(CNN) -- Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.
But we knew this a long while back....
Update: David Corn ponders the facts: Are Democratic Presidents Smarter Than Republican Presidents?
2 comments:
I'm sorry to intrude on the fantasy, but a high IQ and about $5.00 will get you a venti frappuccino with stuff added. A low IQ and $5.00 will get you... exactly the same. IQ has been thoroughly debunked, to my critical satisfaction, by the late great Stephen Jay Gould in The Mismeasure of Man. And no, it's not sour grapes on my part: I got one o' them thar high numbers m'self. Right about now, I'd rather have the venti frappuccino...
Ha! IQ tests were passe about.. what, twenty .. thirty years ago? Forty? I have no idea what the criteria for an IQ test would be now, but the early ones were so biased as to be laughable.
Do they use them for hiring? Schools? I know Myers/Briggs is used for understanding personality types, but not for resumes, etc.
It's just fun to poke those who need poking and mock those who need mocking.... me included.
I'll take a venti chai tea latte please...
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