The study found that higher cognitive ability is linked to a 'Remain' vote. "Depending on which side of the debate you fall, reading this may fill you with anger or joy."
ADVERTISEMENTOn 23 June 2016, the UK held a referendum on whether it should remain in or leave the European Union.
You know the result as ‘Brexit’, since the referendum culminated in a close vote in which 51.9% of voters opted to leave, with 48.1% voting to remain.
Now, new research from the University of Bath's School of Management finds that higher cognitive ability was strongly linked to voting to “Remain” in the referendum.
Chris Dawson and Paul Baker of the University of Bath have presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE this week.
Their study shows that cognitive skills including memory, fluid reasoning and verbal fluency, were correlated with how people decided to vote.
Lead author Dr Chris Dawson, from the University of Bath's School of Management, said: "This study adds to existing academic evidence showing that low cognitive ability makes people more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. People with lower cognitive ability and analytical thinking skills find it harder to detect and discount this type of information.”
Indeed, having higher cognitive ability has previously been associated with a greater tendency to recognize and resist misinformation, and studies have shown that the public received a large volume of misinformation about the referendum prior to voting for Brexit.
"We know that evidence has been put forward that information provided to the public in the months leading up to the referendum was contradictory, false and often fraudulent, especially regarding the pro-Leave campaign, and that this information proliferated on social media platforms," said Dawson.
Co-author of the study, Dr Paul Baker added that low cognitive ability “can lead to decision errors and many Leave voters are now saying they regret their choice.”
“The study highlights how the rise in misinformation and disinformation, and people's inability to counter this information, is undermining the democratic process and can be used to influence democratic outcomes.”
Both Dawson and Baker analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of 6,366 individuals from 3,183 heterosexual couples, collected as part of a large survey called Understanding Society.
They found that, of the people with the lowest cognitive ability, only 40% voted Remain, whereas 73% of those with the highest cognitive ability voted Remain.
Importantly, the study looked at couples living in the same household to equalise people's experiences, as well as controlling for demographic information such as political beliefs, education level and income.
The research found that having a high cognitive ability partner and the highest cognitive ability in the couple both increased the likelihood of voting Remain.
"Depending on which side of the debate you fall, reading this may fill you with anger or joy. However, both these emotions are an error of judgement," said Dr Dawson.
"It is important to understand that our findings are based on average differences: there exists a huge amount of overlap between the distributions of Remain and Leave cognitive abilities. Indeed, we calculated that approximately 36% of Leave voters had higher cognitive ability than the average (mean) Remain voter."
So, filled with anger or joy?
