Intelligence and homosexuality

J Biosoc Sci. 2012 Sep;44(5):595-623. doi: 10.1017/S0021932011000769. Epub 2012 Jan 31.

Abstract

The origin of preferences and values is an unresolved theoretical problem in behavioural sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests that more intelligent individuals are more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel preferences and values than less intelligent individuals, but general intelligence has no effect on the acquisition and espousal of evolutionarily familiar preferences and values. Ethnographies of traditional societies suggest that exclusively homosexual behaviour was probably rare in the ancestral environment, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to identify themselves as homosexual and engage in homosexual behaviour. Analyses of three large, nationally representative samples (two of which are prospectively longitudinal) from two different nations confirm the prediction.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Biological Evolution
  • Child
  • Female
  • Homosexuality / psychology*
  • Homosexuality / statistics & numerical data
  • Homosexuality, Female / psychology
  • Homosexuality, Female / statistics & numerical data
  • Homosexuality, Male / psychology
  • Homosexuality, Male / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Intelligence*
  • Logistic Models
  • Male
  • Prospective Studies
  • Regression Analysis
  • United Kingdom / epidemiology
  • United States / epidemiology
  • Young Adult