What evidence links anti‑intellectualism in public life to measurable civic outcomes?
Executive summary
A growing body of empirical work links anti‑intellectual attitudes—defined as distrust or negative affect toward experts and intellectuals—to concrete civic outcomes including public‑health compliance, political choices that weaken expert‑driven policy, and lower civic knowledge and engagement [1] [2] [3]. The evidence points to robust correlations and experimental indications of causal pathways, but important heterogeneity and unanswered causal questions remain [2] [4].
1. Anti‑intellectualism and public‑health behavior: measurable effects on pandemic outcomes
Survey and experimental research during COVID‑19 finds consistent associations between anti‑intellectualism and worse pandemic‑relevant beliefs and behavior: people higher on anti‑intellectual scales were more likely to hold misperceptions about COVID‑19, less likely to comply with public‑health directives, and less receptive to expert sources in credibility tests [1]. Cross‑national and cyber‑communication studies extend this pattern by showing that online anti‑intellectualism undermines science communication, reducing the positive informational effects researchers expect from expert messaging [4] [1].
2. Political choices: voting, populism, and policy opposition
Longitudinal and cross‑sectional political science work links anti‑intellectualism to concrete political behavior: higher anti‑intellectualism predicts support for candidates and movements that foreground distrust of experts (examples include Wallace in 1968, Brexit, and Trump in 2016), and it predicts opposition to policies favored by expert communities in domains like climate and health [2] [5]. These associations persist after controlling for other predictors, suggesting independent predictive power of anti‑intellectual attitudes for electoral and policy outcomes [2].
3. Civic knowledge, engagement, and democratic vulnerability
Commentary and survey evidence tie anti‑intellectual currents to lower civic literacy and engagement—measured in civic‑knowledge tests and participation metrics—and to warnings about susceptibility to demagoguery, though some of these claims are drawn from advocacy and editorial sources rather than purely academic causal inference [3] [6]. Scholarly work cautions that both anti‑intellectualism and opposing forms of epistemic hubris contribute to polarization and “intemperance” in civil society, complicating simple narratives that intellectualism is uniformly civic‑enhancing [7].
4. Mechanisms and heterogeneity: why anti‑intellectualism produces measurable effects
Researchers identify plausible mechanisms linking attitudes to outcomes: identity (e.g., rural identity) and partisan motivations amplify rejection of expert consensus; motivational and informational factors shape receptivity to accuracy goals; and online misinformation ecosystems magnify the communicative effects of anti‑intellectual beliefs [8] [2] [4]. Scholarship also emphasizes heterogeneity—anti‑intellectualism interacts with ideology, social identity, and institutional trust, so its measurable civic consequences vary across groups and contexts [7] [8].
5. Limits, alternative interpretations, and research gaps
While correlations are robust and some panel/experimental work supports directional claims, scholars note limitations: disentangling causality from confounders (e.g., economic grievance, partisan identity) is difficult; some critiques frame anti‑intellectual backlash as a rational response to elite failure rather than mere epistemic error; and much commentary rests on normative or historical examples rather than systematic measurement [2] [9] [3]. Cross‑cultural and longitudinal research, and better measures of behavioral civic outcomes beyond self‑reports, are still needed [4].
6. Bottom line: measured harms and the contours of the evidence
The weight of current empirical work shows that anti‑intellectualism is meaningfully linked to measurable civic outcomes—reduced compliance with public‑health measures, predictable shifts in voting and policy opposition, and associations with lower civic literacy and polarization—while also revealing nuance about causes, mediators, and competing explanations [1] [2] [3]. Existing studies provide actionable targets for mitigation (science communication reforms, attention to identity drivers, and institutional trust rebuilding) but also underscore that the phenomenon is political, social, and contingent rather than monolithic [5] [8].