CNN article on politics, IQ, and sexual partnership

[OldSkoolball#52]

The article is a couple years old, but I'm sure many here haven't seen it, just as I hadn't before today. Unless it was posted here back in 2010

(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.

[Loneshot]

thought police

[OldSkoolball#52]

thought police

You thought police what?

[Dresta]

Can someone please tell me what being 'very liberal' means? Does it mean socialist? Libertarian? Please, give me some clarity!

Anyway, i'm an atheist, sexually exclusive for 2+ years and a tentative Old Whigsian, so i guess that ****s up his rubric.

And vegetarians are thick as shit; being one isn't 'related to intelligence,' they may just be slightly higher than the average because the average is ****ing retarded.

[cuad]

What is sexual exclusivity? Does that mean you're a virgin?

[ace23]

What is sexual exclusivity? Does that mean you're a virgin?

[Jameerthefear]

i consider myself pretty liberal compared to the people where i live, but i'm a Christian. I consider myself pretty smart tho... didn't read the whole article.

[OldSkoolball#52]

Can someone please tell me what being 'very liberal' means? Does it mean socialist? Libertarian? Please, give me some clarity!

Anyway, i'm an atheist, sexually exclusive for 2+ years and a tentative Old Whigsian, so i guess that ****s up his rubric.

And vegetarians are thick as shit; being one isn't 'related to intelligence,' they may just be slightly higher than the average because the average is ****ing retarded.

One awful aspect of his experiment is that he uses the criteria of "only caring for/about those genetically related to you" as determining that someone is conservative. And conversely, "caring for or having concern for strangers" is his definition of liberal.


Then he took a bunch of people and separated them based on self-reporting of being either liberal or conservative. But I can guarantee you they did not self report based on his definition. Very few conservative christians would state that they "do not care about anyone they aren't related to."


Basically like if I said "Are you a musician?" And you reported that no, you are not. Then I lumped you into the musicians category for a study I'm doing because I decided to deem anyone who sings in the shower as a musician.


Very subtle bait and switch on the part of the researcher. Just goes to show you that even academia is not concerned with objectivity first and foremost when it comes to politics and society.

[Dresta]

Very subtle bait and switch on the part of the researcher. Just goes to show you that even academia is not concerned with objectivity first and foremost when it comes to politics and society.

Even? The majority of academics in politics are terrible for this kind of thing. They hide behind an ideology of objectivity, yet even the language they use is biased (positive liberty, progressive, liberal, eurosceptic - all words that have been filtered through academia and yet carry inherent biases and prejudices). I wrote my dissertation on liberty and got marked down because i neglected positive liberty by saying i didn't regard it as liberty because liberty has always meant freedom from restraint and a few assholes can't change the meaning of a word to make their policy prescriptions sound better ('we're not taking away liberty by banning cigarettes, we're increasing people's 'positive' liberty by saving them from a nasty habit that drains their resources - now they can do new things' ). In England at least, the academic in politics (and economics) seems to spend most of his time justifying his own job, so God forbid you submit something to mark that contradicts what he does.

I had a lecturer who marked one of my essays on the euro whose job was based on Europe, and who's phd topic was 'euroscepticism'. I wrote an essay arguing that the euro was a flawed currency that couldn't possibly work as currently constituted (before the euro crisis) and he gave me a mediocre mark saying he did not want a mere 'eurosceptic' piece, and that it thus wasn't 'balanced' (ideology of objectivity again). Didn't matter that it was right: because it deviated from conventional wisdom and had a strong conclusion it was somehow offensive to his integrity. To make it even worse he put comments on my essay like 'don't start a sentence with "but" or "and") - so i sent him an email with a link to oxford grammar and said 'i suggest you read this because i don't like having my grammar corrected by someone who evidently knows less about it than me.' And the ****ing guy reported me to my course organiser claiming to be distressed and upset . Academics in politics and economics are a bunch of ****ing jokes. I would recommend studying just about anything over those two subjects at uni (learn them on your own).

Not to mention the whole course is taught horribly: I wasn't directed to Hume, I wasn't directed to anyone: not Locke, not Hobbes, not Mill, not Montesquieu, not De Tocqueville, not Hayek, not Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson and Paine, not Burke, not Cicero, and not Machiavelli. My course didn't encourage people to read anything worthwhile. Half the modules are taught from lecture slides and journals (often published by the lecturers); it is an absolute disgrace. (I went to a Russell Group uni btw)

Here's a quote from one of those wonderful journals (politics):

''Thus, power asymmetry consists of multiple layers and different overlapping forms of informal and formal power that fluctuate on both sides of the conditionality equation'



This is these people's lives: no wonder they are douches.

[OldSkoolball#52]

Yep. I was just pointing out that academics are typically they who most exuberantly flaunt their worship of "facts" (to portend a sense of elevation) and yet even still, when the facts don't support their political agendas... they readily swap facts for partisan misdirection, and smoke and mirrors.


