Abstract
People’s perceptions of their intelligence correlate only moderately with objective intelligence measures. On average, people overestimate themselves. According to the popular Dunning–Kruger effect, this is particularly true for low performers: across many domains, those in the lowest quartile overestimate their abilities the most. However, recent work using improved statistical approaches found little support for a Dunning–Kruger effect in general intelligence. We investigated accuracy and Dunning–Kruger effects for self-estimates of general, verbal, numerical, and spatial intelligence—domains that differed in how well they can be judged in the past. A total of 281 participants completed self-estimates and intelligence measures online. Self-estimates showed mostly moderate correlational accuracy that was slightly higher for numerical intelligence and lower for verbal intelligence. Across domains, participants rated their intelligence as above average. However, as their intelligence was indeed high, this was not an overestimation. While standard analyses indicated Dunning–Kruger effects in general, verbal, and spatial intelligence, improved statistical methods only yielded some support for one in verbal intelligence: people with lower verbal intelligence tended to have less self-knowledge about it. The generalizability of these findings is limited to young, highly educated populations. Nevertheless, our results contribute to a growing literature questioning the generality of the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Highlights
Received: 24 November 2021Do people have an accurate sense of how intelligent they are? Research suggests that this might not necessarily be the case.Self-estimates of intelligence and other abilities often correlate only moderately with corresponding objective performance criteria (Freund and Kasten 2012; Zell and Krizan 2014).Looking at the direction of this miscalibration, many studies suggest that people tend to overestimate themselves (e.g., Gignac and Zajenkowski 2019)
While there was some indication for nonlinear associations between measured and self-estimated numerical intelligence, this effect was likely driven by a single influential case
When looking at correlational accuracy, people appear to be worst at judging their verbal intelligence and best at judging their numerical intelligence
Summary
Received: 24 November 2021Do people have an accurate sense of how intelligent they are? Research suggests that this might not necessarily be the case (for an overview, see Neubauer and Hofer 2020).Self-estimates of intelligence and other abilities often correlate only moderately with corresponding objective performance criteria (Freund and Kasten 2012; Zell and Krizan 2014).Looking at the direction of this miscalibration, many studies suggest that people tend to overestimate themselves (e.g., Gignac and Zajenkowski 2019). Self-estimates of intelligence and other abilities often correlate only moderately with corresponding objective performance criteria (Freund and Kasten 2012; Zell and Krizan 2014). A striking example for this tendency is the often-reported above-average or better-than-average effect, according to which people, on average, believe their abilities to be above average (Alicke and Govorun 2005). Other research indicates that the tendency towards overestimation depends on the underlying ability level with less capable people showing the highest degree of overestimation—a finding known as the Dunning–Kruger effect (Kruger and Dunning 1999). Basing one’s life decisions on incorrect self-estimates could have adverse consequences (see Ackerman and Wolman 2007): people who have chosen a job based on an overestimation of their abilities could face constant overload, Accepted: 28 January 2022
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