{"id":228214,"date":"2026-01-02T13:08:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/who-wants-to-enhance-their-cognitive-abilities-potential-predictors-of-the-acceptance-of-cognitive-enhancement"},"modified":"2026-01-02T13:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:08:27","slug":"who-wants-to-enhance-their-cognitive-abilities-potential-predictors-of-the-acceptance-of-cognitive-enhancement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/who-wants-to-enhance-their-cognitive-abilities-potential-predictors-of-the-acceptance-of-cognitive-enhancement","title":{"rendered":"Who Wants to Enhance Their Cognitive Abilities? Potential Predictors of the Acceptance of Cognitive Enhancement"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the 21st century, new powerful technologies, such as different artificial intelligence (AI) agents, have become omnipresent and the center of public debate. With the increasing fear of AI agents replacing humans, there are discussions about whether individuals should strive to enhance themselves. For instance, the philosophical movement Transhumanism<\/em> proposes the broad enhancement of human characteristics such as cognitive abilities, personality, and moral values (e.g., Grassie and Hansell 2011<\/a>; Ranisch and Sorgner 2014<\/a>). This enhancement should help humans to overcome their natural limitations and to keep up with powerful technologies that are increasingly present in today\u2019s world (see Ranisch and Sorgner 2014<\/a>). In the present article, we focus on one of the most frequently discussed forms of enhancement\u2014the enhancement of human cognitive abilities.<\/p>\n

Not only in science but also among the general population, cognitive enhancement, such as increasing one\u2019s intelligence or working memory capacity, has been a frequently debated topic for many years (see Pauen 2019<\/a>). Thus, a lot of psychological and neuroscientific research investigated different methods to increase cognitive abilities, but\u2014so far\u2014effective methods for cognitive enhancement are lacking (Jau\u0161ovec and Pahor 2017<\/a>). Nevertheless, multiple different (and partly new) technologies that promise an enhancement of cognition are available to the general public. Transhumanists especially promote the application of brain stimulation techniques, smart drugs, or gene editing for cognitive enhancement (e.g., Bostrom and Sandberg 2009<\/a>). Importantly, only little is known about the characteristics of individuals who would use such enhancement methods to improve their cognition. Thus, in the present study, we investigated different predictors of the acceptance of multiple widely-discussed enhancement methods. More specifically, we tested whether individuals\u2019 psychometrically measured intelligence, self-estimated intelligence, implicit theories about intelligence, personality (Big Five and Dark Triad traits), and specific interests (science-fiction hobbyism) as well as values (purity norms) predict their acceptance of cognitive enhancement (i.e., whether they would use such methods to enhance their cognition).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 21st century, new powerful technologies, such as different artificial intelligence (AI) agents, have become omnipresent and the center of public debate. With the increasing fear of AI agents replacing humans, there are discussions about whether individuals should strive to enhance themselves. For instance, the philosophical movement Transhumanism proposes the broad enhancement of human [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,30,6,1501],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-ethics","category-robotics-ai","category-transhumanism-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}