Anti-intellectualism, political ideology, and religiosity

Anti-intellectualism and political ideology in a sample of undergraduate and graduate students.

Laverghetta A, Stewart J, Weinstein L.

Psychol Rep. 2007 Dec;101(3 Pt 2):1050-6.

To estimate correlations for scores on a student anti-intellectualism scale with scores on a measure of political conservatism, 235 students were given a survey containing a student anti-intellectualism scale, a political conservatism scale, and a demographics questionnaire identifying the participants' sex, college classification, ethnicity, political party affiliation, and self-described political ideology. The political conservatism scale contained two factors, Religiosity and Economic Conservatism, both of which were scored separately in addition to an overall Conservatism score. Students' Anti-intellectualism scores were correlated with Political Conservatism scores (1), with Religiosity scores (2), and with Economic Conservatism scores (3). An analysis of variance indicated a significant difference in students' Anti-intellectualism scores based on college classification (4). Specifically, freshmen had significantly higher scores than graduate students.

Department of Psychology and Human Ecology, Cameron University, Lawton, OK 73505-6377, USA. alaverghetta@cameron.edu

1. r = .37, p less than .01
2. r = .42, p less than .01
3. r = .17, p less than .05
4. F4,233 = 2.27, p less than .04