People with higher IQs and genes that favor intelligence are more likely to be liberal

When people grow up, they have a good sense of where they stand politically. A twenty-year-old may not express their political views particularly clearly, but they will still have some political leanings that support a certain ideology or political attitude. The question is: how does one develop this? Why do some people lean liberal and others lean conservative?

Many factors determine how people participate in their civil rights and which political parties they support. The most important of these is the family, especially parents, who may directly (e.g., through political discussions) or indirectly (e.g., through role models) shape their children’s ideological beliefs as they grow up. Then there are factors such as gender, religion, race and ethnicity.

However, a new study wants to point out an often overlooked factor in this discussion that goes beyond parenting. Researchers have found that both IQ scores and genetic markers associated with intelligence can play an important role in shaping our political stance. Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities found that “intelligence is associated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs.

“Polygenic scores predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism within families. Intelligence significantly predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism within families, even after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Our findings “Potentially provides the strongest causal inference to date of intelligence directly affecting political beliefs,” the researchers wrote in the journal intelligence.

Strange trend background

Researchers have proposed various theories about how political beliefs and intelligence interact. For example, some research suggests that people with conservative ideologies may have lower intelligence on average. Conservatives typically value tradition, respect authority and social order, and are often skeptical of innovation and change. At the same time, liberals typically prioritize values ​​such as equality, social justice, and the protection of civil liberties. They tend to be more open to change and innovation.

These studies suggest that conservatives’ emphasis on maintaining the status quo may reflect cognitive rigidity, making the ideology more attractive to people who struggle with intellectual challenges, especially those involving new information. Some evidence suggests that people with conservative views generally score lower on IQ tests and have lower educational attainment.

Other studies have suggested a different perspective. German-British psychologist Hans Eysenck theorized that people with higher intelligence tend to avoid extreme political ideologies. According to this theory, intelligent people are likely to hold moderate or centrist political views. The reasoning behind this is that both the right and left extremes tend to be associated with dogmatism and rigidity, traits that are said to attract less intelligent people.

German psychologist Heiner Rinderman supports this theory, claiming that intelligent people often hold civic values ​​that drive them to support political institutions that they believe will support the expansion of education and knowledge. As a result, these individuals believe that moderate or centrist parties are better suited to promote their social interests than parties with a more explicitly left-wing or right-wing ideology.

If you’re a conservative, reading this might make you angry, and understandably so. However, the subject is indeed complex and not fully understood, so all these claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

Shaping political tendencies beyond upbringing

Tobias Edwards, PhD, a behavioral genetics student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, these previous studies suggest that there may indeed be a link between intelligence and political leanings. But in his view, what we’re missing is why this connection exists in the first place. As a scientist, he began conducting his own investigations.

In this study, Edwards and colleagues examined data from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). This collection is a gold mine for genetic research because it contains a wealth of information about people who have biological, adopted, or mixed-race siblings. Because these individuals grew up in the same family and were likely to be exposed to very similar circumstances in terms of upbringing, education, and activities, differences in their behavior and attitudes can be more reliably attributed to their genetic predispositions rather than their environment.

The study involved 82 pairs of biological siblings, 96 pairs of adopted siblings, and 35 pairs of mixed-race siblings (one pair was adopted and one pair was biological). Each participant was assessed with a standard IQ test and had their genome sequenced.

This approach suggests that siblings with higher IQ scores or more favorable genetic markers for intelligence tend to adopt more liberal political beliefs than siblings, regardless of their shared upbringing. This pattern was observed among both biological and adopted siblings.

Edwards tells us we found that IQ and genetic measures of intelligence, called polygenic scores, can help predict which of two siblings is more liberal Psychological Post.

This is a pair of brothers and sisters who grew up under the same roof. This means that intelligence is related to political beliefs not just because of environment or upbringing, but that genetic variation in intelligence may play a role in influencing our political differences. Why is this so? I have no idea.

Intelligence: Just one piece of the political puzzle

The study also explored various dimensions of political ideology, from authoritarianism to religiosity, and found that both IQ and polygenic scores significantly predicted these political dimensions.

However, Edwards emphasized the importance of considering intelligence as one of many factors that influence political beliefs and warned against judging the merits of an ideology based on the intelligence of its supporters. He calls for humility and tolerance in our political discourse, and for recognizing that historically intelligent people have disagreed on issues that now seem trivial.

Edwards said it’s tempting to infer the truth of an ideology based on the wisdom of its proponents. But this is a mistake. There are very smart people on both the left and the right, from Oppenheimer to von Neumann. These and many more examples show that there is no reason why we must assume that one ideology is more intelligent than another, even if intelligent people seem more likely to identify with one belief or another.

From our research, we cannot say that the beliefs of highly intelligent people tell us what is right to believe, only what intelligent people choose to believe.