In the present target article (Précis) and in his book (Jussim Reference Jussim2012), Lee Jussim carefully unveils a pattern of bias and self-fulfilling prophecy in academe regarding the research on social bias and self-fulfilling prophecy in the last 50 years. The pattern is characterized by inflating and overrating the mutability of people's self-perception and performance, and the influence over these variables exerted by social factors. The ill-founded and ineffective reforms that have and will be instated on the basis of biased research are bad enough. The erroneous knowledge generated is worse, but worst of all is the dilapidation of scientific quality, and the ensuing decline in public trust in academe as a whole.

Jussim graciously evades the conclusion that many of these scholars have proved themselves to be poor scientists. It is a modest yet fundamental requirement to interpret results in relation to the claims. Yet, the social bias literature makes profound claims regarding very important aspects of everyday life for people in general but neglects assessing effects of other factors, known and unknown. For example, it is not that useful to learn that A affects B to a certain extent if we do not also know what other factors affect B, and to what extent. To illustrate this point, we might consider the influence of other general and ubiquitous, but socially irrelevant phenomena. Light, temperature, hunger, or fatigue would likely produce comparable effects upon ratings and test-taking performance as those found in much of the social bias and self-fulfilling prophecy literature. Real as they may be, the relative importance of these effects is likely dwarfed by intelligence, health, and personality traits, just like those in the social bias literature. The seminal studies may be excused for their initial enthusiasm and lack of controls, but the conclusions in later, more seasoned reports are embarrassingly unchecked by scientific thinking.

Why is there a bias in this literature at all? Why is the bias such that scholars prefer to find fault and bias rather than accuracy? Why would we be inclined to exaggerate arbitrary sources of individual differences in performance rather than systematic ones such as genes and hard work? Why have these conclusions been even further overrated in review and other second-source articles? To come to grips with these questions, it is essential to understand causes of such bias.

It is only recently that error and bias in academe has begun to be systematically addressed from within academe itself (e.g., Alvesson Reference Alvesson2013; Charlton Reference Charlton2011; Reference Charlton2012; Jussim et al. Reference Jussim, Crawford, Anglin, Stevens, Forgas, Fiedler and Crano2015a; Maranto et al. Reference Maranto, Redding and Hess2009), its motivating forces being sought amongst social conformism (Woodley Reference Woodley2010), political ideology (e.g., Berggren et al. Reference Berggren, Jordahl and Stern2009; Dutton & van der Linden Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015; Klein & Stern Reference Klein, Stern, Maranto, Redding and Hess2009), and personality traits and cognitive ability (e.g., Charlton Reference Charlton2009; E. Dutton Reference Dutton2013). The literature still lacks solid empirical evaluation, but shows that academics are unrepresentative of the general population in their intelligence, personality traits, and political preferences, and that these patterns furthermore vary systematically across disciplines (D. G. Dutton Reference Dutton2012; E. Dutton Reference Dutton2013; Dutton & Lynn Reference Dutton and Lynn2014; Dutton & van der Linden Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015; Klein & Stern Reference Klein and Stern2005; Reference Klein, Stern, Maranto, Redding and Hess2009).

One suggested cause has been that scholars feel most comfortable to conform to “societal values” (Woodley Reference Woodley2010; Woodley & Dunkel Reference Woodley and Dunkel2015) in as much as they, for example, espouse environmentalism and reject genetic determinism. This leaves open why these values were formed in the first place, regardless of whether they are equally represented amongst academics and the general population. However, such conformity goes against the gist of scientific training, where norms of truth seeking and critical thinking would inoculate against avoidance of studying topics that will receive the “wrong” answers, not speaking about them, or omitting or downplaying some aspects and exaggerating other aspects to produce a more palatable story.

Charlton notes that academics have higher than average intelligence, and suggests that intelligence is also a cognitive disposition, which leads to “over-use general intelligence in problem-solving, and to over-ride those instinctive and spontaneous forms of evolved behaviour which could be termed common sense” (Charlton Reference Charlton2009, p. 867). He also touches on social status as a driving force: “[…] this random silliness of the most intelligent people may be amplified to generate systematic wrongness when intellectuals are in addition ‘advertising’ their own high intelligence in the evolutionarily novel context of a modern IQ meritocracy” (p. 867).

