Smarter People Are More Prosocial

Intelligence predicts charitable giving, voting, and environmental choices

Aug 11, 2026

a stack of books — Photo by Rashidul Islam on Unsplash

This is the latest post in my “Smarter People” series. Check out the full collection here.

Are smart people naughty or nice? A new study suggests the latter. Analyzing data from 1.2 million Swedes, the researchers found that smarter individuals were more likely to vote, more likely to donate to charity, and more likely to own an eco-friendly car. They also tended to score higher on a self-report measure of altruistic behavior.

Relationship between cognitive ability and prosocial behaviors. Panels (a)–(c) show the relationship between cognitive ability and charitable giving (a), voting (b), and having an eco-friendly car (c), for men. Panels (d)–(f) show the corresponding relationships for women. Note that there were more men than women in the sample because cognitive ability was measured during military enlistment, which was mandatory for men in Sweden but voluntary for women. Source: Elinder and Erixson (2025).

Importantly, the intelligence-prosociality link held even when comparing twins within the same family. This suggests that the link isn’t just due to confounding by shared genes or shared upbringing. It therefore strengthens the case that intelligence directly increases prosociality.

How might it do this? Possible explanations include more rapid acquisition of moral norms, better moral reasoning, a better appreciation of others’ perspectives, and a better understanding of the benefits of mutual cooperation. Curiously, having a higher income explained little if any of the intelligence-prosociality link.

The paper is titled “An inquiry into the relationship between intelligence and prosocial behavior: Evidence from Swedish population registers,” by Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson. You can access it here for free.

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