
‘Intelligent people are more likely to trust others’ - nreece
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/140312.html
======
mareofnight
I don't still have the link, but this reminds me of a conversation I read
where people were speculating that intelligent people are more likely to take
strange ideas seriously and sometimes believe them, because they're good
enough at telling good ideas from bad ideas that they have less need for a
blanket policy against weird ideas. (Examples: transhumanism, cryptocurrency)
If this holds, then intelligent people trusting others more is a specific case
of intelligent people trusting their own judgement more.

Of course, conspiracy theories also fall under "strange ideas", and I don't
_think_ being a conspiracy theorist correlates with high intelligence (but I
may be wrong).

~~~
Nursie
I reckon there's probably a correlation between the people who are obsessed by
cryptocurrency (in its current incarnation as BTC) that are also conspiracy
theorists though...

~~~
mareofnight
Ooh, point.

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beagle3
Causality might go the other way though - if you are able to trust others
growing up WITHOUT being hurt by it, devoting less brain power to suspicion
and verifications may allow one to grow more intelligent.

Observational studies are never a recipe for action - just food for thought.

~~~
crusso
Not necessarily that they "grow more intelligent", but I think you have a good
overall point.

Another way of saying it is "Intelligent people are able to take bigger
risks".

~~~
beagle3
What I was saying is "People who have been able to successfully take bigger
risks (and still do) become more intelligent" is a possible explanation: This
is the _converse_ of what you are saying. Well, I was limiting the "risks" to
trusting others, but if I were to use your words, that would be my statement.

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talles
What exactly is "intelligent people" again? It just sums up to an IQ score?

It's naive to treat "intelligence" as a simple number. There are SO MANY
skills related to 'human intelligence' and yet these studies fail to give a
more closer look of what they mean with "intelligence" and how this affect the
outcome.

I hate when, in those studies, they promote a set people as "intelligent" and
start to research how these special category performs in simple aspects of
everyday life, things like "trust others", "live longer"[1] or "use more
drugs"[2].

[1] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/old-and-
wise/](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/old-and-wise/) [2]
[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundament...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-use-more-drugs)

~~~
pessimizer
It looks like intelligence was evaluated solely through two items: size of
English vocabulary(?), and the subjective opinion of the interviewer.

Pretty much garbage, really.

"Our first measure of intelligence is a 10-word vocabulary test in which the
respondent is asked to identify which of five phrases supplies the correct
definition of a given word [24]. Despite its brevity, the test has a
correlation of 0.71 with the Army General Classification Test, an IQ exam
developed by the U.S. Military [25]. In addition, there is abundant
psychometric evidence that individuals with higher IQs have larger
vocabularies [26], [27]. Prior to taking the vocabulary test, the respondent
is told the following by the interviewer [24]: “We would like to know
something about how people go about guessing words they do not know. On this
card are listed some words–you may know some of them, and you may not know
quite a few of them. On each line the first word is in capital letters–like
BEAST. Then there are five other words. Tell me the number of the word that
comes closest to the meaning of the word in capital letters. For example, if
the word in capital letters is BEAST, you would say “4” since “animal” come
closer to BEAST than any of the other words. If you wish, I will read the
words to you. These words are difficult for almost everyone–just give me your
best guess if you are not sure of the answer.” The respondent is assigned a
score between 0 and 10, corresponding to the number of words she defined
correctly.

"Our second measure of intelligence is an assessment by the interviewer of how
well the respondent understood the survey questions. The interviewer notes
down whether the respondent’s understanding of the survey questions was
“good”, “fair” or “poor” [24]. We refer to our first measure as ‘verbal
ability’ and our second measure as ‘question comprehension’. The Pearson
correlation between these two variables is 0.37 (p<0.001), meaning that they
are moderately positively correlated. The strength of their correlation is
depicted in Table 1, a simple cross-tabulation. It indicates that 98% of those
scoring 10 out of 10 in the vocabulary test have a good understanding of the
survey questions, yet only 36% of those scoring 0 out of 10 have a good
understanding of them."

~~~
barry-cotter
WORDSUM has a 70% correlation with real, designed by psychometricians IQ
tests. Garbage it is not.

 _The correlation between adult IQ and WORDSUM = 0.71. The source for this
number is a 1980 paper, The Enduring Effects of Education on Verbal Skills._

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/05/wordsum-
iq/#....](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/05/wordsum-
iq/#.UyczfstwaAg)

------
ap22213
This kind of makes sense, to me at least.

In terms of evolution, brains build out from the center 'older' parts,
outward. Newer parts of the brain can override behaviors of older parts.

Reptilian brain (Trust nothing) -> Mammalian brain (Trust family) -> Primate
brain (Trust clan) -> Human brain (Trust all those who may help) ->

Trusting is probably a very computationally demanding system of the brain.
However, if one is able to trust wisely, one may also expand one's fitness.

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gmays
Though it has some issues, it's an interesting concept. Essentially, not
having to worry about other people screwing you over let's you focus on other
things.

