IQ and political attitudes across British regions and local authorities

Carl, Noah

doi:10.1016/j.intell.2018.06.002

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…In addition to this were the 10 Nobel-prize winning economists making the case in the days leading up to the referendum. Whilst cognitive ability has been linked with thinking like an economist (Caplan & Miller, 2010;Caplan, 2011), Carl (2018 also finds evidence of a moderate positive correlation between trust in experts and IQ.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our paper is therefore the first, as far as we are aware, to focus on the relationship between individuals' cognitive ability and actual voting behaviour in the referendum. Our paper is further distinguished from Carl (2018) which uses aggregate level data and is therefore potentially subject to the concern of ecological fallacy (Becker et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

Dawson¹

2023

Preprint

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On the June 23rd 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The period leading up to the referendum was characterized by a significant volume of misinformation and disinformation. Existing literature has established the importance of cognitive ability in processing and discounting (mis/dis) information in decision making. We use a dataset of households from a national representative UK survey to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and the propensity to vote Leave / Remain. In our preferred model—which restricts variation to couples within a household—we find statistically and economically significant evidence that the propensity to vote Remain is increasing in the voter’s cognitive ability: a one standard deviation cognitive ability advantage over one’s spouse increases the likelihood of voting to Remain in the EU by 17%. An important question then becomes how to improve individual and household decision making in the face of increasingly unmanageable amounts of (mis/dis) information.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

Dawson¹

2023

Preprint

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“…But the results are not so simple. There are many opposing results, e.g., Carl found at the individual level in the United States and at the regional data level in the United Kingdom that intelligence is associated with more conservative political beliefs [ 16 , 17 ].…”

Section: Introduction: Existence Of Federal State Differences In Abil...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why are there differences across German states in student achievement and cognitive ability?

Rindermann

2024

Heliyon

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“…Using a sample of participants recruited from Facebook advertising, Sumner et al [34] find that those who intended to vote Leave in the referendum had lower levels of numeracy. Carl [51] also focuses on voting intentions and finds a small positive correlation between average IQ and four measures of political attitudes, including voting intention in the referendum, at both the UK regional and local authority level. In contrast to this previous work, our paper is the first, as far as we are aware, to use a nationally representative micro level sample to focus on the relationship between individuals' cognitive ability and actual-rather than intended-voting behaviour in the referendum.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, our paper uses five individual measures and one summative measure of cognitive ability which contributes to the comprehensiveness and robustness of our results. Finally, our paper is further distinguished from Carl [51] which uses aggregate level data and is therefore potentially subject to the concern of ecological fallacy [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive ability and voting behaviour in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership

Dawson,

Baker

2023

PLoS ONE

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On June 23rd 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union. The period leading up to the referendum was characterized by a significant volume of misinformation and disinformation. Existing literature has established the importance of cognitive ability in processing and discounting (mis/dis) information in decision making. We use a dataset of couples within households from a nationally representative UK survey to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and the propensity to vote Leave / Remain in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership. We find that a one standard deviation increase in cognitive ability, all else being equal, increases the likelihood of a Remain vote by 9.7%. Similarly, we find that an increase in partner’s cognitive ability further increases the respondent’s likelihood of a Remain vote (7.6%). In a final test, restricting our analysis to couples who voted in a conflicting manner, we find that having a cognitive ability advantage over one’s partner increases the likelihood of voting Remain (10.9%). An important question then becomes how to improve individual and household decision making in the face of increasing amounts of (mis/dis) information.

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IQ and political attitudes across British regions and local authorities

Cited by 6 publications

References 55 publications

Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

Why are there differences across German states in student achievement and cognitive ability?

Cognitive ability and voting behaviour in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership

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