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.
I have to wonder about the methodology of such a study. Unintelligent people tend to gravitate towards “lifestyles” that might mean they’re in no position to be taking surveys. How many death row inmates were in this survey? How many just in prison? The link talks about phone and online surveys… how many morons have neither? There is reason to suspect that they just happened to talk to more people who were slightly above average than those who were slightly below.
For that matter, I happen to remember a grade card of some sort from an IOWA test back in the 1980s, where I was in the 99th percentile (I specifically remember that word, though at the time I wouldn’t have understood its significance). If I were to have taken this survey, how would it be accurate to construe my answers as a “belief”?
Really, for the headline to mean anything at all, you’d somehow have to filter out everyone who didn’t know for a fact that they were above average (and if you fail to do so, you’re deliberately trying to create clickbait).