That'd be similar to how those with financial troubles (i.e. the poor) seem to
show less effective IQ in some studies. Worrying about money, how to make the
rent, how to pay for X or Y, sucks brainpower from other activities. This is
interesting, particularly in our community because some startups attribute
their success to financial pressure. Maybe the effects are different depending
on duration. Or maybe it's because the startups believe their situation is a
matter of choice (they joined a startup) and they have the power to change
while those who are in a perpetual state of poverty have fallen into some
state of learned helplessness and thus feel powerless in changing their
situation.

Though not completely accurate, a simple way to think about is in the context
of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

At the very least, it's fun to think about.

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pessimizer
This study is worthless unless it controls for class. We already know that
educated people are more likely to be supportive of the status quo and
credulous towards claims from established authorities. We also know that they
tend to be healthier and happier, due to the financial rewards resulting from
the former behavior.

~~~
ronaldx
> due to the financial rewards resulting from the former behavior.

I agree, but not with your cause and effect.

Educated/wealthy people benefit and have benefited ( _hugely_ ) from the
status quo. Therefore they have a positive interest in preserving the status
quo.

It is not surprising that people without access to education and wealth have
less trust and support for the establishment - this is a purely rational
response.

~~~
pessimizer
My cause and effect was definitely editorial, but I think the process of
becoming educated is a process of assimilating into the status quo, and
thereby the middle class. As such, I think it's largely selecting people who
do what they're told.

Educated people are not necessarily benefiting at all from the status quo
_before_ they become educated. They may have worked their way through all
kinds of adversity to achieve that education. That they _now_ benefit from the
status quo (that they invested in) would be why those people would want to
preserve it, not because they always benefited from it.

I agree with you that it's totally rational.

~~~
ronaldx
> Educated people are not necessarily benefiting at all from the status quo
> before they become educated.

We're disagreeing here only because I believe that social status/education is
largely a function of your parents' status, and their influence, rather than
of your grit.

You benefit from the status quo if your parents benefit from the status quo.

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derefr
Another link on this topic:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/)

Essentially, the hypothesis goes that the smarter you are, the less you trust
your intuition--even when it's right.

------
contingencies
An entry in a database that powers a website aiming relaxed, 'trustworthy'
(it's "voted" up by your "peers" in a "democratic" way!) content at a certain
segment of the population who create sophisticated tools that manipulate both
first world and to a lesser extent global society en-masse suggested passively
that its readers were intelligent and that their trust in their environment,
notably including their employers and investors, was well placed.

Meanwhile, Dr. Evil atop the US megaplex looked on, powered by mass-psychology
and post-WWII Nazi science, snickering at the simple fools stupid enough to
buy his cut-rate strategically Monday-launched commercial PR company output,
all the while expanding his coffers and political influence.

Well, what degree of back-slapping do _you_ require?

------
tokenadult
"Ricardo's Difficult Idea"[1] (comparative advantage is available to all
countries with free trade) is an example of an idea that sounds stupid on its
face that must (on reflection and examination of the evidence) be true. Only a
minority even of educated people believe in comparative advantage, but it is
indeed an idea that can be the basis of expanded social trust.

[1]
[http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm](http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm)

~~~
Ologn
> an idea that sounds stupid on its face

It still sounds stupid on its face. As I recall, Ricardo said England produced
textiles, and Portugal produced wine, and both countries were each
economically better off for their own specialization.

