Carter & McCullough, 2014;

Stanley & Doucouliagos, 2014). Notably, these PEESE

estimates provide a somewhat less negative effect between

cognitive ability and right-wing ideological attitudes

(r=.15) and between cognitive ability and authoritarianism

(r=.23). All other PEESE estimates resemble the original

estimates.

Which studies are outliers and how do they affect the pooled

effect sizes?

In the funnel plots of the overall meta-analyses (Figures 3A

and 4A), no marked outliers were noted. Additionally, we

performed a set of inﬂuence diagnostics for meta-analyses

(Viechtbauer & Cheung, 2010) to identify particularly inﬂu-

ential cases. The last column of Table 4 presents the meta-

analytic results without these outliers. In the right-wing

ideological attitudes meta-analysis, three outliers/inﬂuential

cases were identiﬁed. Interestingly, each of these studies

represents each of the three types of right-wing ideological

attitudes. For authoritarianism, the study of Rubinstein

(2003) was identiﬁed as an outlier. This study provided a

substantially stronger effect size (r=.67; N= 111) than

the other studies on authoritarianism. For conservatism, the

study of Oskarsson et al. (in press) was identiﬁed as an out-

lier. This study is the only one to report a positive correlation

(r= .18). Moreover, the study used a large sample

(N= 1946), adding substantial weight to the analysis. For

dogmatism, the study of Taylor and Dunnette (1974) was

identiﬁed as an outlier. This study is also the only one to re-

port a positive correlation between cognitive ability and

dogmatism (r= .29, N= 79). In the prejudice meta-analysis,

inﬂuence diagnostics only identify Meeusen et al. (2013;

r=.29) as an outlier. This study addressed ethnocentrism

in a much larger sample (N= 1910) than the other ethnocen-

trism studies, and hence, its estimate adds substantial weight

to the meta-analysis.

Nevertheless, removing these four inﬂuential studies

from the meta-analyses appears to have only very limited ef-

fect on the meta-analytic effect sizes (Table 4). Hence, this

type of sensitivity analyses also validates the robustness of

the current meta-analytic conclusions.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The present meta-analyses of the relationship of cognitive

ability with ideological right-wing ideological attitudes and

intergroup prejudice yielded four important results. First,

we obtained convincing evidence for the presence of moder-

ate negative associations between cognitive ability and both

ideological right-wing attitudes and prejudice, which were

relatively stable across different sample characteristics. Sec-

ond, the negative relationship varied signiﬁcantly across dif-

ferent subtypes of broad cognitive ability for ideological

attitudes, but not for prejudice. Third, our analyses revealed

that cognitive ability was not related to all types of right-

wing ideological attitudes or prejudices equivalently. Fourth,

sensitivity analyses show that the results are not strongly in-

ﬂuenced by publication bias or inﬂuential cases. In the next

sections, we discuss each of these ﬁndings in greater depth.

Finding 1: general relationship of cognitive ability with

ideology and prejudice

The ﬁrst main ﬁnding of our study was that people with

greater cognitive resources are more likely to adhere to left-

wing beliefs and tend to be less prejudiced, whereas those

having lower cognitive abilities are more likely to endorse

right-wing beliefs and be more prejudiced (average effect

sizes of r=.20, 95% CI [0.23, 0.17]; and r=.19,

95% CI [0.23, 0.16], respectively). The conﬁdence inter-

val reported provides considerable support for the notion that

these ﬁndings are both meaningful and replicable. We further

assessed the validity of our meta-analytical estimates, with

sensitivity analyses addressing the impact of both publication

bias and outliers/inﬂuential studies. In general, these analyses

underscore robustness in our meta-analytical study because

the implications of the meta-analytic results and conclusions

remain largely unaltered when adjusting for potential

Figure 4. Contour-enhanced funnel plots with trim-and-ﬁll imputations for cognitive ability and prejudice. The black points represent the real studies; the white

points represent the imputed studies. If missing studies are imputed in areas where non-signiﬁcant studies would be plotted (no shading), the observed asymmetry

may be due to publication bias. If missing studies are imputed in areas of statistical signiﬁcance (darker shading), publication bias is less likely.

612 E. Onraet et al.

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publication bias or when omitting outliers and overly inﬂuen-

tial studies.

