People who give in to racism and prejudice may just be dumb.

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I weep silently whenever I see science used as a propaganda tool. Now, I completely agree that prejudice can be associated with lesser IQ's and easily manipulated minds. Nevertheless, prescribing such a theory to HALF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM? Every time I see liberal propa-- errr, science like this, I have only one thing to compare it with: Drapetomania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

I didn't harp on that mainly that they were very specific on what they meant by 'conservatism' but yes, its irksome that this term shares the same word as political/economic conservatism even though the association, while perhaps coincidental in many cases, isn't necessarily real and any case made that you have to be dumb or sycophantic to be right of center is utter self-aggrandizing garbage.

I think it mostly has to do with how you are raised and strength of character.

If someone is raised with racist values, if you really want to get through to the person, you have to realize that they won't change over night and most never will. After all, who wants to admit that they are a racist?

It is a work in progress. The key lines in continued integration and education. I really don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. Actually, I find a lot of intelligent people are very good at hiding their racism behind flowery language and intelligent-sounding rhetoric.

The study may simply be finding that intelligent people are smart enough not to reveal their own racism because they are aware it is not in their own best interest.

racism can simply comes from the observable and if all you have to observe is a large portion of a certain group of people behaving one way or the other, it is too easy to judge in a racist ways. There are a lot of racist asians who hold a superiority complex that they are greater then everyone else, save, in some cases, for the white man, or others who share a smilar culture and come from the same class as they do. And these'll be asians working at some tech or engineering position, driving a toyota/honda/lexus/BMW, living in suburbia, etc.

Is it racist to lock your door when a black man who looks and dresses differently from you approaches in a dense urban neighborhood that you are unfamiliar with? I've observed all sorts of minorities do this, and many whites as well. I personally lock my car whenever anyone approaches but I see both myself and others I've been with (regardless or race) sigh a sigh of release if its not a high school student or black person, and rather, a hipster, an art student, or someone walking a dog.

The justification of the intelligent person who behaves in a way we may consider racist is that that person or group are just unintelligent (by choice or were raised by idiots) and just don't know any better.

The dumb racist tends to tie it to blood, and can then rank ancestries, such as I come from a race that built America and/or conquered this place or made this discovery/invention/etc.

Both inbred pig farmers from nowhere and smart IT people from Tokyo can cast racist comments, thoughts, or gestures. It's dumb to then totalize their intelligence(or lack of it) based on that. Too many policies in the bible were built to fight this impulse. Loving the other that is unfamiliar to you is to not so easy and racism is too human and too normal. Not being racist or intolerant on the basis of skin, class, or group isn't and is, unfortunately, learned. So learning ethical behavior is important if we are too inculcate our more tolerant and elevated values unto the next generation.

this study is
a) ableist
b) totally ignores the presence of intelligent racists &
c) forgets that humans are not independent of their social, cultural, political & economic setting.

The whole purpose of any type of ideology is to deal with uncertainties and nuances through all-encompassing general principles supported by underlying assumptions. I don't know how this is unique to conservatism or racism.

Exactly. That and people with William's Syndrome tend to not be racist, but that's because they lack social fear not because they are smarter or more enlightened. So it's possible that neuroticism plays a bigger role in racist stereotypes than intelligence.