He's Not as Smart as He Thinks
A British researcher reports that the male ego is often larger than his actual IQ. But you might be surprised by what women think of men's intellect.
Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs. Furnham talks to NEWSWEEK's Joan Raymond about his findings and why perceived IQ matters. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Many studies show that men score slightly higher in IQ tests. Is this significant?
Adrian Furnham: Universally, men tend to score higher on certain specialized skills, such as spatial awareness. In the real world, that means they might be better at reading maps or navigating. Women score higher in terms of language development and emotional intelligence. But most experts agree there is no real, important overall difference when it comes to gender and intelligence.
But women think they aren't as smart as men?
That's the conundrum. What I study is "perceived intelligence," essentially how smart people think they are. I analyzed 30 international studies, and what I found was that women, across the world, tend to underplay their intelligence, while men overstate it.
So do most men think they're Albert Einstein?
There certainly is a greater male ego. It's what we call the male hubris and female humility effect. Men are more confident about their IQ. These studies show that on average, women underestimate their IQ scores by about five points while men overestimate their own IQs. Since these studies were international in scope, the results were essentially the same whether women were from Argentina, America, Britain, Japan or Zimbabwe. Another factor affecting perception may be distribution of IQ ... Although [men and women] are on average the same, the people at the very top and the very bottom of the IQ bell curve are more likely to be men. That is a pattern that we see in the university setting, with men either being at the very top of the class or at the bottom.
Do women tend to think that men are smarter than they are?
Surprisingly, [both] men and women perceive men being smarter across generations. Both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers.
What about the kids?
If there are children, [both] men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Existian @ 07/21/2008 6:29:40 PM
Comment: Bye the way, what is emotional intelligence anyway? Dictionary.com; n. Intelligence regarding the emotions, especially in the ability to monitor one's own or others' emotions. Ok, how smart do you have to be to know if you or someone else is pissed off? And another; an awareness of and ability to manage emotions and create motivation. Hey, that sounds like one of the many roles and responsibilities of an NCO in the USArmy, and i know a few female NCO's that have no sense of how to lead and take care of soldiers.
Posted By: Existian @ 07/21/2008 4:37:22 PM
Comment: Thousands of years of men ordering women around? Are you serious? Who's fault is that? And If your that easily manipulated you must not be that smart. I'm tired of women acting like they are slaves. They put themselves in that position. If women would step up, get rid of the poor me attitude and didn't expect men to make all the decisions, we would see a revolution of equality. It's not that were not listening, you need to speak up.I am a firm believer that intelligence is relative. You are going to have different ranges of intelligence in and all races. But f your going to blame anything, blame the Bible, which says the wife should honor and obey and the husband once married. And ultimately we will never be equal as long as we keep bringing up our differences about who's smarter or better. Nobody likes to have there intelligence insulted. If we truly want to live in a utopian society we all have to get past all of our differences and focus on how we are all alike.
Posted By: penzance @ 07/12/2008 11:39:51 AM
Comment: I think the postings just support the article! I see it all the time in life as well. It would be interesting to see if it's due to culture or chemistry--I think it's thousands of years of men ordering women aound. It's incredible how easy it is for manipulators to manipulate people into believing whatever they want them to think.