A straightforward comparison between the results of the

present meta-analysis and the meta-analysis conducted by

Van Hiel et al. (2010), who also investigated the relationship

between cognitive ability and ideological attitudes, is not

possible. First, Van Hiel et al. (2010) included ideological at-

titudes and ethnocentrism in the same analysis, whereas we

performed two separate analyses. Second, and most impor-

tantly, Van Hiel et al. (2010) also included years of education

as a proxy of cognitive ability, whereas we chose not to

include this variable as an indicator of cognitive ability and

instead focused only on objective tasks measuring cognitive

ability. As can be seen from their results, years of education

yields the strongest effect size compared with other indica-

tors of cognitive ability, making their overall effect sizes

for the different types of ideology higher than the present

effect sizes.

Moderator analyses revealed that the effect size in the

present meta-analysis was relatively stable across different

sample characteristics, such as gender, location and time

frame, attesting to the robustness of the relationship. Only

one moderator related to sample characteristics yielded a sig-

niﬁcant effect. Speciﬁcally, the strength of the effect size dif-

fered across age groups, with the strongest effect size for the

relationship between cognitive ability and right-wing ideo-

logical attitudes in the group of adolescents. Although we

do not have a clear explanation for this effect, it should be

noted that adolescence constitutes the formative years of po-

litical ideology (e.g. Altemeyer, 1998; Alwin, Cohen, &

Newcomb, 1991) and that cognitive ability might then yield

its biggest impact. Future research can further examine this

potential.

Our effect sizes varied around r=.20 and were largest

in magnitude for authoritarianism (r=.30, 95% CI

[0.34, 0.24]) and ethnocentrism (r=.28, 95% CI

[0.34, .22]). Clearly, these effects are not inconsequential

but rather are of a similar magnitude of other meta-analytic

relations such as between contact and prejudice (Pettigrew

& Tropp, 2006), stereotypes and prejudice (Dovidio,

Brigham, Johnson & Gaertner, 1996), discrimination and

prejudice (Talaska, Fiske & Chaiken, 2008; Schütz & Six,

1996), personality factors and prejudice (Sibley & Duckitt,

2008) and even stronger than relations between religiosity

and prejudice (Hall, Matz & Wood, 2010). In fact, these ef-

fect sizes approximate those of the vast majority of personal-

ity and social psychology ﬁndings more generally (Richard,

Bond & Stokes-Zoota, 2003). With meta-analytic relations

of this magnitude reliably observed, a strong case can be

made that cognitive abilities are as important, and often more

important, in explaining ideology and prejudice than many of

the constructs commonly discussed in personality and social

psychology textbooks. Hence, we strongly advise future

models and theories aiming to uncover the psychological ba-

sis of ideology and prejudice to provide a key role for cogni-

tive ability (Dhont & Hodson, 2014; Hodson, 2014; Hodson

& Busseri, 2012).

An important reason for this long-standing interest in the

cognitive basis of ideology lies in an attempt to uncover the

Table 4. Effect sizes based on sensitivity analyses correcting for publication bias and outliers/inﬂuential studies

Original estimate

[95% CI] Trim and ﬁll PET

†

PEESE

†

Without

outliers

Right-wing ideological

attitudes

67 0.20 [0.23, 0.17] 0.15 [0.18, 0.12] 0.13 [0.17, 0.10] 0.15 [0.17, 0.12] 64 0.20 [0.23, 0.17]

Authoritarianism 27 0.30 [0.34, 0.24] 0.30 [0.34, 0.24] 0.21 [0.26, 0.17] 0.23 [0.27, 0.20] 26 0.28 [0.32, 0.23]

Conservatism 27 0.13 [0.17, 0.08] 0.13 [0.17, 0.08] 0.12 [0.19, 0.06] 0.12 [0.17, 0.08] 26 0.14 [0.18, 0.10]

Dogmatism

‡

13 0.17 [0.25, 0.09] 0.13 [0.22, 0.04] 0.20 [0.16, 0.08] 0.18 [0.29, 0.06] 12 0.20 [0.26, 0.14]

Prejudice 23 0.19 [0.23, 0.16] 0.18 [0.22, 0.14] 0.15 [0.19, 0.11] 0.17 [0.19, 0.14] 22 0.18 [0.21, 0.15]

Ethnocentrism

‡

90.28 [0.34, 0.22] 0.26 [0.32, 0.19] 0.28 [0.38, 0.20] 0.28 [0.34, 0.22] 8 0.28 [0.36, 0.19]

Prejudice towards

speciﬁc groups

‡

14 0.16 [0.19, 0.13] 0.16 [0.19, 0.12] 0.15 [0.20, 0.10] 0.16 [0.18, 0.13] 14 0.16 [0.19, 0.13]

Note: All estimates are signiﬁcant at p<.001.

