Smart people recognize each other – science proves it

33•01-_-•1h ago

Comments

david-gpu•1h ago

I guess this supports a vague belief that I have held for decades: it is really difficult to rank the intelligence of people who are smarter than you

Through work I had the privilege of being around lots of people who were smarter than me, but if somebody asked me to rank them from "somewhat smarter" to "much smarter", I would have had a hard time.

Just an anecdote! I don't have any hard evidence.

I also wondered for many years why most of them didn't quit their jobs when on paper they would have been able to do so, but work is not a great place to ask those sorts of questions.

coldtea•1h ago

>I also wondered for many years why most of them didn't quit their jobs when on paper they would have been able to do so, but work is not a great place to ask those sorts of questions.

Because they're smart enough to know neither money nor leisure is not the be all end all...

nickburns•57m ago

So both are? Like, combined?

SoftTalker•46m ago

Maybe they are smart enough to realize when they have a good thing going (on balance).

throwaway27448•35m ago

> if somebody asked me to rank them from "somewhat smarter" to "much smarter", I would have had a hard time.

It doesn't help that intelligence is many-dimensional.

x3n0ph3n3•29m ago

It's also difficult to write characters that are smarter than the writer. See how poorly TV and movie writers portray intelligent characters.

helle253•22m ago

> it is really difficult to rank the intelligence of people who are smarter than you

a comparative example that i think about quite often, in the realm of TTRPG's:

A smart person can play a dumb character well, usually, but a dumb person cannot play a smart character.

Or rather, they usually end up playing a character that can be described as 'dumb guys idea of a smart guy', which is... distinct than 'smart guy'

the broader point, ig: to model a level of intelligence well, it has to be 'within' your own, otherwise the model ends up too lossy!

TheMagicHorsey•51m ago

Reminds me of this game show episode. I was watching it with friends, and I'm not sure if we all picked out who the smartest person would be, but I do remember we definitely figured out who one of the lower-ranked people would be just based on her blathering (I won't give it away here since people may want to enjoy the episode themselves). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlI0pbMQiM

SoftTalker•44m ago

Reminds me of "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

Havoc•50m ago

Bit surprised that empathy makes no difference in this. People with high empathy tend to be good at reading others in general so would have thought that at least partially translates here

yetihehe•38m ago

People with high empathy tend to feel other's feelings more (sometimes to their own detriment). Emotional intelligence helps with reading other people.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm•28m ago

>Emotional intelligence

Pseudoscience.

youoy•24m ago

Finally a comment which is clearly 100% human

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm•17m ago

If you believe comprehending emotions belongs in its own category of intelligence, I have a bridge to sell you.

tekno45•4m ago

you thinking selling doesn't take emotional intelligence?

bpt3•25m ago

How did you reach that conclusion? From the article: "Those who demonstrated a stronger ability to perceive emotions in others also judged intelligence more accurately."

I guess you're surprised that empathy is not more important than intelligence? My thought there is that perceptiveness is a large part of intelligence, and if you lack that, you won't recognize the signs of intelligence no matter how empathetic you are.

creatonez•26m ago

This is a worthless AI slop summary of this article (^1), posted to a random forum to drive traffic.

^1: https://www.psypost.org/intelligent-people-are-better-judges...

exossho•22m ago

makes sense. I assume that smart people tend to hang out with other smart people more, and naturally learn to identify the cues & patterns of those. where as, if you don't hang out with many smart people, there is not much to recognize.

iwalton3•15m ago

Link to the referenced study (open access): "The good judge of intelligence" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...

ZYZ64738•8m ago

Studies with fewer than 1,000 samples are not very meaningful.

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