This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Many of us know what it feels like to be overlooked.

The school we would love to study at doesn't love us back.

We get passed over for a job or a promotion.

When we ask to try our hand at something, we're told no.

Now sometimes rejection might be a true reflection of our abilities.

We can't run fast enough to make the team or remember all the facts needed to get through

medical school.

There are other times however, when rejection is not about our limitations, it's that other

people see us as limited.

Our concerns over how we are judged are often most acute, most charged when it comes to

the topic of intelligence.

Most of us don't just want to be smart.

We want to be seen as smart.

I just remember being taunted and being told things like, oh you're too stupid to go on

the fourth grade, you idiot, that sort of thing.

But yeah, it was really painful.

This week on Hidden Brain, many of us have knee-jerk conclusions about what intelligence

is and how it can be measured.

We think we know what intelligence is.

But do we really, it almost instantly seduced me into loving the science of IQ intelligence

and I forgot that I was supposed to be on this vendetta.

...