A study conducted in Germany found that men with higher IQs are less inclined to traditional values, but the lead author, psychologist and intelligence researcher Maximilian Krolo of Saarland University, said the researchers did not find these differences among women.
“The current study showed that high intelligence does not, as one might assume, lead to radical political positions. Instead, highly gifted adults are on average just as politically diverse and moderate as the rest of the population.”
I’m confused. More intelligence means more liberal but very high intelligence aka gifted — diverse views?
My take is that high IQ correlates to “left”, but extreme high IQ doesn’t mean “extreme left” (for a lack of a better expression).
Basically, your ideology won’t be an outlier just because your IQ is very high. It will only tend to be less conservative than those with lower IQ.
I would rather see the opposite, how extreme ideologies correlate to very low IQ.
Not a super fan of IQ in general and this story is probably massaging our biases a bit too much for me to lean too much into it with limited understanding.
Lots of very bright people support the right wing of politics because they stand to personally gain
Being smart doesn’t mean that you’re ethical or capable of empathy
Thoughts:
You have to be in a position of power to make meaningful change.
To rise to such a position requires sacrificing some morals and breaking a few eggs.
The higher you rise the more wealth you need to punch up to accomplish your goals from those who don’t respect you.
As the richest person in the world you now need to fend off all detractors, keep your frenemies happy to stop them turning on you, and use your power to finally make meaningful change, through several layers of lost perspective and forgotten empathy
More educated people tend to understand and vale nuance.
An issue with understanding nuance is that you can use it to justify doing things that tend to favor yourself.