Leftists’ and rightists’ IQ as a function of stereotype salience

This study examined the intellectual performance of leftists (or liberals) and rightists (or conservatives) when a stereotype about members of a disadvantaged outgroup (immigrants) is salient. Building on system-justification theory (SJT) and the motivated social cognition approach of political conservatism, it was predicted that when the stereotype about immigrant students’ underachievement is salient in academic settings, leftist students would perform worse, whereas rightist students would perform better than in a control condition. In two samples, Swiss native students were first reminded (or not) of the stereotype and then performed a difficult intellectual test. The results yielded support for the predictions. These findings illustrate how different ideological motives (system-challenging vs. system-justifying) might influence performance among leftist and rightist students.