News

The Average American Thinks They're Above Average

by L. Turner

The average American is smarter than the average American, or at least thinks so, according to a study of average Americans. A YouGov poll published this week found that 55 percent of Americans believe they're smarter than average. In a question on the study, participants were asked to say whether they thought their intelligence was much more, slightly more, about the same, slightly less, or much less than that possessed by their fellow Americans. The study surveyed just under 1,000 people.

Shockingly, almost none of the participants said they were below average. Just three percent said they were "slightly less" intelligent; one percent said they were "much less." Most people with post-grad degrees — 51 percent — said they were "much more" intelligent that the average American, so now seems like a good time to break the news that having a post-grad degree doesn't necessarily make you "much" smarter than average.

In another question on the study, just under half of those surveyed (44 percent) said Americans possess average intelligence. Weirdly — or not so weirdly, if you're familiar with America's widening class divide, which correlates with access to a good education — poor Americans were more likely to say Americans were intelligent as a group, while rich Americans were less likely to say so.

In a blow to every Republican who capitalized on President Obama's infamous 2012 "cling to guns and religion" comments, in which the commander-in-chief rather oafishly hinted at the reality that the most economically-depressed people tend to vote against their own interests, the study found that more Republicans than Democrats think Americans aren't all that smart. Of those who said Americans had below-average intelligence, 31 percent were Republicans, while 25 percent were Democrats.

More Dems than Republicans (nine vs. five percent) said Americans were "very intelligent." Meanwhile, those post-grads were way more likely to say Americans had average or below-average intelligence.