Exploring exceptional minds: Political orientations of gifted adults

Abstract

Gifted individuals are influential in shaping the success of societies in areas such as economics, science, and politics. However, prior research on the relationship between intelligence and political orientations yielded inconsistent results. The political orientations of gifted adults remain yet underexplored. Therefore, we examined the political orientations of gifted and non-gifted adults using both, a single-dimensional left-right self-placement and a multi-dimensional questionnaire. From 7023 non-preselected third graders, gifted students (IQ ≥ 130) and a matched sample of non-gifted students (IQ ≈ 100) were initially identified and re-identified in ninth grade following another intelligence testing within the scope of the Marburg Giftedness Project. About 35 years after the initial identification, 87 gifted and 71 non-gifted adults participated in our follow-up survey. In a 2 × 2 ANOVA with the independent variables giftedness and the control variable sex, no significant effects were found in the left-right self-placement. In a 2 × 2 MANOVA and subsequent ANOVAs with the four scales of the multi-dimensional questionnaire (economic libertarianism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism), no significant main or interaction effect emerged, except a significant interaction effect of giftedness and sex for conservatism. Specifically, non-gifted men showed higher conservatism scores than gifted men, whereas gifted and non-gifted women did not differ significantly. The results from supplementary Bayesian analyses were in accordance with these interpretations. The relevance of these findings is discussed, underscoring the nuanced relationship between giftedness and political orientations.