Intelligent people are better judges of the intelligence of others
Research suggesting that higher-IQ people are better at judging others’ intelligence prompts debate about what “intelligence” actually means and how well standardized tests capture it. Commenters explore how domain knowledge, emotional and social skills, empathy, and cultural context complicate any simple ranking of who is “smart,” noting that we often struggle to evaluate those who are either much more or much less capable than ourselves. Others question the study’s methods and sample size, while drawing parallels to phenomena like Dunning–Kruger, media portrayals of “genius,” and the social consequences of misjudging people’s abilities.
Difficulty of Judging Higher Intelligence
- Several commenters report that it’s easy to see when someone is smarter than you, but hard to rank people who are all above your level.
- Analogies include faster cars on a highway and tabletop RPG players: smart people can portray dumb characters, but not vice versa.
- Some note that very smart people often simplify their communication, which makes fine-grained comparison even harder.
Multidimensional Nature of Intelligence
- Many stress that “intelligence” is not one-dimensional: domain knowledge, abstraction, social modeling, and practical skills can diverge.
- Examples include athletes or footballers with high “game intelligence” versus scientists, and people strong in theory of mind but weak in abstract reasoning.
Emotional Intelligence and Empathy
- One camp calls “emotional intelligence” pseudoscience or just another skill subset of general intelligence.
- Others argue social/emotional cognition is distinct enough to merit its own label, pointing to people strong in abstract reasoning but poor at reading emotions.
- Distinctions are drawn between:
- Empathy (feeling others’ emotions).
- Theory of mind / social reasoning (accurately modeling others’ mental states).
- Some note that high empathy can coexist with poor accuracy (“feeling” wrong things about others).
Study Design and Limitations
- Link to the underlying paper is shared; some see the sample (~198) as sufficient, others dismiss studies under 1,000 as weak.
- Concerns raised about:
- Homogeneous, WEIRD university samples.
- Lack of replication.
- Use of standardized IQ tests as a narrow or flawed proxy for “intelligence.”
Practical Heuristics for Judging Intelligence
- Suggested cues include:
- Ability to steelman opposing views.
- Comfort with hypotheticals and abstraction.
- Recognizing PR/propaganda language.
- Clear, precise speech and vocabulary.
- Others argue results and long-term predictive accuracy (what people say they’ll do vs. what happens) are more reliable than conversational impressions.
Social and Ethical Observations
- Some note that smarter people often cluster together, reinforcing their ability to recognize each other.
- A volunteer working with ex-prisoners observes frequent low abstract reasoning and short-term thinking, raising concerns about inequality rooted in cognitive differences.
- There is also a reminder that high intelligence doesn’t guarantee good judgment about one’s own beliefs or morality.
Meta / Thread Skepticism
- One commenter claims the linked article is low-quality “AI slop” mainly for traffic.
- Another flags the submitter’s history of systematic self-promotion on Hacker News.