Web address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/
100224132655.htm
Liberals and Atheists Smarter? Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human
Evolutionary History, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2010) More intelligent people are statistically
significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political
preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history.
Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference
for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific
journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why
people form particular preferences and values. The theory suggests that more
intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt
evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not
correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped
by evolution over millions of years."
"Evolutionarily novel" preferences and values are those that humans are not
biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess. In
contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are
"evolutionarily familiar."
"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors
with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not
have innate solutions," says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at
the London School of Economics and Political Science. "As a result, more
intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel
entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these
entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles."
An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more
nocturnal, waking up and staying up later than less intelligent individuals.
Because our ancestors lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly
before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk. Being nocturnal is
evolutionarily novel.
In the current study, Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed
to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being
liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers
they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent
children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals.
Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health)
support Kanazawa's hypothesis. Young adults who subjectively identify
themselves as "very liberal" have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while
those who identify themselves as "very conservative" have an average IQ of 95
during adolescence.
Similarly, religion is a byproduct of humans' tendency to perceive agency and
intention as causes of events, to see "the hands of God" at work behind
otherwise natural phenomena. "Humans are evolutionarily designed to be
paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid," says Kanazawa.
This innate bias toward paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and
protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all
potential dangers. "So, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up
to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they
become atheists."
Young adults who identify themselves as "not at all religious" have an average
IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as "very
religious" have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.
In addition, humans have always been mildly polygynous in evolutionary history.
Men in polygynous marriages were not expected to be sexually exclusive to one
mate, whereas men in monogamous marriages were. In sharp contrast, whether
they are in a monogamous or polygynous marriage, women were always expected to
be sexually exclusive to one mate. So being sexually exclusive is
evolutionarily novel for men, but not for women. And the theory predicts that
more intelligent men are more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less
intelligent men, but general intelligence makes no difference for women's value
on sexual exclusivity. Kanazawa's analysis of Add Health data supports these
sex-specific predictions as well.
One intriguing but theoretically predicted finding of the study is that more
intelligent people are no more or no less likely to value such evolutionarily
familiar entities as marriage, family, children, and friends.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily
staff) from materials provided by American Sociological Association.
Journal Reference:
1. Kanazawa et al. Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent. Social
Psychology Quarterly, 2010; DOI: 10.1177/0190272510361602
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the
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American Sociological Association (2010, February 24). Liberals and atheists
smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history,
study finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 8, 2011, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis
or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of
ScienceDaily or its staff.
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