Is there a correlation between IQ score and presidential performance?

1. The academic pattern: higher IQ-like scores line up with higher greatness ratings

Multiple historiometric and at-a-distance studies report that presidents scored higher on IQ estimates, Intellectual Brilliance, or Openness also tend to receive higher presidential leadership or "greatness" rankings from historians and political scientists, a pattern reported across several papers and reviews ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. Those correlations are repeatedly documented in the literature cited by Simonton and colleagues and by subsequent reviewers: intelligence-related metrics correlate positively with expert assessments of presidential performance ^{[1] [2]}.

2. But measurement is the Achilles’ heel: estimated IQs, proxies, and intercorrelated traits

Crucially, most presidential "IQ" numbers are reconstructed using indirect methods—Cox’s historical estimates, observer ratings of Intellectual Brilliance, and Openness scores—then sometimes imputed for missing data, so the variable labeled "IQ" is often a proxy intermingled with related traits ^{[5] [1]}. The Intellectual Brilliance and Openness measures correlate strongly with one another and with Cox’s IQ estimates (rs often 0.69–0.92), so it is difficult to isolate a pure IQ effect separate from creativity, verbal facility, or openness to experience ^{[2] [3]}.

3. Effect size and comparators: moderate correlations, not perfect forecasts

Even where correlations exist, they are moderate, not deterministic. In broader occupational research, IQ–job performance correlations typically fall in the 0.2–0.6 range depending on job and measurement; meta-analytic work tempering earlier claims finds corrected correlations often around the lower end of that band ^{[6] [7]}. That general occupational evidence suggests that cognitive ability helps but does not fully predict complex, context-dependent roles—an insight that translates to the presidency, where institutional constraints, luck, coalitions, and moral character matter as well ^{[6] [7]}.

4. Voter perceptions, political signaling, and the double hermeneutic

Voters are moderately accurate at perceiving presidential intelligence and those perceptions correlate with expert scores, which has led presidents to signal intelligence for political advantage; yet perception itself can shape outcomes—political actors adapt to the idea that intelligence matters—so social feedback loops complicate causal interpretation ^{[4] [8]}. The sociology of testing warns that the deployment of IQ as a selection mechanism can become self-fulfilling, amplifying advantages through access to resources rather than purely reflecting innate causal effects ^[8].

5. The practical takeaway: correlation exists, causality is messy, other traits often matter more

The most defensible conclusion from the literature is that intelligence-related measures correlate with expert judgments of presidential performance, but those measures are imperfect, conflated with other traits (intellectual brilliance, openness), and insufficient by themselves to guarantee effective presidency; selection effects, measurement error, and non-cognitive traits (ethics, political skill, luck, institutional context) play decisive roles that the IQ correlation cannot capture alone ^{[2] [3] [7]}. Where policy or public debate treats IQ as a solitary predictor of presidential success, the scholarship advises caution: intelligence helps, but it neither fully explains nor reliably forecasts presidential performance on its own ^{[1] [6]}.