Why are intelligent people more liberal?

A look at the psychological literature

Written by Noah Carl.

In an 1866 debate in the House of Commons, Sir John Pakington called out a fellow member of the House, John Stuart Mill, over a statement he had made in his book Representative Government.

Pakington noted that “we, the Conservative party, by the law of our existence, and as a matter of necessity, are what he calls the stupidest party in the State”. Mill replied: “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant that stupid persons are generally Conservative.” He then added, “I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any Honourable Gentleman will question it.”

While the concepts of IQ and general intelligence would not be invented for another 40 years,¹ Mill was onto something. Studies consistently find that intelligent people are more socially liberal. Though the effect isn’t huge, it shows up in practically every dataset. Intelligent people are less racist, sexist and homophobic. They are less religious and less nationalistic. And they’re more likely to support free speech, immigration, sexual freedom, abortion rights, gay marriage and legalisation of marijuana.²

It’s important to note that “socially liberal” does not mean “woke”. Nor does it mean mean “Democrat”. Many Democrats, particularly blacks and Hispanics, do not hold socially liberal views. And a sizeable minority of Republicans — the pro-business or libertarian types — do hold such views.³

In 2015, Emma Onraet and colleagues meta-analysed 67 studies and came up with a mean effect size of r = .20. A more recent study by Tobias Edwards and colleagues reported an even larger effect size of r = .38. This study also presented evidence of causality. The association between intelligence and social liberalism remained significant within sibling pairs and when using a polygenic score to measure intelligence.

The association is not confined to English-speaking countries. A Danish study reported an IQ gap of nearly 14 points between supporters of the Social Liberal Party and supporters of the Danish People’s Party (a nationalist, anti-immigration party). That’s almost as large as the gap between black and white Americans. Meanwhile, a Chinese study found that wealthier, better educated citizens were less nationalistic and less supportive of traditional values.

Nor is the association confined to ethnic majorities. A recent poll of American Jews found that those with a postgraduate degree were much more likely to disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza than those without a college degree. This was not simply due to educated Jews being younger: the education gap exceeded the age gap.

The question is why. Why are intelligent people more liberal? I believe there are two broad reasons: one flattering to those of high intelligence, and one less flattering.

Let’s start with the less flattering reason (which is admittedly somewhat speculative). Intelligent people who hold socially liberal views are engaged in a kind of cognitive error, wrongly assuming that what works well for them works well for everyone. They incorrectly extrapolate from their own experience to that of others, and conclude that an absence of normative constraints on behaviour will maximise social welfare.⁴

We know that intelligent people have more self-control and make better decisions in general — they’re less likely to play the lottery, more likely to follow medical advice, less likely to die in accidents. As a consequence, they tend to flourish in an environment free of normative constraints. They may experiment with drugs without ever getting addicted. They may dabble in polyamory without wrecking their marriage. They may coast on their achieved identity, dismissing traditions as stifling or unnecessary.

Yet when people of low intelligence find themselves in the very same environment, they tend to flounder. They may abuse drugs or cheat on their spouse. They might crave traditions that afford a sense of belonging.

There is some evidence consistent with the “cognitive error” hypothesis, though it’s far from dispositive. People of high intelligence are more likely than those of low intelligence to believe that most people can be trusted — and the difference isn’t due to SES.⁵ Is it due to intelligent people being less cynical? Perhaps. But an intriguing alternative theory is that they are better at evaluating others’ trustworthiness and therefore select into relationships with people who are unlikely to betray their trust. So when you ask them after the fact whether most people can be trusted, they tend to say “yes”.

If this explanation is correct, it would mean that intelligent people do incorrectly extrapolate from their own experience when it comes to trust, leaving open the possibility that they do the same when forming their political opinions. (Interestingly, Mill conceded in his debate with Pakington that “if stupidity has a tendency to Conservatism, sciolism and half-knowledge have a tendency to Liberalism”.)

However, the “cognitive error” hypothesis can’t explain all the data — even if there is some truth in it. For example, it can’t explain why intelligent people are less homophobic and more supportive of not just immigration but high-skilled immigration.⁶ Homosexuals and high-skilled immigrants do not pose any obvious threat to people of low intelligence.

