Prejudice and Self-Perceived vs Psychometric Intelligence

Results of a study carried out in Belgium (n=183, adults from the general community) revealed that the link between ethnic prejudice and intelligence differs depending on whether intelligence is self-assessed (participants were asked to estimate their intelligence on a scale ranging from 0 to 100) or actual, i.e. psychometrically assessed. In fact, being intelligent (which undermines prejudice) vs believing to be intelligent (and probably perceiving the world in terms of superiority and inferiority) had opposite correlations with subtle racism.

Our results revealed opposite relationships: whereas individuals who scored higher (vs. lower) on an intelligence test showed lower levels of racial prejudice, individuals who perceived themselves as being more intelligent compared to others showed higher levels of racial prejudice. (...) The present results indicate that being more intelligent is related with less racial prejudice, but judging that one is more intelligent than others is related with more racial prejudice. (De Keersmaecker et al., 2017)

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- De Keersmaecker, J., Onraet, E., Lepouttre, N. & Roets, A. (2017). The opposite effects of actual and self-perceived intelligence on racial prejudice. Personality and Individual Differences, 112, 136-138.
- photograph by Magnum photographer Erich Lessing (1923-2018) (Cesenatico, 1960) via