<p>I am just teasing you guys, I know it's not "misunderstimate" with a "mis."</p>
<p>In my case, yes, people always underestimated my intelligence. I never understood why, since I was a good student and never felt dumb, but I eventually learned that "normal" people equate interpersonal abilities with intelligence, and since my interpersonal abilities were low (poor social skills, poor communication), it naturally followed that people perceived me as being unintelligent. I am more of a logical than an intuitive thinker, so it took me a while to grasp their reasoning...</p>
<p>Anyway, their taking me for an idiot motivated me to prove them wrong, which I accomplished not by learning interpersonal skills but by excelling in school. Did I succeed in proving them wrong? Sort of. Some people remained convinced that I was unintelligent, and attributed my academic success to my working my butt off (that was their conclusion); some others apparently rethought their definition of intelligence; and some others were baffled and coped with the dissonance by taking their negative emotions out on me: they bullied me, called me names, laughed in my face, etc.</p>
<p>Would my life have been better if people had accurately assessed my level of intelligence? I am not sure. I would have spared myself a lot of emotional pain, that's for sure, but at the same time I am not sure if I would have found the motivation to be a top student and eventually go to college. I just hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that my martyrdom will pay off some day.</p>
<p>“If you were really as intelligent as you seem to believe then you would have learned interpersonal skills in addition to excelling in school.”</p>
<p>That might be true if we remove diagnosable mental conditions from the equation.</p>
<p>"I feel most people think I think I’m smarter than they think I am. "</p>
<p>I think that you think that people think that you are smarter than they think you are because deep inside you think that you are smarter than they think you are.</p>
<p>I’m glad I wasn’t the only one that was thinking of InnovativeBoxx.</p>
<p>Of course people equate confidence to intelligence. A person can speak nothing but ignorance and still be perceived as an intelligent and logical human being because of the way he presents his arguments. Those that are shy with their compositions tend to be overlooked as ignorant or wrong because they appear unsure of themselves. If they are unsure then why should a spectator believe them?</p>
<p>I had the same problem in high school. I’m a really quite and anxious person who rarely speaks my mind and has insight to contribute to the audience. People wold consider me having low intelligence despite my excellent grades in school and ability to outperform my peers with minimal effort. I had no interpersonal skills when I was a teenager. Interpersonal skills is not the end all intellectual trait. Interpersonal skills is a type of intelligence just like spatial and musical/rhythmic.</p>
<p>The probably is that people’s idea of intelligence is subjective and usually created by the general opinion of what intelligence is (IQ tests, confident speakers, well versed in language arts) rather then the theoretical qualities of intelligence. Not even psychologists have a universal definition of intelligence other than the ability to learn and think (which anyone can do unless they have a severe disability).</p>
<p>I know for a fact that my life would be more productive if people considered me intelligent. I go through bouts emotional pain because of the negative comments I receive.</p>
<p>My interpersonal skills in high school weren’t that great, but I just didn’t care what people thought about me. The sooner you stop caring whether people think you’re intelligent, the more happy you’ll be.</p>
<p>Why do you want to be perceived as intelligent? All my time in high school I’ve been trying to avoid that. </p>
<ol>
<li>It doesn’t get you laid.</li>
<li>It makes everyone bother you with homework questions. (this is a big one I hate)</li>
<li>It’s hard to have a debate with people when they’re convinced you’re way smarter than they are.</li>
<li>It sets expectations for you: essentially you are forced to constantly keep demonstrating your intelligence or it will be assumed you lost it.</li>
<li>It makes people envious. Do you really want people to always brag about that one quiz they beat you on?</li>
</ol>
<p>One girl i was talking to had the same self esteem issue-people didn’t think she was smart, only a hard worker. In school she works very hard to learn, does her homework all the time, and always pesters the teachers and other students when she doesn’t get something (quite often). This is a contrast to the “smart people” who never do their hwk and cram the night before.</p>
<p>So do you think you are smart only because you work hard and good grades?</p>
<p>People don’t equate intelligence with interpersonal skills at all. In fact it’s usually the opposite. Look at stereotypical nerds like Stever Urkel. And the popular, talkative girl in class is usually perceived as a vapid bimbo, whether or not this is true.</p>
<p>People judge how smart you are based on what you say in class (what you say when you say something, not how often you say something). Or just in casual conversation. They are not listening to how “smooth” you are; when you talk about abstract ideas people can pick up on how intelligent you are sometimes. Sometimes it takes a while to get to know someone before you really know.</p>
<p>But yeah people underestimate my intelligence all the time. But it doesn’t bother me, and I don’t blame them. It’s pretty easy to underestimate intelligence when you’re talking to the most intelligent guy in the room ;P, lol.</p>
<p>One person certainly underestimated me recently. She didn’t know me at all, nor did she know what school I go to. Being from Canada, she quizzed me on a few cultural things that I didn’t know, because I really don’t know much about Canada other than the capital and a few of their “states.” She rolled her eyes (offended because I didn’t know much about her country - lol up yours girl) and told me to “read a book some time” (she was referring to <em>any</em> book, not a book on Canada). I could have easily embarassed her verbally in a variety of ways, because the fact is she didn’t appear too bright (and I, secretly, am, of course). But I was making friends at the time and thought better of it. That and it’s lame trying to prove how intelligent you are.</p>
<p>"So do you think you are smart only because you work hard and good grades? "</p>
<p>I think I am smart because I am able to get better grades than my peers without studying as much as they do. I think I am smart because I am able to excel at a subject that many people find challenging. I am the type of person who comes to his dorm room from school and kills the evening watching TV or playing video games, then crams the night before a test or a problem set is due.</p>
<p>^^I agree with peter_parker. People tend to think of “smart” people as the ones who sit silently in the corner during class, taking notes furiously and then heading to the library to study for hours. Yeah, they might get an A on the test (assuming it’s a science test or something quantitative), but that just makes them workhorses. People who are a lot more laid-back about things are usually judged to be less intelligent than the former people, often by those students themselves.</p>
<p>I think there’s a huge different between being academic and being SMART. Poring over your textbooks for hours is, to me, not as valuable as being worldly and knowledgeable about things you’re interested in rather than things you’re tested on (although the smartest people, in my opinion, can do both).</p>
<p>omg, i hate those people that say that. “He’s not smart, he just works really hard.” - that’s completely ridiculous! the people that say that are just jealous and want to believe they still have an advantage over the kids that got into harvard. i know the smart kids are the ones who have a little humility and make an effort to learn things. no one gets ahead in life by being lazy and procrastinating.</p>