Which brings me to the second reason why intelligent people are more socially liberal: they’re more pro-social. They are less parochial, less family oriented — more WEIRD. They give more to charity, do more voluntary work and cooperate more in economic games. When Garrett Jones analysed data from prisoner’s dilemma experiments carried out at different US colleges, he found that the cooperation rate correlated positively with the average SAT score. Intelligent people also commit less crime, especially violent crime.

Where does social liberalism come in? I think conservatives would generally concede that social liberalism involves putting more weight on the interests of groups outside your close friends and family or that have traditionally had lower status in society. Indeed, this is the whole point of the “moral circles” meme that often goes viral on social media. Social liberalism also involves putting more weight on the interests of those who make unconventional choices, like having premarital sex or smoking marijuana.

Now, this raises the question of why intelligent people are more pro-social. And I would point to three reasons.

The first is the one identified by Satoshi Kanazawa: if general intelligence is an adaptation for solving evolutionarily novel problems, individuals of high intelligence should be more tolerant of novelty and should have more novel preferences overall.⁷ A better way of putting this is to say they should have less instinctual preferences. Caring only about the in-group and deferring to tradition are clearly more instinctual preferences. Social conservatism itself may be an adaptation for promoting pathogen avoidance. (Wariness of outsiders, intoxicants and alternative lifestyles would certainly have that effect.)

The second reason intelligent people are more pro-social is that they are more patient — in terms of economic jargon, they discount the future less. This means they are more likely to get into runs of mutual cooperation with people outside their immediate family. If you place absolutely no weight on the future, then whenever you interact with a non-relative, you should just rob them blind. After all, who cares about the consequences? But if you do place weight on the future, then you should seek out opportunities for mutual gain.

The third reason intelligent people are more pro-social is that they have a more advanced theory of mind. Studies have consistently shown that cognitive ability predicts performance on theory of mind tasks, even in adult samples. Which means that intelligent people are better at perspective-taking, better at putting themselves in others’ shoes. You may have seen the famous clip of Ross Kemp interviewing gang rapists in South Africa (who clearly aren’t very bright). They barely seem to understand that their victims are conscious beings who suffer.

At this point, you might raise the following objection. How can intelligent people be more pro-social when political leaders, some of whom have done appalling things like perpetrate genocides, tend to be highly intelligent? Didn’t the Nazis take IQ tests at Nuremberg and achieve very high scores?

The answer is that this is not inconsistent with what I’ve been saying since none of the correlations is particularly large: at any given level of intelligence, there will be people who are capable of doing extremely “anti-social” things. (At any given level, there will be plenty of conservatives too.) What’s more, political leaders are probably selected for being power hungry and therefore somewhat “anti-social”. Regarding the Nazis, it is worth noting that the highest score was achieved by Hjalmar Schacht, who was acquitted of all charges, having actually opposed Hitler from 1939 onwards.

I would say there are two main reasons why intelligence and liberalism go together: one flattering, one less so. The flattering reason is that intelligent people are more pro-social — probably because they’re less instinctual, more patient and better at perspective-taking. The less flattering reason is that they’re engaged in a cognitive error. Which is more important? It’s hard to say; both matter.

Noah Carl is an Editor of Aporia.

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1. The concept of general intelligence was invented by Charles Spearman in 1904. That same year, Alfred Binet administered the first IQ test.

2. The association between intelligence and economic beliefs is more complicated. Many (though not all) studies find that intelligent people are more fiscally conservative. Some studies find a non-monotonic relationship whereby the most intelligent are less fiscally conservative than those at, say, the 80th percentile.

3. This minority was larger in the pre-Trump era.

4. This is the sentiment behind the “Liberalism but exclusively for 130+ IQ Anglos” meme.

5. Plus, they are less likely to believe that most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance.

6. In a survey of 12 countries, Pew Research found that “more highly educated adults and adults with higher incomes tend to be more supportive of encouraging highly skilled people to immigrate to their countries”.

7. This explains why intelligence is correlated with openness to experience.