While that is the way Ezra Klein is interpreting it, I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s not that smart people are less likely to change their mind; it’s that smart people who are also partisan are less likely to change their mind. The combination of intelligence and closedmindedness is dangerous; I would agree. But I believe intelligence is correlated with openmindedness so this is either a very narrow effect (which is what Ezra Klein seems to be suggesting) or an artifact of the study design.
Actually, never mind for part of this. I had assumed they were using the median to divide between conservative and liberal in which case people who identified as moderate would be thrown out, but they’re using the mean which is most likely a number in between the possible options, so everybody gets included. Moderates are included with either liberals or conservatives; I’m not sure which.
I don’t think openmindedness is the same as the ability to get the math right for emotionally charged topics.
The ability to get the math right in context like that is part of what Keith Stanovich wants to measure with the rationality index.
While that is the way Ezra Klein is interpreting it, I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s not that smart people are less likely to change their mind; it’s that smart people who are also partisan are less likely to change their mind. The combination of intelligence and closedmindedness is dangerous; I would agree. But I believe intelligence is correlated with openmindedness so this is either a very narrow effect (which is what Ezra Klein seems to be suggesting) or an artifact of the study design.
Actually, never mind for part of this. I had assumed they were using the median to divide between conservative and liberal in which case people who identified as moderate would be thrown out, but they’re using the mean which is most likely a number in between the possible options, so everybody gets included. Moderates are included with either liberals or conservatives; I’m not sure which.
I don’t think openmindedness is the same as the ability to get the math right for emotionally charged topics. The ability to get the math right in context like that is part of what Keith Stanovich wants to measure with the rationality index.