# Correlation between racism and intelligence?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 10, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294 "2003-03-10T13:40:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/1 "2003-03-10T13:40:34Z")
Has anyone ever tested whether or not racists are more or less likely to be intelligent than non-racist people? I am of the opinion that, based on the fact that whole societies have been horribly racist for long periods of time, there’s no correlation, but I’d like to see some actual research, if possible.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/2 "2003-03-10T13:48:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by robertliguori \*
> **based on the fact that whole societies have been horribly racist for long periods of time, there’s no correlation**
Asked and answered simultaneously by the OP.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/3 "2003-03-10T14:03:11Z")
[Racist views may affect your intelligence.](http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_253180.html?menu=)
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/4 "2003-03-10T14:12:52Z")
With all due respect, **Ice\_Wolf** , what the study you cited shows is that when people who believe in stereotypes are asked to act out the stereotypes, they act out the stereotypes. No more, no less.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/5 "2003-03-10T14:35:31Z")
True, **Desmostylus** , I wouldn’t go basing any study on that example. But, it is a form of research, however limited. That was what I understood the OP asked for.
Most research, though, is to do with eugenics, rather than “How stupid/clever you are being a rascist?”
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/6 "2003-03-10T14:44:18Z")
D, I’m not sure the OP did ask and answer the question. The existence of racism in societies doesn’t necessarily mean racist or bigoted attitudes cannot be discerned in its citizens.
To use an obvious example, the United States was for the great majority of its history - and today, still is, to a large extent - extremely racist towards its black population. But you could certainly make a clear distinction between people in 1860 who had no, or mild, racist opinions about blacks, and people in 1860 who thought blacks were little more than animals. The AVERAGE opinion was more racist in 1860 than it is today, but the differences between individuals was just as vast.
Or take Nazi Germany. The society was broadly and viciously racist towards Jews in particular, but there were many Germans who held no ill will towards Jews, and many who hated them, and still more lay in between those two extremes with varying levels of antipathy towards Jews.
So in any society, I believe the opportunity exists to draw conclusions based on the correlation between intelligence and generally bigoted attitudes.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/7 "2003-03-10T14:59:36Z")
**Ice Wolf, RickJay** , maybe I misread the OP as a deliberately provocative “Does research prove that this group (blacks/women/WASPS/Republicans/Democrats/the French/racists/anyone I disagree with/etc.) are stupid?” If that wasn’t the OP’s intent, I apologise.
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### Author:  [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/8 "2003-03-10T15:08:13Z")
Asking if racists (or Republicans or Democrats) are less smart _or smarter_ (as the OP says, if you reread it) than the average population strikes me as a more legitimate question than asking the same thing about blacks (or French or women), because it involves a belief, a mental state. Don’t you think so?
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/9 "2003-03-10T15:10:46Z")
As an anecdote, about half of those at the Wannsee conference had doctorates from German universities.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/10 "2003-03-10T15:16:46Z")
I didn’t see the OP as being provocative at all, **Desmostylus**. After all, wouldn’t it seem odd that an otherwise intelligent mind should take on a fallacy (in this case, rascism) and refuse to discount it even given evidence to the contrary? Yet, this _has_ indeed happened during the course of history. An interesting topic.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/11 "2003-03-10T15:47:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Achernar \*
> \*\*Asking if racists (or Republicans or Democrats) are less smart _or smarter_ (as the OP says, if you reread it) than the average population strikes me as a more legitimate question than asking the same thing about blacks (or French or women), because it involves a belief, a mental state. Don’t you think so? \*\*
Yes. And it isn’t a GQ either way, if only because of the partisan argument that will ensue.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/12 "2003-03-10T15:51:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ice Wolf \*
> After all, wouldn’t it seem odd that an otherwise intelligent mind should take on a fallacy (in this case, rascism) and refuse to discount it even given evidence to the contrary?
Not really. There exists no human being with complete knowledge of everything, so everyone has large areas of ignorance about something. It doesn’t strike me odd at all that racist attitudes could exist in otherwise highly intelligent individuals, simply because intelligence was not involved in coming to those attitudes. Rather, childhood indoctrination is a more likely culprit.
You may as well ask how highly intelligent people could hold religious and/or superstitious beliefs when they can’t possibly have a logical reason to do so. One of the scientists mentioned in Shermer’s _Why People Believe Weird Things_ described religious belief as consoling, i.e. you believe in God for no logical reason but because postulating a universe without God is less satisfying emotionally. I’d give the name, but I only borrowed the book from a friend and since returned it.
Being told since childhood that people of group _X_ are evil/stupid/whatever, it also lends a certain order to the universe, and such beliefs can persist in intelligent people as long as they don’t take the time to analyze them too closely. It helps when you have limited contact with members of group _X_.
Heck, someone may analyze his own racism, find it has no logical merit, and persist in it anyway simply because it is consoling. There is an emotional satisfaction in saying your problems are the fault of someone else, and if that someone else would only “go back where they came from” / “learn to keep their place” / “stick to their own kind” / “pull their lives together” / “take a train ride to Auschwitz”, then everything would be just peachy.
Such satisfaction is hard to give up, even if you are intelligent.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/13 "2003-03-10T15:58:08Z")
While there are a few objections to Gould’s discussion of _g_ in the later chapters of his The Mismeasure of Man, the earlier chapters quite clearly describe the disputes among some of the most brilliant men in Europe arguing whether their _nationality_ was inherently smarter or more virtuous.
While it does seem odd that people would project fairly silly personal biases onto studies of purported science, it seems pretty clear to me that they do.
Shockley was quite smart.
I have never seen evidence that Rushton is _stupid_.
On the other hand, I doubt that anyone is going to find a real study on the subject, given that intelligence is so illusive–as is a clear delineation of how to identify prejudice and racism. (We know it when we see it, but where do we draw the lines for someone who is holding views instilled in childhood without real consideration vs someone who has formed a later negative opinion based on a striking personal experience vs someone who is simply predisposed to xenophobia?)
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/14 "2003-03-10T15:59:48Z")
I agree with you, **Bryan Ekers**. But, in terms of the OP, the question was whether anyone had actually produced research to say one way or the other. My point was it would be natural to wonder as to any correlation, whether there is or not.
The answer, aside from examples that are limited in scope at best, is no.
And I agree with **Desmostylus**. This is developing into a GD rather than GQ.
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### Author:  [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/15 "2003-03-10T16:13:58Z")
I suppose one COULD say that all racists are stupid…
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### Author:  [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/16 "2003-03-10T16:49:38Z")
To answer the actual OP, it would appear from this site that studies have been done to find out whether racists are more or less intelligent than non-racists. (I would have been astonished if they hadn’t.) Check for yourself to see what they found.
[http://www.clubs.psu.edu/sayar/riqs.htm](http://www.clubs.psu.edu/sayar/riqs.htm)
Whether any of this proves anything is, of course, another matter. Quite apart from all the usual caveats about statistical studies, it does strike me that ‘racism’ is almost as difficult to quantify as ‘intelligence’. As the OP itself and others have pointed out, cultural factors are also one obvious complication.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correlation-between-racism-and-intelligence/160294/17 "2003-03-10T18:52:19Z")
I disagree that this is necessarily a Great Debate. The general question is whether there has ever been a study that attempts to determine the correlation between intelligence and racist beliefs. As **APB** ’s link indicates, the answer appears to be yes. Whether racism (or for that matter intelligence) can be quantified well enough for such studies to be valid may indeed be fodder for GD.
bibliophage
moderator GQ