Targeting an Audience Based on IQ

Some writers choose a style of writing that targets an audience with high IQs, like using 3-syllable words, referring to a broad range of historical facts or scientific concepts (assuming that all readers know them), and replacing ordinary words with metonymies. One might think this is an attempt to connect deeper with the intelligent audience but some of them, I think, use it in order to exclude the readers with low IQs or less education because their ideas are controversial. They want to avoid knee-jerk reactions of the general public. In other words, they are negative-targeting.