Authoritarians reason with measurably lower cognitive complexity than others.
Evidence
In a series of studies involving over a thousand students, Hunsberger and his associates (for example, Hunsberger, Pratt, and Pancer, 1994) have found that RWA scores correlate about —. to —. with cognitive complexity (Baker-Brown et al., 1992). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 582
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
Related
- Low-authoritarians showed no better critical reasoning than high-authoritarians (similarity 0.85)
- Authoritarians reason in isolated compartments without perspective-taking (similarity 0.84)
- Authoritarians are less educated but education explains little of their behavior (similarity 0.84)
- Right-wing authoritarianism is negatively associated with cognitive complexity (similarity 0.84)
- Authoritarians differ only in degree, not kind, from ordinary cognitive fallibility (similarity 0.83)
- Authoritarianism does not correlate with academic grades or general intelligence (similarity 0.82)
- High authoritarians score normally on IQ yet fail at abstract reasoning and critical thinking (similarity 0.82)
- Authoritarian Christians believe every orthodox Christian doctrine more than nonauthoritarians do (similarity 0.81)
- Authoritarians fail to challenge their own contradictory reasoning (similarity 0.81)
- Authoritarians lack practice in independent critical reasoning (similarity 0.81)
- High authoritarians yea-say slightly more than low authoritarians do (similarity 0.81)
- Authoritarians maintain beliefs by avoiding challenges and curating agreeable information sources. (similarity 0.80)
- Authoritarianism shows weak or absent links to intelligence measures (similarity 0.80)
- Authoritarian and non-authoritarian groups differ in degree, not kind, of traits. (similarity 0.79)
- Even low authoritarians share belief in pseudo-science and motivated reasoning (similarity 0.79)