†

PET–PEESE is a conditional estimating procedure. Because PET results are all signiﬁcant (hence, rejecting the null hypothesis b

= 0), the PEESE results should be interpreted as the best estimates of the true effects corrected

for publication bias.

‡

Estimates for these sub-distributions should be interpreted with caution as these are based on a limited set of studies (Sterne & Egger, 2001).

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 613

DOI: 10.1002/per

scientiﬁc inaccuracy or invalidity of certain ideologies, and

the superiority of other ideologies (Durrheim, 1997). Specif-

ically, ideologies might seem inferior when they attract less

intelligent people, whereas ideologies that attract intelligent

people may appear to be more ‘correct’. To be clear, any at-

tempt to show whether right-wing or left-wing ideologies are

accurate or valid on the basis of the level of cognitive ability

of their adherents is based on false premises and certainly not

the goal of our present synthesis.

Moreover, we appreciate that this issue is a very delicate

and controversial one (Dhont & Hodson, 2014; Hodson,

2014) that, for this reason, speaks to the need for a

cumulative-science approach (i.e. meta-analysis). Moreover,

we would like to stress that, although right-wing ideological

attitudes relate to conservative and right-wing political party

afﬁliation (e.g. Altemeyer, 1996; Jost et al., 2003), our ﬁnd-

ings cannot be generalized to party identiﬁcation. In other

words, the current ﬁndings not necessarily imply that adher-

ents of right-wing parties have lower cognitive abilities than

adherents of left-wing parties.

Finding 2: different effect sizes for different types of

broad cognitive ability

The second important question of the present study pertained

to the potential differences in effect sizes for different types

of cognitive abilities. Previous studies (Deary et al., 2008;

Heaven et al., 2011; Kemmelmeier, 2008) yielded somewhat

conﬂicting outcomes. In our meta-analysis, we investigated

two moderators in order to answer this question. First, we

found that the strength of the relationship did not differ be-

tween studies focusing on one speciﬁc type of cognitive abil-

ity and those focusing on general cognitive ability. Second,

we compared the effect sizes between different types of

broad cognitive abilities as deﬁned by the CHC theory

(McGrew, 2005; Schneider & McGrew, 2012). Our analysis

for right-wing attitude effect sizes varied signiﬁcantly across

ability types. To interpret this effect, we focus on

comprehension–knowledge, ﬂuid abilities and short-term

memory, because we have a smaller number of participants

(<1000) for the other types of broad abilities. The strongest

effect size was obtained for comprehension–knowledge

(r=.23), which refers to abilities based on previously ac-

quired knowledge and skills valued by one’s culture. It in-

cludes general verbal information, language development,

lexical knowledge, listening and communication abilities

and grammar sensitivity (Schneider & McGrew, 2012). The

effect size was considerably smaller for ﬂuid abilities

(r=.13), referring to abilities to solve unfamiliar problems

and abstract reasoning, and for short-term memory

(r=.12), referring to abilities to encode, maintain and ma-

nipulate information in the immediate situation. Although

the moderator for type of primary broad ability was not

signiﬁcant in our analysis for prejudice, the same pattern of

results emerged, with the strongest effect size for

comprehension–knowledge (r=.26) and weaker effect

sizes for ﬂuid abilities (r=.15) and short-term memory

(r=.13).

These ﬁndings corroborate the studies of Heaven et al.

(2011) and Kemmelmeier (2008) who found that verbal abil-

ities are more strongly related to ideological attitudes com-

pared with numerical and mathematical reasoning. As noted

by Heaven et al. (2011), ideologies are relevant to verbal nar-

ratives, arguments and point of views, but not directly to nu-

merical abilities. Similarly, other researchers argue that

ideology can be considered as a schema or a learned knowl-

edge structure, including norms and values, beliefs and opin-

ions (e.g. Fiske, Lau & Smith, 1990; Hamill, Lodge & Blake,

1985). Hence, this might explain why comprehension–

knowledge abilities may be especially relevant in relation-

ship with ideology.

