Verbal ability as a predictor of political preferences in the United States, 1974–2012

When is it most appropriate to control for initial scores? A comparison of examination methods for two-wave panel survey data changes

“…The GSS contains the variable called WORDSUM, which is a ten-word brief vocabulary test. As Meisenberg (2005) states, "Originally constructed by Robert Thorndike (Thorndike & Gallup, 1944), it is a subset of the original WAIS vocabulary test" (p.136). It is a multiple-choice test.…”

“…Researchers have extensively used Wordsum (as both an independent variable and a dependent variable) as various concepts such as measures of vocabulary knowledge, verbal ability, cognitive sophistication and general intelligence (Malhotra, Krosnick, & Haertel, 2008;Meisenberg, 2005). This study regards Wordsum as vocabulary knowledge, which is a particular aspect of crystallized verbal in-…”

Cognitive ability and party identity: No important differences between Democrats and Republicans

“…That is, Carl's findings may simply reflect the tendency of Blacks to be Democrats and Whites to be Republicans. Indeed, in analyzing the relationship between verbal ability and party identity for whites and non-whites separately based on some of the data that were used by Carl (2014b) in his paper, Meisenberg (2015) finds that a large part of the difference in cognitive ability between Republicans and Democrats "stem from the fact that lower-scoring non-white minorities predominantly support the Democratic Party (p. 143) 2" .…”

“…(Note that our model treats race as an independent variable and both IQ and SES as mediators of party identity). 2 Meisenberg's (2015) analyses are based only on one measure of cognitive ability (vocabulary score). Carl's (2014b) analyses are based on additional three measures (see the method section below).…”

Attitudes Toward Presidential Candidates in the 2012 and 2016 American Elections: Cognitive Ability and Support for Trump

“…Whereas some contend that cognitive ability is associated positively with support for Republicans (vs. Democrats; Carl, 2014b), others argue that there is no meaningful association between verbal ability and party affiliation (Ganzach, 2016). Other research suggests that the pattern of relationship between cognitive ability and party affiliation has changed over time, such that in younger generations, there is a stronger impact of cognitive ability on Democratic affiliation (Ganzach, 2017; Meisenberg, 2015). The evidence concerning the relationship between cognitive ability and voting for Democrats versus Republicans, therefore, is mixed.…”