Psychologists often note that most people think they are above average in intelligence. We sought robust, contemporary evidence for this “smarter than average” effect by asking Americans in two independent samples (total N = 2,821) whether they agreed with the statement, “I am more intelligent than the average person.” After weighting each sample to match the demographics of U.S. census data, we found that 65% of Americans believe they are smarter than average, with men more likely to agree than women. However, overconfident beliefs about one’s intelligence are not always unrealistic: more educated people were more likely to think their intelligence is above average. We suggest that a tendency to overrate one’s cognitive abilities may be a stable feature of human psychology.
Yeah, and even if it’s perfect distribution, the result isn’t that bad. Sure, there’d be the possibility of having lots of people who consider themselves less inteligent but are moreso than the average and vice-versa. But all in all, there’d only 15% more people who would consider themselves smarter than average and be wrong about it.
If only 1 in 7 of my friends wrongly believes they’re smarter than average, I’d say that’s acceptable.
If by “perfect distribution” you mean “normal distribution”, and/or if we assume that “average” means “median” instead of “mean”, then from the survey result “65% of Americans believe they are smarter than average” we can actually conclude that a minimum of 15% of respondents incorrectly asses themselves to be smarter than average - but it could only be as low as 15% if 100% of the people assessing themselves to be less intelligent than average are correct.
If 1% of the respondents incorrectly asses themselves to be less intelligent than average, then 16% are incorrectly assessing themselves to be more intelligent than average, and so on.
(Ignoring that embedded in this survey is the antiquated notion that the quantification of intelligence is even valid in the first place…)
Sorry for the late reply. It’s been sitting in my Lemmy notifications for a long time and I didn’t properly read it until now. Thanks for having take the time to explain how the total amount of people who incorrectly assess themselves regarding the mean/median can be broken down.
Also, the discussion regarding the validity of intelligence was interesting. After reading the Wikipedia entry, it’s clear to me that it’s a limited metric, if not a wholly invalid metric.