Are neo-liberals more intuitive? Undetected libertarians confound the relation between analytic cognitive style and economic conservatism

Abstract

Previous studies consistently showed that analytic cognitive style (ACS) is negatively correlated with social conservatism, but there are mixed findings concerning its relation with economic conservatism. Most tests have relied on a unidimensional (liberal-conservative) operationalization of political orientation. Libertarians tend not only to identify themselves as conservative on this scale but also to score higher on ACS than liberals and conservatives. The presence of libertarians might be the reason for the above-mentioned mixed findings. We investigated the relation between social and economic conservatism and ACS (operationalized using the Cognitive Reflection Test; CRT) in a large, web-based sample. There was a negative correlation between CRT and social conservatism both when libertarians were included and excluded. However, the correlation between CRT and economic conservatism was significantly reduced in magnitude and became non-significant when libertarians were excluded. The results support the argument that the undetected presence of libertarians may confound the ACS-economic conservatism relation.