Abstract
Despite evidence from cognitive psychology that men and women are equal in measured intelligence, gender differences in self-estimated intelligence (SEI) are widely reported with males providing systematically higher estimates than females. This has been termed the male hubris, female humility effect. The present study explored personality factors that might explain this. Participants (N = 228; 103 male, 125 female) provided self-estimates of their general IQ and for Gardner’s multiple intelligences, before completing the Cattell Culture Fair IQ test as an objective measure of intelligence. They also completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) as a measure of sex-role identification, and measures of general and academic self-esteem. Both gender and sex-role differences were observed for SEI, with males and participants of both genders who scored high in masculinity offering higher self-estimates. By comparing estimated and observed IQ, we were able to rule out gender differences in overall accuracy but observed a pattern of systematic underestimation in females. An hierarchical multiple regression showed significant independent effects of gender, masculinity, and self-esteem. Mixed evidence was observed for gender differences in the estimation of multiple intelligences, though moderately sized sex-role differences were observed. The results offer a far more nuanced explanation for the male hubris, female humility effect that includes the contribution of sex role identification to individual and group differences.
Highlights
Intellectual self-image can be a powerful predictor of eventual educational achievement
This pattern of gender differences in self-estimated intelligence (SEI) is so universally found across different samples, ages, ethnicities and cultures that it has been termed the male hubris, female humility (MHFH) problem by Furnham et al (2001). It remains so interesting because there is overwhelming consensus in cognitive psychology that males and females do not differ in general intelligence; gender differences are only found for specific cognitive abilities like verbal/visual-spatial tasks rather than psychometric intelligence
We examined whether masculine sex-role identification acted as a statistical mediatior in the relationship between gender and SEI scores
Summary
Intellectual self-image can be a powerful predictor of eventual educational achievement. Though the study has at times been criticized on methodological grounds (c.f., Rosenthal, 1995; Snow, 1995), it spurred research into the benefits of teaching a “growth mindset,” and that intelligence is malleable rather than being innately fixed at birth (Dweck, 2016; Yeager et al, 2019) This brings us to a quite curious phenomenon frequently observed in psychological studies over the last few decades: that, when asked to provide an estimate of their intelligence, males frequently provide higher estimates than females. This pattern of gender differences in self-estimated intelligence (SEI) is so universally found across different samples, ages, ethnicities and cultures that it has been termed the male hubris, female humility (MHFH) problem by Furnham et al (2001). Such a claim stands in contrast to evidence on the general accuracy of self-estimates of intelligence reviewed above, though the number of studies empirically testing this with psychometrically valid IQ tests are few
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