Highly Intelligent People Are Almost Always Right About One Thing Average People Have A Hard Time Figuring Out
Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels We all make judgments of other people, whether we do it intentionally or not. It's simply a part of human nature, and it plays a crucial role in navigating social environments and encounters.
One of the things we subconsciously assess is another person's intelligence, and it turns out that certain types of people have stronger instincts for judging this trait in others: those who are highly intelligent themselves.
Highly intelligent people tend to be better judges of other people's intelligence.
According to a German study published in the journal Intelligence, intelligent people often have a more accurate perception of how intelligent another person is. While intelligence is a bit of a broad topic, most psychologists consider it to be "the ability to learn, understand, reason, and solve problems." It also includes being able to use knowledge and logic effectively and having the capacity to deal with new and changing situations.
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The study authors used short video clips to analyze differences in intelligence judgment among nearly 200 participants. These individuals, who were mostly female university students, were asked to view 50 one-minute videos depicting "target" people with previously verified levels of intelligence performing a variety of tasks, such as explaining certain concepts or words, describing an experience, or engaging in roleplay.
After watching each video, the participants were then asked to rank the perceived intelligence level of each target person on a scale. As the researchers expected, more intelligent individuals had a higher accuracy in judging the intelligence of the people in the videos. Participants with better emotional perception abilities and those who reported greater life satisfaction also had better judgments of intelligence.
The researchers believe that the 'good judges' relied on certain behavioral cues from the target people in the videos.
Things like articulation, vocabulary, and speech content were found to be crucial tells in determining intelligence. However, this doesn't just mean that using big, fancy words automatically makes you appear smarter. Highly intelligent people aren't easily fooled by jargon or false confidence. They can root out when someone is being genuine and truthful.
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These types of participants may even have had the advantage of a wider range of reference points, as they are more aware of different levels of logic and reasoning. They know to focus on how someone thinks, not just what they know, which helps them spot surface-level thinking fluency compared to deeper intelligence.
"These findings underscore the importance of perceivers’ cognitive and socio-emotional abilities in social evaluation, and support the idea that being a good judge of intelligence is linked to psychological adjustment," explained the study authors.
The researchers also note that certain factors were not found to make participants better judges of intelligence. Things like gender, empathy, openness, and social curiosity didn't make it easier to associate intelligence with people in the videos more accurately. This study confirms that there is still more to be discovered regarding how we judge intelligence in real-world social interactions.
Kayla Asbach is a writer currently working on her bachelor's degree at the University of Central Florida. She covers relationships, psychology, self-help, pop culture, and human interest topics.