Joan Robinson revisited this idea a century later and asked, how did that turn
out economically for Portugal, which remained a backward, agriculturally based
nation while England began an industrialization program, partly based around
the industrialization of its textile industry?

~~~
tokenadult
The late Joan Robinson produced some interesting writings[1] but there are few
economists indeed who credit her with proving Ricardo wrong about comparative
advantage. That's because in fact her writings about Ricardo's ideas focused
on different issues, and Ricardo was and is right that each party in free
trade enjoys comparative advantage in trade with the other party. Economic
growth through free trade has been the path to prosperity for Taiwan (where I
have lived), Hong Kong (where I have visited more than once), and quite a few
other countries all around the world. Portugal's economy during the years she
studied was not characterized by following Ricardo's advice.

[1]
[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Robinson.html](http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Robinson.html)

------
trendoid
I was hoping to see something along the lines of "Intelligent people take time
in stereotyping or judging people until sufficient data is collected. Hence
initially they trust what people say at face value. This obviously depends on
what sort of information they are dealing with. If its something that
logically sounds ridiculous at face value itself(which less intelligent people
cannot calculate so quickly), they dont believe the person even if its an
initial conversation. But if its some trivial gossip/anecdote which doesn't
hugely affect their choices in future, then they go ahead trusting the
person." Personal example, if I hear some gossip about 3rd person, the
conclusions drawn from that gossip about the character of that person doesnt
affect my future interaction with him. I need to collect more data than few
gossips to stereotype someone. On the other hand, in this case I am NOT
trusting gossips because I am aware of their nature and people producing them.

Research says that intelligent people instinctively know whom to trust or not
which I am not so sure about. I have seen people who are extremely bad at
thinking about problems like maths, physics or algorithms in general but
brilliant at analyzing people. So we need more evidence on this I guess.

------
gomox
In essence, they vaguely measure communication skills (the title summarizes
this as "intelligence"):

"Our first measure of intelligence is a 10-word vocabulary test in which the
respondent is asked to identify which of five phrases supplies the correct
definition of a given word (...) Our second measure of intelligence is an
assessment by the interviewer of how well the respondent understood the survey
questions (...)"

And they measure trust based on the anwer to:

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you
can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”

I can't say I'm amazed with the results they get. People who can't communicate
well probably misinterpret or misunderstand situations more often, and this
affects their trust standards.

------
yetanotherphd
No matter what the control for, these studies are very limited.

If they say that intelligence is correlated with X, if we like X we will say
that this proves X is a good thing, and if we don't like X we will say that
this proves intelligent people are not so "intelligent" after all. Put another
way, it's so hard to do proper Bayesian updating on such loaded statements,
they probably make people worse informed on average.

I'll end with a quote from Mohammad Ali being interviewed by Michael
Parkinson:

Ali: [Animals don't race-mix so human's shouldn't either]

Parkinson: But we have intelligence

Ali: They don't have intelligence, but yet they stay together [with their own
species], we should have more intelligence than them, right?

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khafra
The causal arrow may go B=>A on this one: A childhood environment which causes
low IQ--malnutrition, toxins, other things that correlate with poor
socioeconomic conditions--probably also teach children to mistrust others.

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jessaustin
The movie "Nebraska" played with this notion quite a bit, although it might
have been inverted in the case of the main character. The most straightforward
take was the behavior of Dave's cousins (who were portrayed as being dumb as
hell). Despite being told numerous times in very plausible fashion that the
prize wasn't real, they didn't believe that until they had committed crimes
motivated by its presumed reality. Very entertaining!

------
ballard
Intelligence seems orthogonal to the separate Big 5 factor of neuroticism, ie,
prototypical security-industry hacker may not trust most people a priori (it
seems it's usually very trusting || very untrusting). Perhaps they are a
minority in aggregate, but being played for a fool seems like a deselectable
vulnerability. Then again it's a soft science paper.

------
dscrd
Don't know how smart I am... but I often find that the pain of getting screwed
over is worth the knowledge of whom to trust.

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dictum
Perhaps they're more confident that if they're betrayed by another party,
they'll find a way to reverse or compensate for the consequences of whatever
the other party did?

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davidw
Trust is required for a complex economy. Think if you had to verify
_everything_ each and every time you exchanged something. You simply wouldn't
get anywhere.

~~~
efkztw
So by extension, it's probably fair to say intelligent people are more
inclined to trust other people, because they understand distrust is
intrinsically costly.

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namelezz
So Albert Einstein was stupid for questioning Isaac Newton's theory of
gravitation. Wow, an interesting studying from UK.

~~~
joelwilliamson
Either that or he was intelligent for trusting the works of Plank, Maxwell,
Lorentz, etc. that demonstrated Newtonian physics was seriously lacking.

------
tekahs
I don't trust you. ;)

~~~
antimagic
Proof that you're stupid? :)

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tankenmate
In the words of discrete mathematics intelligence implies trusting behaviour.

------
michaelochurch
Alternate explanation coming from a person whose high intelligence is at the
level that is, arguably, a curse.

There's trust in competence and trust in character. They're different (highly
intelligent and competent people can have rotten ethical character) but people
tend to conflate them, especially in the business world. We have a hard time
believing that visibly competent or "credible" people might be liars.

Highly intelligent people are constantly being underestimated because they
live in a world that's not really designed for them. There are all sorts of
permissions systems and rules and rate-limits on career progress designed for
people much slower and less capable than they are. The conclusion is that
those systems and the prevailing _distrust_ they represent is useless and
counterproductive.

Knowing that _they_ don't belong in the harnesses designed for "the slow
kids", highly intelligent people tend to assume that _everyone_ deserves more
trust than they are given by society. It isn't just a personal problem ("I'm
too smart to be treated like a child") but a general one ("Who needs rules?
Who needs management at all?") This biases them toward premature trust of
others.

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mantrax
"Those who score lower on measure of intelligence."

We know how well those work, don't we?

I know that unless I trust someone (say, my team) I won't get anything done,
and that's enough of a reason to find people to trust.

But the implication of this study that this is directly the result of my
intelligence, is actually insulting to my intelligence.

Are people who fall for scams highly intelligent? I'm not saying they're
necessarily stupid, but people who fall for scams definitely "trust others" a
bit too much.

------
benched
I'm more likely to act as if I trust others, which is behaviorally very
similar to trusting others. I don't, though.

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LynchDeez
Maybe so original poster nreece... and maybe your father IS the king of a
small African country that can get me a fantastic deal on a timeshare that
will make my penis 4x larger, but you still can't have my banking information.

------
aric
I trust that the researchers of this study are too distrusting of all evidence
to the contrary.

