My impression is that everybody thinks they’re the smartest person in the room, and judges everyone else’s intelligence by how much they agree.
I think this is generalizing from one example; I’ve certainly met people who didn’t think they were the smartest person in the room, either because they’re below median intelligence and reasonably expect that most people are smarter than them or because even though they’re above median they’ve met enough people visibly smarter than them. (I’ve been in rooms where I wasn’t the smartest person.)
I suspect that people may not be very good at ranking, and are mostly able to put people in buckets of “probably smarter than me,” “about as smart as me,” and “probably less smart than me” (that is, I think the ‘levels below mine’ blur together similarly to how the ‘levels above mine’ do).
I also suspect that a lot of very clever people think that they’re the best at their particular brand of intelligence, but then it’s just a question of self-awareness as to whether or not they see the reason they’re picking that particular measure. I can recall, as a high schooler, telling someone at one point “I’m the smartest person at my high school” and then having to immediately revise that statement to clarify ‘smartest’ in a way that excluded a friend of mine who definitely had more subject matter expertise in several fields and probably had higher g but had (I thought, at least) a narrower intellectual focus.
I think this is generalizing from one example; I’ve certainly met people who didn’t think they were the smartest person in the room, either because they’re below median intelligence and reasonably expect that most people are smarter than them or because even though they’re above median they’ve met enough people visibly smarter than them. (I’ve been in rooms where I wasn’t the smartest person.)
I suspect that people may not be very good at ranking, and are mostly able to put people in buckets of “probably smarter than me,” “about as smart as me,” and “probably less smart than me” (that is, I think the ‘levels below mine’ blur together similarly to how the ‘levels above mine’ do).
I also suspect that a lot of very clever people think that they’re the best at their particular brand of intelligence, but then it’s just a question of self-awareness as to whether or not they see the reason they’re picking that particular measure. I can recall, as a high schooler, telling someone at one point “I’m the smartest person at my high school” and then having to immediately revise that statement to clarify ‘smartest’ in a way that excluded a friend of mine who definitely had more subject matter expertise in several fields and probably had higher g but had (I thought, at least) a narrower intellectual focus.