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Elsevier

Intelligence

Volume 95, November-December 2022, 101699
Intelligence

Sophisticated deviants: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

Author links open overlay panelChien-AnLinTimothy C.Bates
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2022.101699Get rights and content
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Highlights

*

    Tested links of higher cognitive ability to more economic
    extremism.

*

    Two N = 700 pre-registered studies and a UK national cohort (N =
     11,563).

*

    Cognitive ability predicted economic extremism (b = 0.4 to 0.12).

*

    Predicts intellectuals falling far left and right of the
    mainstream.

*

    Heterodox values needed to avoid runaway capture in intellectual
    groups.

Abstract

Conservative economic attitudes have been theorized as symptoms of
low cognitive ability. Studies suggest the opposite, linking more
conservative views weakly to higher, not lower, cognitive ability,
but with very large between-study variability. Here, we propose and
replicate a new model linking cognitive ability not to liberal or
conservative economics, but to economic extremism: How far
individuals deviate from prevailing centrist views. Two large
pre-registered studies in the UK (N = 700 & 700) and the British
Cohort Study dataset (N = 11,563) replicated the predicted
association of intelligence with economic deviance (b = 0.4 to 0.12).
These findings were robust and expand the role of cognitive ability
from tracking the economic consensus to influencing support for
(relatively) extremist views. They suggest opportunities to
understand the generation and mainstreaming of radical fringe social
attitudes.

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Keywords

Economic ideology
Economic conservatism
Intelligence
Redistribution
Context theory
Extremism theory
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