Intelligence, in-group favoritism, and group-focused enmity: Insights from country-level analyses

Country-level aggregate IQ was shown to influence a number of socially crucial outcomes, including educational attainment, per capita GDP, economic growth, crime, democracy, and well-being. However, the effects of national... [ view full abstract ]

Country-level aggregate IQ was shown to influence a number of socially crucial outcomes, including educational attainment, per capita GDP, economic growth, crime, democracy, and well-being. However, the effects of national cognitive capacity on the levels of prejudice has not been studied so far. Using two independent measures of prejudice, namely Van de Vliert’s in-group favoritism and a joint indicator of group-focused enmity derived from seven relevant items included in World Values Survey, I demonstrate that lower levels of intelligence may predict elevated prejudice. Importantly, the effects remained present even after controlling for per capita GDP. Further analyses show that the protective effect of country-level IQ on in-group favoritism may be enhanced by the country aggregate level of Extraversion: Among the extravert countries, the negative association between intelligence and the preference of the members of own group was much higher than among the introvert nations, plausibly due to the elevated frequency of interpersonal interactions which in turn may make the social benefits resulting from higher IQ more pronounced. Obtained results shed some new light on the role of cognitive capacity in social processes that may robustly influence attitudes and behaviors towards outgroup members.