International Men Of Immodesty

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 20 Apr 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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Men show off a boastful nature while women maintain their modesty, this is the finding of a study published today, 20th April 2009, in the British Journal of Psychology, which compared how intelligent men and women believe themselves to be.

The worldwide study carried out by Sophie von Stumm and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic from Goldsmiths, University of London, and Adrian Furnham from University College London investigated the self-rated levels of intelligence of 2,006 people across 12 countries.

The researchers asked people to place themselves on a scale of general intelligence ranging from 55 to 145 IQ points. The 687 men and 1,319 women from Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Iran, Israel, Malaysia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US were also asked to rate themselves on seven specific intelligences including verbal, logical, interpersonal, musical and spatial, and their emotional intelligence.

Sophie von Stumm said: "We asked the participants to estimate their own IQ. We didn't measure the participants' actual intelligence, nor ask the participants to rate others'. We then compared these self-rated levels of intelligence across the 12 nations and between men and women, and some interesting patterns emerged.

"We found a consistent difference in how intelligent men and women believe themselves to be; with men giving themselves significantly higher levels of intelligence in all 12 counties. Not only did men award themselves high scores in traditional male abilities like spatial and logical reasoning, they also gave themselves higher ratings in verbal ability.

The largest difference in self-rated intelligence was found in France, where men rated their intelligence on average 15 IQ points higher than the women did; such augmentations were found across eight out of the ten estimates of intelligence.

The second largest sex difference was in the British sample with males rating their intelligence on average 10 IQ points higher than the women did.

"These results do not reflect any actual differences between men and women's levels of intelligence," added Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. "Rather, our study shows that men like to have a high opinion of themselves and are prone to over-estimate their level of intelligence while women are more modest, and even under-estimate their own intelligence.

"Interestingly, these patterns were universal across all 12 countries. This could be down to the different values placed on men and women in societies throughout the world. While attributes like modesty, tenderness and care are nurtured in girls, opposing qualities like assertiveness, strength and success are valued and nurtured in males."

Source
British Journal of Psychology

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