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.
