Average Americans Think They're Smarter Than the Average American

[diddle]

It's like Sudoku, but it's actually fun.

Math is only fun when it ends up equaling 80085.

[MetroStratics]

Hard not to feel more intelligent than you are in this age of information. Nearly every basic piece of information you could ever need can be found through a google search.

[Spectral]

The most brutally stupid people I've known are completely convinced that while they don't have "book smarts", they got them some common sense, and that those "educated" people aren't smart at all. The Dunning-Kruger effect is very easy to see when you talk to these people. I do wonder how someone that's a high school dropout that works a completely menial job and has no intellectual accomplishment to speak of believes himself to be above average, but people seem to manage it.

[Deleted]

The most brutally stupid people I've known are completely convinced that while they don't have "book smarts", they got them some common sense, and that those "educated" people aren't smart at all. The Dunning-Kruger effect is very easy to see when you talk to these people. I do wonder how someone that's a high school dropout that works a completely menial job and has no intellectual accomplishment to speak of believes himself to be above average, but people seem to manage it.

Street smarts is a good one, dumb people use it when they want to use the word smart to describe themselves.

[Krommm]

Thanks for this new and exciting information. I read the OP and it still applies to almost anywhere, but I do understand the targeting of Americans. Nearly everyone is deluded to some extent, myself included. Please bait better next time or post something original, signed everyone.

[Spectral]

Street smarts is a good one, dumb people use it when they want to use the word smart to describe themselves.

Yeah, street smarts and common sense are the ones that I see unintelligent people point to. Sure is handy to have some version of "smart" that you can't actually measure! It'd be like me maxing out on a benchpress at 90 pounds, but declaring that I might not have weight strength, but I know I can lift a lot. Or that I may run a 10 minute mile, but I'm pretty fast.

[CptMitta]

While i'm not American, I do think I am pretty dumb. Especially Maths.

I have no desire to be smart though, Im happy being average - below average

[Deleted]

Yeah, street smarts and common sense are the ones that I see unintelligent people point to. Sure is handy to have some version of "smart" that you can't actually measure! It'd be like me maxing out on a benchpress at 90 pounds, but declaring that I might not have weight strength, but I know I can lift a lot. Or that I may run a 10 minute mile, but I'm pretty fast.

To this day none have explained to me exactly what "street smarts" actually is and why people that are "book smart" cannot have it.

[Tziva]

To this day none have explained to me exactly what "street smarts" actually is and why people that are "book smart" cannot have it.

I don't think anyone believes that "street smart" and "book smart" are mutually exclusive, just that they are talking about different types of knowledge and can't be judged by the same yard stick. One deals with academic knowledge, one deals with practical knowledge. Everyone should have some degree of both.

I've certainly known many people who skillfully navigate the world with confidence despite having very little "book smarts" or formal education, just as I've known plenty of people with wide breadth of knowledge of history or sciences or the arts who lack common sense or struggle with things like hailing a cab, calculating a tip, or reading a subway map or bus route.

But yeah, anyone who says that book smart people can't be street smart are, well, not smart.

[Elegiac]

I don't think anyone believes that "street smart" and "book smart" are mutually exclusive, just that they are talking about different types of knowledge and can't be judged by the same yard stick. One deals with academic knowledge, one deals with practical knowledge. Everyone should have some degree of both.

I've certainly known many people who skillfully navigate the world with confidence despite having very little "book smarts" or formal education, just as I've known plenty of people with wide breadth of knowledge of history or sciences or the arts who lack common sense or struggle with things like hailing a cab, calculating a tip, or reading a subway map or bus route.

But yeah, anyone who says that book smart people can't be street smart are, well, not smart.

Or it could simply be that there is no real distinction and the difference between the two was concocted by idiots to propagate the myth of the ivory tower and discredit intellectuals when their research contradicts people's beliefs.

[stabetha]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that can apply to most people on this planet, not just Americans.

not on mmo chapions, you'd get infracted if it was said about anywhere else.

[Kraenen]

As it stands, intelligence is thought to be normally distributed and thus the mean and median would be very similar, if not identical.

IQ is by definition normally distributed - it's made that way a priori

[Spectral]

IQ is by definition normally distributed - it's made that way a priori

Are you sure you know what "normal distribution" means in a statistical context? There's nothing intrinsic about IQ scoring that would prevent it from being bimodal. It just... isn't.

[Kraenen]

Are you sure you know what "normal distribution" means in a statistical context? There's nothing intrinsic about IQ scoring that would prevent it from being bimodal. It just... isn't.

I was just thinking that IQ scores are always based on the normative sample's mean. Also wiki seems to confirm this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelli...#Current_tests

[Felya]

People who claim to be intelligent are annoying. They don't actually mean they are intelligent, but that they are right. Their claim to intelligence being the thing that confirms they are right. Basically, 'I'm intelligent' is identical to 'I'm right, because I said so'.

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Something else I don't think people consider. Dumb people should be easier to trick or convince, even when you are wrong. The often used 'I'm too smart for you to understand' is actually 'I'm unable to convince you'. Which if you think the person you are arguing with is stupid, doesn't speak very highly of you... Stubborn and stupid are not synonyms...

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

You don't have to be American to think you are smart. I'm not American and i know i'm smarter than the average person.

[Tziva]

Or it could simply be that there is no real distinction and the difference between the two was concocted by idiots to propagate the myth of the ivory tower and discredit intellectuals when their research contradicts people's beliefs.

I can't speak to why or when the term was concocted, but I disagree that there isn't a real distinction between the two. Functional knowledge and academic knowledge are speaking to entire different scopes of the world, learned in different places and used in different ways. There are all kinds of categories of knowledge and intelligence; I don't see why these would be any different. That's not putting a value on one over the other, it's just a colloquial category.

In some contexts, it makes sense to differentiate.

It's certainly possible that people like to justify their lack of one by pointing to the other, or likewise to dismiss someone for lacking one while they have the other, but I don't think the very concept of drawing a line between the two is that absurd, nor do I think giving people credit where due when they are strong in one even if the other lacks is inappropriate.

[The One Percent]

That's why you base someone's worth off their achievements, not what they say they can do.

[Zaxvriin]

Such a poll is silly in the first place. Smart is all relative. Yes, most people are smarter than you about something. So they think because of the things to which they are smarter about makes them smarter than you, and thus inflates them to feel like they're more important.

Better questions would be specific subjects, even more fun would be to have them ask simple questions such as what they think the average american's iq is, what they think theirs is, and then administer such a test to them that is to check for such things(That way they also generate a distributions based off the same test to compare against)

[Deadmedic]

I think it has less to do with how intelligent a person thinks they are, but more to do with how less intelligent they view the majority of the population. I have a college degree, I accept that there are many who are more educated than I am, but I also accept that I am more educated than many as well.