I actually have a similar tale. When I was in high school, I did my Senior Inquiry Project on the September 11th terrorist attacks. While most people throughout the grade did silly or simple topics (since it was completely open ended as long as you follow the guidelines for the project) I decided to do my project on something I had a real interest in.

Ultimately I gave a presentation that explored the relationship between the American and Saudi government, cited similar, historical examples of war mongering, propaganda, and false flag attacks, examined the motive and the opportunity to execute such a damaging attack, and the consequences that ensued... And concluded that the officially stated circumstances of the attack deserved further and more intense scrutiny.


Now this was only a year or two after the attacks, so sentiment in America about this topic was still very, very raw and dogmatic. But to me it never smelled right from the beginning. So I did my project on it, and I followed the guidelines that were given, and I actually gave a damn good presentation.

Now fortunately, my English teacher who was to grade the project at the time was this short-haired, spunky, San Fransisco lesbian type chick and she was clearly very liberal. Which isn't why I did my project as I did, but it certainly worked out favorably in that way. And because this project was like the big "senior project to finish out your high school career with" they had a second teacher sit in for every presentation and provide secondary feedback and help with the grading.

So when I finished, my English teacher was clearly very surprised and favorably impressed (because I was a pretty big slacker throughout my senior year) and she told me she was proud that I picked a meaningful topic and really looked into it. And then this second teacher, some dude, just lambasted me. Basically did the whole 'call out my patriotism' thing over my decision to question the government for a high school presentation. Reiterated to me how many people died in the attacks (lol wtf) and couldn't believe I would dare make such a sinister presumption of the unthinkable (apparently researching something is a presumption). Tried to trash the actual presentation itself, even though it followed and exceeded every guideline. It was straight cartoonish. He was literally a caricature out of Orwell.


But anyway, guess it just goes to show that for the vast majority of people, facts simply cannot outweigh feelings. No matter what field they're in or side of the aisle.


One of those days though that I'll probably be able to actually remember in detail until the day I die.

[OldSkoolball#52]

Except that's not really a definition of liberalism I've ever heard that clashes with conservatism in some way. All this really say is that "smarter" people are more empathetic, which we've known for ages.

Well my other problem with that study/article is that its author narrowly equates "IQ" with genetically evolved cognitive ability. When in fact nearly any possible measure of a persons intelligence will have been affected by their personal experiences by the time they're old enough to actually take a test.

If a bitch has two puppies and you raise one of them in the woods away from humans, and the other in a human home... by the time the puppies are three years old, one of them will be house broken, know how to sit, fetch, roll over, it may have a heightened emotional awareness... Someone could then argue that one is "smarter" than the other, or has a "higher dog IQ." But it's really just a simple difference in what they were taught and exposed to.

Or if you have two sunflower seeds. You can't predict, even with genetic testing, to what degree each will thrive. Part of it will inherently depend on the conditions they are grown in.


But the researchers speculation as to why "smart" people are liberal tends to focus on evolutionary reasons why those people would have enhanced brain capacity. Doesn't take into account that people who grow up in cities are likely to be AROUND more 'strangers' and thus become more comfortable with them, and also that those same people will likely have books put into their hands and access to more information at an early age than people way out in the country. Living in a city versus living in the country can have a huge impact on perspective, skills, belief systems etc. But the researcher doesn't seem to want to account for any of that. Dude just takes some "IQ testing" and comes up with reasons why people who are liberal and conservative have taken inherently different evolutionary paths, apparently. Nevermind that some - even many - are at different times throughout their life liberal AND conservative.


Yet this "research" still managed to make its way onto CNN.com. Amazing.

[ROCSteady]

Starface is a real truth seeker, I give him that.

Do you think you will ever have peace of mind?

[OldSkoolball#52]

Starface is a real truth seeker, I give him that.

Well it's really the only way to have credibility, IMO. Plus it's just interesting.

Do you think you will ever have peace of mind?

I'm pretty good at balancing my passion for discussing this kind of stuff, with just relaxing and having fun. I probably seem uptight and zealous here, because I get into that mode when I debate or dissect things. But IRL when I'm just chillin, I'm actually very easy going. I actually very rarely worry about things on a personal level as they relate to me, almost to a fault.

[Swaggin916]

Some valid points made. I definitely feel that some liberals do try to pull the intellectually superior/more compassionate card. I did it myself to a degree when I was learning a bunch of things that struck a fire within me. People who wouldn't use logic pissed me off and i would dismiss them as irrelevant. I thought I had all (well at least a lot) the answers, that I was more enlightened than most, and that things had to change.

I am quite liberal in a lot of ways but also quite conservative in others. He would probably label me as conservative though because quite frankly I really don't care that much for strangers. That is how I am wired and I rarely fight it... like he said, it's practical evolution-wise, and I know human nature. I can't trust that everybody's ethics are where I'd hope for them to be, but I understand if they aren't (I think people are generally pretty ethical though).

[creepingdeath]

Kanazawa is a very colorful guy.. and his stuff is highly controversial. Anyway, I can only recommend some of his articles. They are, if nothing else, quite entertaining and a nice read.