Also of relevance to the present ﬁndings is the recognition

that cognitive ability is associated with particular personality

traits, which also lie at the basis of right-wing ideological at-

titudes and prejudice. More speciﬁcally, high openness

(Costa & McCrae, 1992; Digman, 1990), which refers to a

preference for novelty, variety and intense experience, lies

at the basis of lower authoritarianism and conservatism and

lower prejudice (Block & Block, 2006; Sibley & Duckitt,

2008). At the same time, several researchers have shown that

openness is also related to cognitive ability, with the strongest

associations for comprehension–knowledge abilities, com-

pared with other types of cognitive ability, such as ﬂuid

ability (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Ashton, Lee, Vernon

& Jang, 2000). This common personality association may

also provide insights into the stronger relationships of

comprehension–knowledge abilities with right-wing ideolog-

ical attitudes and prejudice.

Whereas the effect of comprehension–knowledge ability

is strongest, it is important to note that the other types of

broad abilities (for which we obtained enough studies) also

yielded negative and signiﬁcant effects. This ﬁnding further

attests to the robustness of this general relationship. How-

ever, on the basis of the present state of the literature, we can-

not make conclusive statements about all types of cognitive

abilities. First, studies on cognitive ability and ideology and

prejudice did not include every type of ability (e.g. to our

knowledge, no study investigated auditory processing or

quantitative knowledge). Second, for other types of cognitive

ability, most notably long-term memory, processing speed

and visual–spatial processing, we found only a few studies,

which elicited potential statistical power issues in our analy-

sis. Hence, we should be cautious not to over-interpret the

results for these speciﬁc abilities. Future research administer-

ing a wide range of cognitive ability measures at the same

time can provide a more decisive answer to this intriguing

question.

Finding 3: different effect sizes for different types of

ideological attitudes and prejudice

Our analyses revealed that cognitive ability is not related to

all types of right-wing ideological attitudes or prejudices to

the same extent. First, in our analysis of right-wing ideolog-

ical attitudes, we found the strongest effect size for authori-

tarianism as compared with conservatism and dogmatism.

One possible explanation lies in particular rigid cognitive

614 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

styles linked with cognitive ability, and most notably NFC.

Research indicated that lower cognitive ability is associated

with a higher NFC (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), which re-

lates to an individual’s desire to come to a relatively quick

closure in decisions and judgments (Kruglanski, 1989;

Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Individuals with a high NFC

have a strong preference for structure, certainty and predict-

ability and are repelled by ambiguity. Because of these

needs, individuals with a high NFC are more attracted to

right-wing ideological attitudes, because these attitudes

stress the importance of traditional values and the resistance

towards change (Roets & Van Hiel, 2006). Of interest, NFC

is more strongly related to authoritarianism than other types

of ideological attitudes, like conservatism (Chirumbolo,

2002; Crowson, Thoma & Hestevold, 2005; Van Hiel,

Pandelaere & Duriez, 2004). Authoritarianism may be espe-

cially functional in reducing ambiguity and providing a sense

of certainty, because ‘RWA attitudes…would provide for in-

dividuals the strongest level of closure on social and political

issues’(Crowson et al., 2005, p. 574). In the present context,

individuals with lower cognitive abilities may similarly ben-

eﬁt from more certainty and closure, which, in the context on

ideas about society, are best met through authoritarian beliefs

relative to other right-wing attitudes. Whereas cognitive

styles may provide an explanation for the strongest effects

found between cognitive ability and authoritarianism, we

should note that the sensitivity bias analyses (Table 4) re-

vealed that the actual effect size of authoritarianism might

be somewhat lower, bringing them closer to the effect sizes

of conservatism and dogmatism. Hence, we should interpret

these ﬁndings with caution.

