Liberalism, Atheism, Male Sexual Exclusivity Linked to Higher IQ

[Theige]

Spoiler :

(CNN) -- Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.

The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans' evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.

"The adoption of some evolutionarily novel ideas makes some sense in terms of moving the species forward," said George Washington University leadership professor James Bailey, who was not involved in the study. "It also makes perfect sense that more intelligent people -- people with, sort of, more intellectual firepower -- are likely to be the ones to do that."

Bailey also said that these preferences may stem from a desire to show superiority or elitism, which also has to do with IQ. In fact, aligning oneself with "unconventional" philosophies such as liberalism or atheism may be "ways to communicate to everyone that you're pretty smart," he said.

The study looked at a large sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which began with adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-95 school year. The participants were interviewed as 18- to 28-year-olds from 2001 to 2002. The study also looked at the General Social Survey, another cross-national data collection source.

Kanazawa did not find that higher or lower intelligence predicted sexual exclusivity in women. This makes sense, because having one partner has always been advantageous to women, even thousands of years ago, meaning exclusivity is not a "new" preference.

For men, on the other hand, sexual exclusivity goes against the grain evolutionarily. With a goal of spreading genes, early men had multiple mates. Since women had to spend nine months being pregnant, and additional years caring for very young children, it made sense for them to want a steady mate to provide them resources.

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said.

Participants who said they were atheists had an average IQ of 103 in adolescence, while adults who said they were religious averaged 97, the study found. Atheism "allows someone to move forward and speculate on life without any concern for the dogmatic structure of a religion," Bailey said.

"Historically, anything that's new and different can be seen as a threat in terms of the religious beliefs; almost all religious systems are about permanence," he noted.

The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines "liberal" in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.

"Liberals are more likely to be concerned about total strangers; conservatives are likely to be concerned with people they associate with," he said.

Given that human ancestors had a keen interest in the survival of their offspring and nearest kin, the conservative approach -- looking out for the people around you first -- fits with the evolutionary picture more than liberalism, Kanazawa said. "It's unnatural for humans to be concerned about total strangers." he said.

The study found that young adults who said they were "very conservative" had an average adolescent IQ of 95, whereas those who said they were "very liberal" averaged 106.

It also makes sense that "conservatism" as a worldview of keeping things stable would be a safer approach than venturing toward the unfamiliar, Bailey said.

Neither Bailey nor Kanazawa identify themselves as liberal; Bailey is conservative and Kanazawa is "a strong libertarian."

Vegetarianism, while not strongly associated with IQ in this study, has been shown to be related to intelligence in previous research, Kanazawa said. This also fits into Bailey's idea that unconventional preferences appeal to people with higher intelligence, and can also be a means of showing superiority.

None of this means that the human species is evolving toward a future where these traits are the default, Kanazawa said.

"More intelligent people don't have more children, so moving away from the trajectory is not going to happen," he said.

Let the games begin!

Sorry, Discuss

 

[cardgame]

Cool

But aren't IQ tests kind of, um, not really that reliable for stuff like this?

 

[Kraznaya]

Newsflash: Being pretentious is correlated with intelligence.

 

[Luckymoose]

Being religious, conservative and a macho man makes you dumb!

 

[Theige]

Being religious, conservative and a macho man makes you dumb!

Its a correlation, not a causation

 

[mangxema]

That sounds about right. Although really, the thing is marginally significant at best.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said.

I've always been a bit paranoid, but not religious.

 

[cardgame]

I've always been a bit paranoid, but not religious.

but combine paranoid + midieval age ignorance about the world.

 

[admiral-bell]

Cool

But aren't IQ tests kind of, um, not really that reliable for stuff like this?

Even as an atheist, I am proud to say this study is complete BS. As cardgame said, the IQ test doesn't correlate with anything real. The IQ test measures your socioeconomic background and test-taking ability, not your intelligence. That, and the fact that the author of this study has a reputaion as a sensationalist leads me to discard this study.

(Theists, you don't get a low intelligence as an excuse for your beliefs. )

 

[Bast]

I'm liberal, atheist (I believe in Buddhist philosophy which is by definition atheist) and also a lacto-vegetarian.

 

[Berzerker]

"Liberals are more likely to be concerned about total strangers; conservatives are likely to be concerned with people they associate with," he said.

so, conservatives make better friends while liberals are giving strangers the shirts off their friends backs?

 

[cubsfan6506]

I'm liberal, atheist (I believe in Buddhist philosophy which is by definition atheist) and also a lacto-vegetarian.

Study disproved.

 

[Elrohir]

The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines "liberal" in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.

That definition of "liberal vs. conservative" is incredibly crappy, and not at all what most Americans mean when they use the words "liberal" or "conservative." (I'm sure George Bush has concern for people he's not related to, and has given his own money - private resources - to help them. Is he a liberal?) This part of the study is most likely completely bunk. I dunno about the rest, but I'm really suspicious of any study talking about IQ differences between liberals and conservatives when they don't have a good definition of either. (Or ANY definition of conservative, aside from non-liberal?) Additionally, there's no information in the article about all the details of the study - how many participated, where were they from, economic background, etc, and how well they controlled for such factors - and the fact that they're interviewing 18-28 year olds is itself a pretty big issue, as young people tend to be considerably more liberal and atheistic than the population as a whole.

Basically: this sounds like crappy science to me. Maybe it's good science that was written about poorly by a journalist (We'll see when the article is published) but I'll be skeptical until then. (And to preempt the "Well you just don't want to admit that religious people are dumber lol!" comments: I'm not convinced that religious people have a lower IQ, but I wouldn't be surprised, as high IQ correlates with higher education, which tends to correlate with atheism. I don't think it has relevance for whether or not any particular religion or religious idea is actually true.)

 

[Lord Baal]

Study disproved.

Best troll ever.

Joining with those calling bs on the study.

 

[Bast]

Study disproved.

I happen to have a very high IQ. But I don't pay attention to IQ, it only tests certain types of intelligence. It's much more important to have imagination and creative ability.

 

[North King]

I happen to have a very high IQ. But I don't pay attention to IQ,

Don't you now?

 

[Arwon]

Study is BS

Seriously? Show me the error bars on those measurements. Show me the reliability of IQ as a measure of actual, you know, intelligence. Show me that a 6 point IQ difference matters at all in your interactions with other people, even if it were real. And then to claim that these differences are not only heritable, but evolutionarily significant…jebus, people, you can just glance at it and see that it is complete crap.

And then look at the source: Satoshi Kanazawa, the Fenimore Cooper of Sociobiology, the professional fantasist of Psychology Today. He's like the poster boy for the stupidity and groundlessnessof freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology. Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it.

 

[civ_king]

Can we stop getting these selective biased and mostly irrelevant studies?

 

[Karalysia]

I knew it all along.

 

[GenMarshall]

Study is BS and bigoted

Correlation does not imply causation!

 

[nonconformist]

Well of course I have like the highest IQ ever, I did an online testg once and it came out at like 276 so I( dunno, I think I'm just really ultra smart and all, but I don't care about IQ tests really. What's your score?
You know, just so I can compare and all. But I don't care. Really.