IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v104y2024ics0160289624000254.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting political beliefs with polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment

Author

Listed:
  • Edwards, Tobias
  • Giannelis, Alexandros
  • Willoughby, Emily A.
  • Lee, James J.

Abstract

Intelligence is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs. This may suggest intelligence directly alters our political views. Alternatively, the association may be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic and environmental factors. We studied the effect of intelligence within a sample of over 300 biological and adoptive families, using both measured IQ and polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment. We found both IQ and polygenic scores significantly predicted all six of our political scales. Polygenic scores predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within-families. Intelligence was able to significantly predict social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within families, even after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Our findings may provide the strongest causal inference to date of intelligence directly affecting political beliefs.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwards, Tobias & Giannelis, Alexandros & Willoughby, Emily A. & Lee, James J., 2024. "Predicting political beliefs with polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:104:y:2024:i:c:s0160289624000254
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2024.101831
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289624000254
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2024.101831?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lin, Chien-An & Bates, Timothy C., 2022. "Smart people know how the economy works: Cognitive ability, economic knowledge and financial literacy," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Oswald, Andrew J., 2014. "Does Money Make People Right-Wing and Inegalitarian? A Longitudinal Study of Lottery Winners," IZA Discussion Papers 7934, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Bates, Timothy C. & Gignac, Gilles E., 2022. "Effort impacts IQ test scores in a minor way: A multi-study investigation with healthy adult volunteers," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    4. Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard, 1983. "Tests of a rational theory of the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 403-418, January.
    5. Jonathan Beauchamp & Lauren Schmitz & Matthew McGue & James Lee, 2023. "Nature-Nurture Interplay: Evidence from Molecular Genetic and Pedigree Data in Korean American Adoptees," Working Papers 2023-030, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    6. Willoughby, Emily A. & McGue, Matt & Iacono, William G. & Lee, James J., 2021. "Genetic and environmental contributions to IQ in adoptive and biological families with 30-year-old offspring," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Thomas A. DiPrete & Casper A. P. Burik & Philipp D. Koellinger, 2018. "Genetic instrumental variable regression: Explaining socioeconomic and health outcomes in nonexperimental data," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115(22), pages 4970-4979, May.
    8. Bruce Sacerdote, 2007. "How Large are the Effects from Changes in Family Environment? A Study of Korean American Adoptees," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 119-157.
    9. Joel Becker & Casper A. P. Burik & Grant Goldman & Nancy Wang & Hariharan Jayashankar & Michael Bennett & Daniel W. Belsky & Richard Karlsson Linnér & Rafael Ahlskog & Aaron Kleinman & David A. Hinds , 2021. "Resource profile and user guide of the Polygenic Index Repository," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(12), pages 1744-1758, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pereira, Rita & Biroli, Pietro & von hinke, stephanie & Van Kippersluis, Hans & Galama, Titus & Rietveld, Niels & Thom, Kevin, 2022. "Gene-Environment Interplay in the Social Sciences," OSF Preprints d96z3, Center for Open Science.
    2. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony & Clark, Andrew E. & Ghislandi, Simone & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2023. "Maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. Bingley, Paul & Cappellari, Lorenzo & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2023. "On the Origins of Socio-Economic Inequalities: Evidence from Twin Families," IZA Discussion Papers 16520, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Pietro Biroli & Titus Galama & Stephanie von Hinke & Hans van Kippersluis & Kevin Thom, 2022. "Economics and Econometrics of Gene-Environment Interplay," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 22/759, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    5. Hans Kippersluis & Pietro Biroli & Rita Dias Pereira & Titus J. Galama & Stephanie Hinke & S. Fleur W. Meddens & Dilnoza Muslimova & Eric A. W. Slob & Ronald Vlaming & Cornelius A. Rietveld, 2023. "Overcoming attenuation bias in regressions using polygenic indices," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    7. Laurent E. Calvet & Paolo Sodini, 2014. "Twin Picks: Disentangling the Determinants of Risk-Taking in Household Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 867-906, April.
    8. Ant—nio Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2023. "The size of government," Chapters, in: António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles & Ana Venâncio (ed.), Handbook on Public Sector Efficiency, chapter 1, pages 6-31, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    10. Berliant, Marcus & Gouveia, Miguel, 2022. "On the Political Economy of Nonlinear Income Taxation," MPRA Paper 113140, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2015. "A meta-regression analysis on intergenerational transmission of education: publication bias and genuine empirical effect," Working Papers halshs-01143490, HAL.
    12. Kieron Barclay & Torkild Lyngstad & Dalton Conley, 2018. "The Production of Inequalities within Families and Across Generations: The Intergenerational Effects of Birth Order and Family Size on Educational Attainment," NBER Working Papers 24530, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    14. Jay Bhattacharya & Neeraj Sood, 2011. "Who Pays for Obesity?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 139-158, Winter.
    15. Ahrens, Joachim & Schweickert, Rainer & Zenker, Juliane, 2011. "Varieties of capitalism, governance and government spending: A cross-section analysis," PFH Forschungspapiere/Research Papers 2011/01, PFH Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen.
    16. Mikkel Aagaard Houmark & Victor Ronda & Michael Rosholm, 2024. "The Nurture of Nature and the Nature of Nurture: How Genes and Investments Interact in the Formation of Skills," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(2), pages 385-425, February.
    17. Deniz Karaoglan & Serap Sagir & Meltem Dayioglu & Durdane Sirin Saracoglu, 2023. "The Impact of Maternal Education on Early Childhood Development: The Case of Turkey," Working Papers 2023-02, Gebze Technical University, Department of Economics.
    18. Jo Thori Lind, 2005. "Why is there so little redistribution?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 111-125.
    19. Hertz, Tom, 2008. "A group-specific measure of intergenerational persistence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 415-417, September.
    20. Stanley L. Winer, 2016. "The Political Economy of Taxation: Power, Structure, Redistribution," Carleton Economic Papers 16-15, Carleton University, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:104:y:2024:i:c:s0160289624000254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.