A second interesting ﬁnding concerned two types of prej-

udices. More speciﬁcally, ethnocentrism, which can be con-

sidered an indicator of generalized prejudice, yielded a

stronger effect size than prejudices directed towards speciﬁc

out-groups. In other words, cognitive ability related more

strongly to negative attitudes and a dislike of other groups

in general, rather than speciﬁc groups such as ethnic minori-

ties or the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered commu-

nity. A similar effect can be found in research on the

personality basis of prejudice. More speciﬁcally, Sibley and

Duckitt (2008) found that (low) agreeableness or openness

to experience is more strongly related to measures of gener-

alized than speciﬁc prejudices. These authors argued that,

because speciﬁc types of prejudice are partly rooted in

knowledge about and (personal) experiences with these par-

ticular groups, these situational and group-speciﬁc factors

might attenuate the generalized effect of personality (see also

Akrami, Ekehammar & Bergh, 2011). Generalized prejudice,

on the other hand, is more abstract and less inﬂuenced by

group-speciﬁc attitudes and cognitions, yielding a stronger

effect of personality. Similar processes can explain the pres-

ent ﬁndings for cognitive ability as well. Cognitive ability

might yield its strongest effects on generalized prejudice be-

cause of the reliance on general cognitive heuristics during

judgment formation that is similar across all out-groups; in

contrast, speciﬁc prejudice types are additionally inﬂuenced

by factors uniquely related to the particular social group in

question (including the social context).

Finding 4: little evidence for publication bias or

distortion by outliers

Given the controversial nature of studying the relationship of

cognitive ability with right-wing ideological attitudes and

prejudice, a crucial question is to what extent the studies in-

cluded in the current meta-analyses represent the entire sam-

ple collection. It might be that studies retrieving null ﬁndings

or positive ﬁndings are more likely to be put away in ﬁle

drawers. A deﬁnite strength of this meta-analysis is that we

addressed this issue by comprehensively addressing the im-

pact of publication bias. These analyses, based upon visual

inspection, regression and trim-and-ﬁll methods, do not yield

evidence that publication bias is likely in the present meta-

analytic study collection. Nevertheless, it remains important

for future updates of this meta-analysis to further search for

additional unpublished studies. Despite our widespread call

for unpublished data, only three researchers shared their un-

published data, and more unpublished datasets might be out

somewhere.

Taken together, our sensitivity analyses accounting for

publication bias and removing outliers/inﬂuential studies un-

derscore and validate the robustness of our meta-analytical

conclusions. Some other potential biases, however, could

not be completely ruled out. First, it remains possible that

the current meta-analytical conclusions do not reﬂect the true

effects, owing to measurement error. Even though adjusting

for measurement error is recommended by some meta-

analysts (particularly in the psychometric meta-analytical tra-

dition of Hunter & Schmidt, 2004; Kepes et al., 2013), we

found insufﬁcient information in the original studies to con-

duct such artefact adjustments. Also, we acknowledge that

it is possible that the results of our meta-analysis are some-

what inﬂuenced by indirect range restriction (Hunter &

Schmidt, 2004; Kepes et al., 2013). Many studies consist of

volunteers, and volunteers may tend to have a higher-than-

average cognitive ability. However, as information of the

population variances on the outcome measures is essentially

lacking in the original studies, it was not possible to correct

for this artefact as part of the current sensitivity analyses.

Alternative accounts

Some scholars have criticized a pure ‘cognitive’explanation

of the negative relationship of cognitive ability with ideology

and prejudice and suggest alternative accounts explaining

these relationships. More speciﬁcally, social desirability, ed-

ucation and socio-economic status (SES) have often been

proposed as explaining these effects. We elaborate on these

alternative accounts in the next sections.

Social desirability

Studies included in our meta-analysis exclusively employed

self-report measures of ideology and prejudice. Although

self-report questionnaires are omnipresent in research and

generally considered as a valid and reliable method to mea-

sure attitudes, it may provoke some interpretation problems

as well, particularly with regard to social desirability. People

may try to suppress or mask what they think to be socially

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 615

DOI: 10.1002/per

unacceptable, such as prejudiced or ethnocentric attitudes

and (extreme) right-wing ideological opinions. Indeed, intel-

ligent and educated individuals are quite capable of suppress-

ing their prejudices (e.g. Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). Hence,

an alternative account might be that individuals with lower

cognitive abilities are less able to suppress their socially un-

acceptable attitudes, whereas individuals with greater cogni-

tive abilities are more likely to present themselves as open-

minded, liberal and unprejudiced.

