Self-Estimated Intelligence

In 1978 Hogan devised several studies in which he asked participants, mostly American college students, to rate their own intelligence, their parents intelligence, and also to rate males and females IQ in general. This was a pioneering study and had very significant and relevant findings on the topic of intelligence. Some of the major findings from this study include:

1) Males estimate their general intelligence higher then females do

2) Nearly all participants rated their father’s IQ higher then their mothers

3) About 50% of the time females rated their IQ lower then it really is

In a more recent study these results were replicated and expanded on (Rammstedt and Rammsayer, 2002). They also found that the amount of education had different influences on each gender. For example: Men with low levels of education self-estimated higher levels of verbal fluency then males with high levels of education, while women with low levels of education rated themselves lower then both male categories and women with high education rated their verbal fluency higher then both male categories. This finding among others showed that males no not estimate their overall general intelligence greater then females, but in specific domains, including spatial intelligence, reasoning, and perceptual speed. They also found in this study that the male subjects did in fact score higher on mathematical intelligence tests, and when they adjusted the scores found no significant difference in the differences between estimation and reality. But this only worked in mathematical intelligence; males did in fact overrate their intelligence in reasoning and spatial intelligence.

All of these studies show an interesting phenomenon involved in intelligence between genders. Nowhere in the later article was any mention to any biological/psychological reasoning for the males to estimate their intelligence higher besides socio-cultural gender biases. This could in fact be a factor, but perhaps further studies are needed to look into how the differences in brain structures and thinking processes could be affecting this difference in self-estimated intelligence.