Psychology: Men overestimate their own intelligence more often than women

Study shows
Men overestimate their own intelligence more often than women

An exciting fact: most people rate their own intelligence higher than it actually is. To be more precise, most people describe their IQ as above average – which cannot work purely statistically. The topic of self-assessment becomes interesting thanks to the results of one Australian study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. They were able to prove that men, on average, consider themselves to be smarter than women, even though they aren’t – they just overestimate their intelligence more often. This result applies to both biological sex and psychological sex.

Study lets both sexes rate their intelligence

For their study, the team led by David Reilly from the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University in Southport, Australia, surveyed several hundred women and men and asked them to rate their own intelligence. They were asked to name their estimated IQ and were told that two thirds of people have an intelligence quotient between 85 and 115. Before answering, the research team told participants to take an IQ test based on their self-assessment.

In addition to the intelligence test, the women and men’s self-confidence was measured and a personality test based on “female” and “male” characteristics was carried out. The science team’s hypothesis before the test was that psychological gender would play a larger role in overconfidence than biological gender.

“I can do it”: Men are often more self-confident than women

In fact, it turned out that participants who were biologically male had an even greater tendency to overestimate their own intelligence than those participants with “typically male” characteristics – regardless of their biological gender. According to the study, women, on the other hand, tend to think they are less smart than they actually are. Among the participants, biological men whose masculine personality traits were particularly pronounced tended to overestimate their own cleverness.

The research team sees possible connections between their study results and the fact that boys are often more self-confident than girls in childhood. “When girls underestimate their intelligence at school, they tend to choose less challenging subjects,” explains study author David Reilly. “Especially in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These decisions limit their education and career opportunities even after training.”

Appeal to parents and teachers: “Build girls’ self-confidence”

According to Reilly, these gender differences could also partially explain the gender pay gap and the different levels of negotiation confidence between women and men in salary discussions. In other words: Because women are less self-confident and tend to underestimate themselves and their abilities, they negotiate more poorly and therefore often end up getting less money. Of course, that can only be part of the explanation; after all, our patriarchal social structures and issues such as the “part-time trap” and lack of childcare options are left out here. But the issue of self-assessment in terms of intelligence could at least be one factor that favors these developments.

The author of the study makes an appeal to parents and teachers to eradicate these gender differences in intelligence and self-confidence: “We have to encourage girls’ ambition if they are to solve the complex problems of our society and at the same time achieve fairness in pay,” says David Reilly. “It starts early with parents’ gender-based expectations of their children’s intelligence and the differences in self-confidence between girls and boys. Wouldn’t it be nice if we as parents, as teachers and as a society managed to improve the self-confidence of girls and young women in such a way that they would believe in themselves without any self-doubt?”

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Bridget