However, whereas social desirability poses an important

limitation to questionnaire studies, the self-report nature of

the attitudinal measures cannot adequately explain the ob-

tained meta-analytic relationships for various reasons. More

speciﬁcally, utterances that support extreme right-wing ideo-

logical ideas and prejudice expressions are widely rejected in

the general population, and it does not require especially

strong cognitive abilities to comply with these norms. More-

over, relatively simple and straightforward questions are

used to measure prejudice, tapping into (dis)liking of and

avoiding contact with different out-groups, making it un-

likely that only highly intelligent individuals are able to ma-

nipulate their answers on these questions (Hodson & Busseri,

2012). Furthermore, the relations observed in the present

results are similar to those in samples of young children

(e.g. Costello & Hodson, 2014; Kutner & Gordon, 1964),

who often feel freer to express their own minds. Moreover,

our effects are strongest (not weakest) in adolescence, a life

phase where individuals are most conscious of social approval

and norms. Given these arguments, we feel that increased

social desirability among individuals with higher cognitive

ability cannot explain completely the obtained relationships.

However, future research might try to replicate the present

ﬁnding by employing other implicit or more subtle measures

for these attitudes that are less prone to social desirability

concerns.

Education and socio-economic status

Scholars have often suggested that SES and educational ex-

periences may pose potential confounds in the relationship

of cognitive ability with right-wing ideological attitudes

and intergroup prejudice (Adorno et al., 1950; Allport,

1954; Christie, 1954). More speciﬁcally, because education

and cultural sophistication are known to inﬂuence the values

and attitudes of individuals and because higher education

typically provides a ‘liberal climate’, high SES and participa-

tion in higher education may make individuals more liberal

and left-wing and less prejudiced (e.g. Hello, Scheepers,

Vermulst & Gerris, 2004). Indeed, empirical studies showed

that educational level is negatively correlated with right-wing

ideology (e.g. an effect size of r=.33 in the meta-analysis

of Van Hiel et al., 2010), prejudice and ethnocentrism (e.g.

Hello, Scheepers, & Sleegers, 2006; Meeusen et al., 2013).

Hence, because individuals with higher cognitive ability are

more likely to pursue higher and longer education, the effects

of cognitive ability on ideological attitudes and prejudice

might be explained by this ‘liberalizing effect’of education

rather than by pure ‘cognitive effects’.

However, empirical research suggests that a potential

confounding effect of education and SES does not account

for these relations. Most importantly, a range of studies re-

ported that the relationships of cognitive ability with right-

wing ideology and prejudice remain signiﬁcant after statisti-

cally controlling for educational level and SES (Deary et al.,

2008; Hodson & Busseri, 2012; Kanazawa, 2010; McCourt

et al., 1999; Schoon et al., 2010; Sidanius & Lau, 1989).

Moreover, signiﬁcant associations of cognitive ability with

right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice have also been

obtained in samples of children and young adolescents who

have not yet experienced higher education (e.g. Costello &

Hodson, 2014) and among university student samples (e.g.

Choma et al., 2014; Keiller, 2010) where education levels

are largely equivalent across participants. In sum, whereas

education and SES might, to some extent, explain the rela-

tionship between cognitive ability and right-wing ideological

attitudes and prejudice, it cannot serve as a single and ex-

haustive explanation.

Towards new theories on the cognitive basis of right-wing

ideology and prejudice

We introduce two new perspectives in the ﬁeld of cognition

and ideology, which hold promise for future research. First,

we discuss the need to focus more research attention towards

the interplay between cognitive ability and cognitive style in

explaining ideology and prejudice. Second, we argue to

study affective processes as well and discuss the interplay be-

tween cognition and affect in the context of ideology and

prejudice.

An integrated theory of cognition: the interplay between

ability and style

Recent theorizing has stressed that both cognitive resources

and motivation are important variables in decision-making

and information processing (Kruglanski, 2004; Kruglanski,

Pierro, Mannetti, Erb & Chun 2007; Kruglanski et al.,

2012; Roets, Van Hiel, Cornelis & Soetens, 2008; Wright

& Kirby, 2001). For example, Kruglanski et al. (2007) have

argued that cognitive resources (i.e. cognitive ability) and

motivation (i.e. motivated cognition or cognitive style) are

the two key ‘decision maker’parameters in human judgment

(see also Kruglanski, 2004). Although both of these variables

might exert direct effects on judgment, they may show im-

portant multiplicative effects as well (Roets et al., 2008).

