IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v70y2018icp36-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Higher levels of childhood intelligence predict increased support for economic conservatism in adulthood

Author

Listed:
  • Lewis, Gary J.
  • Bates, Timothy C.

Abstract

A number of studies have reported that higher intelligence is associated with socially liberal attitudes. Less clear, however, is whether this link extends to economic attitudes, although there are indications that higher intelligence is associated with economically conservative attitudes. Here in two large, longitudinal UK cohorts (each N > 7100) we assessed whether childhood intelligence predicted adulthood economic attitudes. In both cohorts we saw that higher levels of childhood (age 10–11) intelligence were related to higher levels of economic conservatism in adulthood (age 30–33). These effects were robust to the inclusion of potential confounders (sex, parental social class, childhood conduct problems). Moreover, this pathway was at least partially mediated by educational attainment and achieved social class/income. These findings confirm the importance of intelligence as an important phenotype for understanding the origins of economic attitudes. Implications for self-interest and rational-interest theories are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewis, Gary J. & Bates, Timothy C., 2018. "Higher levels of childhood intelligence predict increased support for economic conservatism in adulthood," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 36-41.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:70:y:2018:i:c:p:36-41
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2018.07.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289618300552
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2018.07.006?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. Johanna Mollerstrom & David Seim, 2014. "Cognitive Ability and the Demand for Redistribution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-7, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    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. Bell, Edward & Dawes, Christopher T. & Weinschenk, Aaron & Riemann, Rainer & Kandler, Christian, 2020. "Patterns and sources of the association between intelligence, party identification, and political orientations," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Lin, Chien-An & Bates, Timothy C., 2022. "Sophisticated deviants: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    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. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:3:p:234-279 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Martín Brun & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Xavier Ramos, 2023. "After you. Cognition and Health-Distribution Preferences," Working Papers 1392, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. Dietmar Fehr & Johanna Mollerstrom & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2022. "Your Place in the World: Relative Income and Global Inequality," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 232-268, November.
    4. Gärtner, Manja & Mollerstrom, Johanna & Seim, David, 2017. "Individual risk preferences and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 49-55.
    5. Yamagishi, Atsushi, 2020. "School bullying is positively associated with support for redistribution in adulthood," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Andreea-Oana Iacobuță & Mihaela Ifrim, 2020. "Welfare Mentality as a Challenge to European Sustainable Development. What Role for Youth Inclusion and Institutions?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-25, April.
    7. Demiral, Elif E. & Mollerstrom, Johanna, 2020. "The entitlement effect in the ultimatum game – does it even exist?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 341-352.
    8. Lin, Chien-An & Bates, Timothy C., 2022. "Sophisticated deviants: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    9. Carl, Noah, 2018. "IQ and political attitudes across British regions and local authorities," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 169-175.
    10. Lau Lilleholt, 2019. "Cognitive ability and risk aversion: A systematic review and meta analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(3), pages 234-279, May.
    11. Bell, Edward & Dawes, Christopher T. & Weinschenk, Aaron & Riemann, Rainer & Kandler, Christian, 2020. "Patterns and sources of the association between intelligence, party identification, and political orientations," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Ludeke, Steven G. & Rasmussen, Stig H.R., 2018. "Different political systems suppress or facilitate the impact of intelligence on how you vote: A comparison of the U.S. and Denmark," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-6.

    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:70:y:2018:i:c:p:36-41. 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.