Downing effect

The Downing effect describes the tendencies of people with below average intelligence quotients (IQs) to overestimate their intelligence, and of people with above average intelligence to underestimate their intelligence. The propensity to predictably misjudge one's own intelligence was first noted by C. L. Downing who conducted the first cross cultural studies on perceived intelligence. His studies also evidenced that the ability to accurately estimate others' intelligence was proportional to one's own intelligence. This means the lower the IQ score of an individual, the less capably he or she can appreciate and accurately appraise others' intelligence. The lower someone’s IQ, the more likely he is to rate himself as more intelligent than those around him. Conversely, people with a high IQ, while better at appraising others' intelligence overall, are still likely to rate people of similar intelligence as themselves as having higher IQs. As the adage goes, ‘The more you know the more you know you don’t know’.

The disparity between actual IQ and perceived IQ has also been noted between genders by British psychologist Adrian Furnham. Men are prone to overestimate their intelligence by around 5 points while woman are likely to underestimate their IQ by a similar proportion.

[JE DAVIDSON, CL DOWNING, CMOF INTELLIGENCE - Handbook of Intelligence, 2000]

[International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 11-24, March 2005 ]

ee also

Dunning-Kruger effect

References