Potential joint inﬂuences (simultaneous or interaction ef-

fects) of cognitive ability and style are especially interesting

in the context of the present research questions. Instead of

probing into the effects of cognitive ability and cognitive

style separately, it may be more interesting to considerer both

concepts simultaneously (Dhont & Hodson, 2014; Hodson,

2014; Hodson & Busseri, 2012; Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli,

Koehler & Fugelsang, 2012). Adorno et al. (1950) already

hinted to such a possibility, and they coined this ‘promising

ﬁeld of future research …the dynamics of intelligence’

(p. 278). Cognitive ability in itself does not provide a com-

plete answer to the question of why people hold certain be-

liefs and attitudes; rather, the dynamic interplay between

ability and style should be considered.

616 E. Onraet et al.

DOI: 10.1002/per

Building on the current models of decision-making, one

important ﬁnding deserves special attention here. When

cognitive ability is lower or task demands grossly exceed

the individual’s resources, people may cease further efforts

to solve the problem (Roets et al., 2008; Wright & Kirby,

2001). It is possible that such a breakdown in one’s willing-

ness to invest in information gathering has also great

relevance for the development of right-wing ideology and

prejudice. People lower in cognitive ability may perceive

the world as particularly difﬁcult to understand and, irrespec-

tive of their cognitive style preferences, gravitate towards

simpler heuristics and traditional worldviews instead of be-

ing open for new and challenging information (e.g. Heaven

et al., 2011; Keiller, 2010; Stankov, 2009). It is unfortunate

that, at least to our knowledge, no single study has investi-

gated the interplay between cognitive ability and style

measures in the context of right-wing ideological attitudes

or prejudice. In order to develop comprehensive cognitive

theories about right-wing ideological attitudes and prejudice,

future studies should certainly include both cognition

components.

An integrated theory of cognition and affect

We acknowledge that a one-sided focus on cognition is

rather limited and that, in order to understand right-wing

ideological attitudes and prejudice, affective factors should

also be considered. Thus, a more complete model of right-

wing ideological attitudes and prejudice arguably incorpo-

rates affect as well. In classic theories on right-wing ideolog-

ical attitudes, this affective component was thought to be

dominant (e.g. Adorno et al., 1950; Wilson, 1973). For ex-

ample, Meloen (1997) argued, ‘Adorno et al. furthermore

hardly used the concept of cognition, as they were convinced

that also more emotional factors were involved, while cogni-

tions often would merely serve as rationalizations’(p. 650).

Although both cognitive and affective variables have been

studied separately, theoretical models and empirical studies

have rarely examined these variables simultaneously. Re-

cently, Dhont and Hodson (2014; see also Hodson, 2014) in-

troduced the Cognitive Ability and Style to Evaluation

(CASE) model, a conceptual model of ideology and preju-

dice, which holds that right-wing ideology and prejudice re-

sult from the interplay between cognitive, affective and

motivational factors. Speciﬁcally, the CASE model proposes

that individuals with lower cognitive abilities and prefer-

ences for simple structure, order and predictability are more

inclined to perceive the surrounding societal context as

threatening. In turn, threat stimulates a focus on the status

quo, which ultimately develops into right-wing and conser-

vative ideologies and prejudice. However, this model is in

need of future research to test its assumptions.

Limitations of the current state of the literature

As a ﬁnal note, we would like to address two limitations of the

current state of the literature concerning cognitive ability, ide-

ology and prejudice, which we think are important issues to

tackle in future research. First, whereas a large focus is placed

on social–cultural right-wing attitudes in relationship with

cognitive ability, few studies have investigated economic–

hierarchical attitudes in this context. We will further reﬂect

on the possible relationship. Second, we discuss the need

for cross-cultural validation of the obtained relationships.

