What Decades Of Tracking High-IQ Kids Reveals About Their Politics As Adults

High-IQ Men Are Less Conservative. For Women, IQ Doesn’t Matter Much at All

A new study out of Germany spent more than 35 years following people who scored exceptionally high on childhood IQ tests, then asked them about their politics as adults. On most measures, they looked a lot like everyone else, with one notable exception that appeared only when the researchers looked separately at men and women.

On nearly every political measure, adults who had scored 130 or above on IQ tests as children and those who had scored around average were practically indistinguishable. The one clear difference: the high-IQ men scored noticeably lower on conservatism, beliefs around tradition, cultural unity, and social stability, than average-IQ men. Among women, IQ made no difference at all.

The study, published in the journal Intelligence, is one of the few to examine how people identified by high IQ scores in childhood describe their political views as adults, a gap scientists have long wanted to fill given how much influence high-achieving individuals tend to have on business, science, and public policy.

Tracking High-IQ Kids Into Adulthood

The study is part of a long-running German research effort called the Marburg Giftedness Project, which began in the school year 1987–1988. Researchers administered intelligence tests to more than 7,000 third-graders across West Germany. From that pool, they identified students who scored 130 or above, a threshold commonly used in research to define exceptionally high intelligence, and matched them with a separate group of students who scored around 100, roughly average. Researchers made sure both groups had similar backgrounds in terms of family income, school environment, and gender breakdown, so that any differences found later could be more confidently linked to IQ rather than outside factors.

Six years later, the students were tracked down and re-tested to confirm their IQ status. Then, roughly 35 years after the study began, the team mailed a political views survey in December 2022. By July 2023, 158 adults had responded, 87 from the high-IQ group and 71 from the average-IQ group, with a mean age of about 44. That 74% response rate is considered remarkably high for a study spanning more than three decades.

What the Data Actually Showed

On a simple left-right political scale, the high-IQ and average-IQ adults landed in almost exactly the same spot. Both groups clustered near the center, and statistical analysis found no meaningful difference between them. Their scores also closely resembled average results from a large, nationally representative German survey.

Researchers also used a more detailed questionnaire covering four political categories: support for free markets; beliefs around social tradition and cultural continuity; support for reducing inequality; and how much a person valued personal freedom. On three of those four measures, both groups reported similar views.

Conservatism was the exception, specifically when researchers separated results by gender. Average-IQ men scored significantly higher on conservatism than high-IQ men, and the size of that gap was considered medium by standard research measures. Among women, no such split existed. Their conservatism scores were close to each other regardless of IQ.

The researchers ran additional statistical checks that lined up with the main findings, giving the team added support for the idea that the conservatism gap among men was not just a statistical accident.

Why the Gap Appeared Among Men But Not Women

The authors offer a few possible explanations. People with higher intelligence may be more comfortable with complicated or contradictory information and less likely to rely on rigid rules or traditional frameworks to make sense of the world. That could explain why high-IQ men showed lower conservatism scores: they may be more inclined to question inherited social norms rather than hold onto them.

As for why the gap didn’t show up among women, the authors note this remains an open question. They suggest conservatism may have been less central in explaining differences among women in this sample, or that men and women develop these views through different social experiences.

Reading the Results in Context

A long line of prior research has found modest links between higher intelligence and left-leaning tendencies. What this study adds is a more careful look: when researchers track high-IQ adults across decades and match them to comparable peers, most sweeping assumptions about smarter-equals-more-liberal don’t hold up cleanly.

Germany’s political environment may also be a factor. A society built around what economists call a “social market economy,” blending free-market principles with strong social safety nets, may naturally pull different IQ groups toward similar political middle ground, softening differences that might look sharper in more polarized countries.

IQ alone does not reliably predict where someone lands on the political spectrum. Among men, those who tested at the high end in childhood were meaningfully less conservative as adults than their average-scoring peers, the one clear exception in an otherwise uniform set of results.

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Disclaimer: This study reflects findings from a specific German sample and may not apply to other countries or political contexts. The results describe associations observed in this group and should not be interpreted as definitive claims about intelligence and political beliefs broadly.

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