[LINK] Higher intelligence correlates with greater cooperation
post by RolfAndreassen · 2012-10-01T18:14:44.970Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 15 commentsThe result is from 2008, but it's new to me. Abstract:
A meta-study of repeated prisoner’s dilemma experiments run at numerous universities suggests that students cooperate 5% to 8% more often for every 100 point increase in the school’s average SAT score.
Some obvious points from my first five minutes of thinking about it:
- Meta-study or not, the sample still only covers humans. No implications for Friendly AI or intelligent aliens, which don't have our motivations.
- Even among humans the sample is WEIRD, and a subset of WEIRD at that; although there is obviously variation between universities, it's smaller than what you'd get if you extended the sample down into the working class. I also wonder what would happen if the PD was played between students and non-students.
- Probably a point in favour of the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, in that we see those of higher intelligence doing better on a social problem.
- Presumably this implies that your best move, whatever your level of intelligence, is to surround yourself with the smartest people you can find, and then cooperate to ensure they don't throw you out.
- I'd like to know some details: Does intelligence also correlate with effective retaliation? With probing for suckers? What about cooperation in single games? (The study mentions one, in a footnote, which apparently did find higher intelligence correlated with greater cooperation even in one-shot games; but there's no metastudy.)
15 comments
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comment by Kawoomba · 2012-10-01T20:38:36.603Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Also, shoe size correlates with income (i.e. correlation is no proof of causality).
It may well be that it is an environment of cooperative learning that is conducive to both testing higher on IQ tests and cooperating on prisoner's dilemmata.
(The paper's "environment" robustness test only checked by factoring out private schools, which is a poor proxy.)
Replies from: BenLowell↑ comment by BenLowell · 2012-10-02T01:06:40.887Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Note, shoe size correlates with height, which correlates with income and iq.
Replies from: Kawoomba, army1987↑ comment by Kawoomba · 2012-10-02T05:35:39.459Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
N.B.:
Yes; while we may surmise that part of that causation is based on height correlating with gender and social status which correlate with income (and for the latter, IQ), the major lurking variable that determines both height and income is age (children versus adults).
Factoring out all three of the aforementioned, the correlation remains (there's still e.g. nutritional status, and it's quite hard to factor out all aspects of an unformalized, soft criterion such as "social status" anyways).
Replies from: army1987↑ comment by A1987dM (army1987) · 2012-10-03T01:34:48.198Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
the major lurking variable that determines both height and income is age (children versus adults).
Wait... I had always assumed such comparisons to control for age, or at least to not include underage people.
↑ comment by A1987dM (army1987) · 2012-10-03T01:36:10.607Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
In fact, I'd expect the correlation between shoe size and height to be around 0.8 or more.
comment by MixedNuts · 2012-10-02T09:39:14.105Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Not just WEIRD: US-only. That might be an American thing, not just a Western thing.
Replies from: wedrifid↑ comment by wedrifid · 2012-10-02T17:35:35.129Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Not just WEIRD: US-only. That might be an American thing, not just a Western thing.
And it could be an SAT thing, not an intelligence thing. If my understanding is correct SATs reward conscientiousness as much as (or more than) intelligence. Conscientiousness being attributable for all of the difference to cooperation wouldn't be at all implausible.
Replies from: knb, Nornagest↑ comment by knb · 2012-10-03T09:07:41.978Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
If my understanding is correct SATs reward conscientiousness as much as (or more than) intelligence.
I doubt it. The SAT is still closer to an IQ test than an achievement test. Conscientiousness helps a lot with GPA, but not SAT. I used to work as a SAT tutor, and it is amazing/depressing how little even strong effort affected test scores.
↑ comment by Nornagest · 2012-10-02T17:50:57.403Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
My impression is that the SATs measure some combination of reasoning ability and retention of knowledge: I can see the latter being correlated with conscientiousness, but there are other ways to get it. As best I can tell, in college admissions the combination of a high SAT score and middling grades is taken to indicate a low-conscientiousness student, which if correct isn't what we'd expect if the SATs rewarded the two equally. If it's not correct, I'm not sure what it'd be measuring instead.
comment by knb · 2012-10-03T09:09:32.144Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I've also seen fairly good evidence that intelligence correlates positively with: happiness, height, health, income, number of friends, parental income, and attractiveness. Intelligence is also negatively correlated with promiscuity and criminality. It's kind of depressing how many nice things are correlated with other nice things, and bad things are correlated with other bad things.
Replies from: wedrifid↑ comment by wedrifid · 2012-10-03T13:19:25.176Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Intelligence is also negatively correlated with promiscuity and criminality. It's kind of depressing how many nice things are correlated with other nice things, and bad things are correlated with other bad things.
One of these things does not belong.
comment by Protagoras · 2012-10-01T19:58:47.895Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
On your fourth point, that is the strategy Socrates recommends in Plato's dialogues (he also seems to think it's a good idea to try to help the people around you become smarter, and try to get their help in becoming smarter yourself).
comment by gwern · 2012-10-01T19:21:36.826Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
See http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_2011/4r01