Cognitive ability and economic–hierarchical right-wing

attitudes

In the literature on cognitive ability and right-wing ideologi-

cal attitudes, almost all attention is directed towards social–

cultural ideological right-wing attitudes. However, Duckitt

and colleagues (e.g., Duckitt, 2001; Duckitt & Sibley, 2009)

distinguished between social–cultural attitudes and

economic–hierarchical right-wing attitudes, and this distinc-

tion proved to be very important for our understanding of

the attitudinal basis of prejudice. Social dominance orienta-

tion (SDO; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994) is

the most frequently studied variable situated in the economic–

hierarchical domain of right-wing ideological attitudes. SDO

is deﬁned as a preference for hierarchically structured group

relations and inequality among social groups. A relevant ques-

tion, then, is whether cognitive ability is related to economic–

hierarchical attitudes to the same extent as to social–cultural

attitudes. Only a few studies have directly compared social–

cultural attitudes and economic–hierarchical ideological

attitudes in relationship with cognitive ability. Heaven et al.

(2011) reported that cognitive ability yields stronger associa-

tions with RWA than with SDO. Likewise, Choma et al.

(2014) observed that RWA, but not SDO, is signiﬁcantly

related to a lower cognitive ability. A recent study by

Oskarsson et al. (2014) reported that general cognitive ability

is positively related to right-wing economic attitudes. Similarly,

Carl (2014, 2015) showed that cognitive ability was positively

associated with ﬁscally and economically conservative beliefs.

These studies thus seem to suggest that the relationship

between cognitive ability and economic–hierarchical atti-

tudes is distinct from the relationship between cognitive abil-

ity and social–cultural attitudes. However, based on the few

available empirical studies on the relationship between

cognitive ability and economic–hierarchical attitudes, we

cannot make strong claims about the strength and direction

of this relationship. Therefore, we encourage more system-

atic research employing a wide range of measures in the

economic–hierarchical domain in order to understand the

role of cognitive abilities in the development of economic–

hierarchical attitudes.

The impact of culture: universal or culture-speciﬁc

relationship?

An important limitation of the current state of the literature

on cognitive ability and ideology and prejudice resides in

the fact that the literature is overrepresented by studies con-

ducted in Western societies. As a result, our meta-analytic

ﬁnding can only be applied with certainty in these societies;

whether or not these ﬁndings can be generalized to non-

Western societies largely remains an unanswered question.

According to the cultural mediation hypothesis (Woodley,

2010, 2011), we could ﬁnd different patterns of results in

other societies. More speciﬁcally, Woodley asserts that indi-

viduals with higher cognitive ability are more likely to be

Ability, right-wing attitudes and prejudice 617

DOI: 10.1002/per

aware of the advantages of adhering to norms and beliefs

dominant in one’s society and hence will shift their own atti-

tudes and beliefs towards this normative centre. As a result,

and in line with the present ﬁndings, in societies with rather

liberal norms (such as most Western societies), individuals

with greater cognitive skills are predicted to be generally

more left-wing. However, in societies characterized by more

conservative and rightist norms and belief systems, one could

expect those individuals to shift to the right side of the

spectrum. We know of one study that supports this interesting

possibility. Katz (1990) reported that among White South

African students, a group characterized by conservative views

at that time, greater cognitive ability was associated with

more conservative and traditionalistic views. However, given

that this is the only study of its kind and that its ﬁndings did

not apply to all ability tasks used, we recommend caution in

interpreting these results. In sum, in order to provide a conclu-

sive answer to the question of whether the present ﬁndings are

context speciﬁc and typical for Western societies or whether

the obtained relationships can be considered universal, we

need more elaborate research on the relationship of cognitive

ability with ideology and prejudice in culturally diverse soci-

etal contexts.

CONCLUSION

The present meta-analysis reveals relationships of small-to-

moderate strength between (lower) cognitive ability and

right-wing ideology and prejudice. These ﬁndings further en-

force the call of Hodson and Busseri (2012) that ‘…cognitive

abilities, particular in relationship to ideology, need to be-

come increasingly focal to and integrated into existing

literatures’(p. 193). Future research should not refrain from

further investigating this interesting, albeit controversial, re-

lationship (Hodson, 2014). Rather, the inclusion of cognitive

ability as an important variable in a comprehensive model of

ideology and prejudice, together with other individual differ-

ences and situational factors, will provide a fuller account of

why some individuals are less tolerant and more prejudiced

than others.

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Representing both traditional and emerging perspectives, this multi-disiplinary and truly international volume will serve as a seminal resource for students and scholars. © John. F. Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick and Victoria M. Esses 2010.

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