Bright children become enlightened adults.

Full Abstract

We examined the prospective association between general intelligence (g) at age 10 and liberal and antitraditional social attitudes at age 30 in a large (N= 7,070), representative sample of the British population born in 1970. Statistical analyses identified a general latent trait underlying attitudes that are antiracist, pro-working women, socially liberal, and trusting in the democratic political system. There was a strong association between higher g at age 10 and more liberal and antitraditional attitudes at age 30; this association was mediated partly via educational qualifications, but not at all via occupational social class. Very similar results were obtained for men and women. People in less professional occupations-and whose parents had been in less professional occupations-were less trusting of the democratic political system. This study confirms social attitudes as a major, novel field of adult human activity that is related to childhood intelligence differences.

Author information

Author/s: Deary, Ian J (IJ); Batty, G David (GD); Gale, Catharine R (CR);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK. i.deary(-atsign-)ed.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS (Psychol Sci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jan; vol 19 (issue 1) : pp 1-6

Dates: Created 2008/01/09; Completed 2008/04/09;

PMID: 18181782, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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