Dutton and van der Linden (Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015) draw upon and develop Charlton's “clever silly” concept, arguing that,

The clever silly originator espouses a high original dogma, risking ostracism, while the “follower” merely tweaks an already widely accepted dogma. Dutton and van der Linden suggest that striking an optimum balance between conformism and unusual, provocative, or critical ideas would “permit [academics] to successfully compete by exploiting their intelligence, creative ability and even altruism in the case of advancing left wing values, which would make them be seen as more capable and attractive by others” (Dutton & van der Linden Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015, p. 64).

Equally self-interested is the notion that “middle-class leftists [engage] in seemingly socially altruistic behaviors only to improve their social status relative to others of the same background with whom they primarily compete” (Woodley Reference Woodley2010, p. 476). Woodley cites a number of studies that support the idea “that the tendency for individuals to be ‘blatantly benevolent’ (i.e., to prove to others that they can ‘afford’ to be altruistic) facilitates the building and maintenance of costly pro-social reputations” (ibid.), as predicted by costly signaling theory (Miller Reference Miller2011; Zahavi Reference Zahavi1975). An additional twist on these motives is that “Political Correctness and Post-Modernism allow advocates to compete in terms of altruism […] because they focus on the needs of the supposedly marginalized, such as ethnic minorities” (Dutton & van der Linden Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015, p. 64).

The above discussion demonstrates that although more intelligent people should be better at avoiding and revealing bias, because evaluating logical relations in general and causal ones in particular requires effortful thinking (Kahneman Reference Kahneman2011), this does not happen automatically. There is only a weak correlation between intelligence and avoiding illusive and superficial thinking. There seems, therefore, to be little reason to expect more intelligent people to be less prone to bias. In fact, they are also more able to come up with alternative explanations for data that contradict their beliefs. To this attests also the negative but small correlation between religiosity and intelligence (Dutton Reference Dutton2014). One would expect that religious ideologies would be particularly attractive and fulfilling for people with lower IQ, inasmuch as they offer preset explanations for complex existential questions. Hence, higher-IQ people would rebel against religious dogma and claims that are objectively untrue. None of these assumptions receive much support, attesting again to the weak relationship between IQ and rationality (Stanovich Reference Stanovich2009; Reference Stanovich2011). Rather, the small negative correlation found on a global scale seems to be mainly driven by cultural and historical differences between regions (Dutton Reference Dutton2014). It is notable that many religious leaders demonstrate high IQ, and that many high-IQ individuals in other domains are religious, even in the sciences (Dutton & Lynn Reference Dutton and Lynn2014). Thus, higher IQ does not predict higher cognitive reasoning; rather, it seems that the higher the IQ, the more apt we are to conciliate different and contradictory perspectives and explanations.

Clearly, intelligence is not the cure of bias. This rather gloomy outlook on one of the most salient characteristics of academics points instead to the importance of scrupulously following the scientific method. By carefully observing scientific ideals, such as CUDOS (Merton Reference Merton1973), we may steer clear of temptations to achieve social status and to pose as do-gooders and more likeable human beings through conforming and distorting what we know to be true.

In conclusion, we anticipate a quickly growing research program directed at questioning and exposing bias and poor practice in academe (e.g., Crawford et al. Reference Crawford, Jussim, Cain and Cohen2013; Jussim et al. Reference Jussim, Crawford, Anglin, Stevens, Forgas, Fiedler and Crano2015a; Lewis et al. Reference Lewis, DeGusta, Meyer, Monge, Mann and Holloway2011; Söderlund & Madison Reference Söderlund and Madison2015). The target article shows just how badly this is needed for one narrow field, but there are other fields that are seen as even more controversial and hence likely to be even more exposed to bias from within the field itself as well as in their evaluation by scholars from other fields. Examples include behavior genetics (e.g., Mosing et al. Reference Mosing, Madison, Pedersen, Kuja-Halkola and Ullén2014), criminality (e.g., Frisell et al. Reference Frisell, Lichtenstein and Långström2011), gender studies (e.g., Söderlund & Madison Reference Söderlund and Madison2015), race (Sesardic Reference Sesardic2010), sex differences (e.g., Baron-Cohen Reference Baron-Cohen2011; Del Giudice Reference Del Giudice2013; Del Giudice et al. Reference Del Giudice, Booth and Irwing2012; Lippa Reference Lippa2010), and sexual orientation (e.g., Långström et al. Reference Långström, Rahman, Carlström and Lichtenstein2010). Such a program would also address “to which extent the clever silly followers truly believe in their clever silly ideas or to what extent they strategically (and consciously) use it for their benefit” (Dutton & van der Linden Reference Dutton and van der Linden2015; p. 64), and what characterizes academics that question and criticize bias, in opposition to the prevailing zeitgeist within certain fields.