Left-wing politics associated with higher intelligence

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bnew

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Predicting political beliefs with polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment​

Author links open overlay panelTobias Edwards, Alexandros Giannelis, Emily A. Willoughby, James J. Lee

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Highlights
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    Within-families, intelligence predict left-wing beliefs.
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    DNA-based predictors of IQ also predict political beliefs within families.
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    Our results imply that being genetically predisposed to be smarter causes left-wing beliefs.


Abstract​

Intelligence is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs. This may suggest intelligence directly alters our political views. Alternatively, the association may be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic and environmental factors. We studied the effect of intelligence within a sample of over 300 biological and adoptive families, using both measured IQ and polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment. We found both IQ and polygenic scores significantly predicted all six of our political scales. Polygenic scores predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within-families. Intelligence was able to significantly predict social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within families, even after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Our findings may provide the strongest causal inference to date of intelligence directly affecting political beliefs.

Section snippets​


Sample​

The Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS) recruited families between 1998 and 2003 (McGue et al., 2007). State birth records and records from adoption agencies allowed for a representative sample of adoptive and biological families to be recruited. Statistics used in this study were taken at intake or follow-up 3 lasting from 2017 to 2023. The sample and political-attitude scales have previously been used and described in Willoughby, Giannelis, Ludeke, Klemmensen, et al. (2021), so our

Regressions of political beliefs on IQ​

Fig. 1 is a forest plot showing the effects of phenotypic and genotypic IQ on our scales of political beliefs, using different control variables. All estimates, standard errors and relevant diagnostic test statistics for the plot are presented in the supplementary spreadsheets. IQ and political beliefs are standardized. Table 4 shows the full regression models for the composite political scale.

Across all political beliefs, phenotypic IQ significantly predicts views in a left-wing direction. The

Discussion​

Although a large literature has found associations between cognitive ability and political beliefs, the extent to which the relationship was confounded or mediated by environmental and socioeconomic factors has been unclear. We used a within-family design, finding phenotypic cognitive ability is still associated with a wide range of political beliefs, avoiding confounding from environmental factors common to siblings. We also used a novel method, associating polygenic scores with political

Funding​

This research was funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation as part of the Genetics and Human Agency initiative (Grant No. 60780). Data collection for the original Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study assessment was funded by the National Institutes of Health (Grant Nos. MH066140 and AA011886).

CRediT authorship contribution statement​

Tobias Edwards: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Alexandros Giannelis: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Formal analysis. Emily A. Willoughby: Data curation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. James J. Lee: Writing – review & editing, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest​

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
 
Still Benefited

Still Benefited

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Most of the country is left wing. So you are telling me most of the country is intelligent:mjlol:?


There are alot of stupid people on #Bothsides. Democrats are definitely more open minded though. Which also means they could easily be programmed to go right,with enough propaganda:respect:.
 
Fillerguy

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Still Benefited said:
Most of the country is left wing. So you are telling me most of the country is intelligent:mjlol:?


There are alot of stupid people on #Bothsides. Democrats are definitely more open minded though. Which also means they could easily be programmed to go right,with enough propaganda:respect:.
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This is a lie. Stay off SM.
 
Scustin Bieburr

Scustin Bieburr

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Roger king said:
True liberalism and progressiveness is compassionate and kind, shelter to immigrants, funds and support for the sick and poor, helping folks go to college, universal health care, promoting individual rights and freedoms and liberty
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This is America. Land of "fukk you I got mine" :wow:
 
WIA20XX

WIA20XX

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Prince.Skeletor said:
I would say smarter people don't focus left wing vs right wing but on the removal of corruption.
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If true, I think the focus on corruption is more about the "smart" people being from meritocracies rather than flowing from the content of their studies.
 
WIA20XX

WIA20XX

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Did the study control for Engineering Majors?

I've never met more Libertarians in my life. And that's why Silicon Valley is the way it is!
 
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