• Question: Would you consider yourself as cheeky yet smart?

    Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 24 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Lynne Thomas

      Lynne Thomas answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      I am definitely cheeky! I think other people should be the judge of whether I’m smart or not but I’m definitely good at some things in my job and less good at others! I can be very dumb at times!

    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      When people are asked if they are smart they tend to display a bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. People who are below average intelligence tend to over-estimate their intelligence and fail to recognise intelligence in others or their own limitations. People with higher intelligence often do the opposite as they assume that everyone understands things as well as they do. This can sometimes lead to what is called impostor syndrome, where you think you don’t belong somewhere because everyone is better than you and you think eventually you will be “found out” or that you are a fraud. This is actually quite common amongst scientists.

      In America there is also a logical fallacy that most Americans consider themselves smarter than average. Obviously, this is impossible because not everyone can be above average.

      So after all that, I don’t want to answer if I’m smart or not 😛 However, I have been called cheeky on numerous occasions.

    • Photo: Phillip Manning

      Phillip Manning answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      I work with very smart people. My job is to identify a problem and then to build a teams to solve the said problem. There are many kinds of ‘smart’ and maybe building a good team is part of that. I do often tell folks that I am ‘as dumb as a piece of wood’…but that is usually me just being cheeky 😉

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      When you get to university, there are so many people around who know more than you that you forget how clever you actually are!
      Also people can be smart in lots of different ways – sometimes the people who know the most facts are the worst at doing science because they’re so good at reciting facts that they don’t know how to problem solve and think about things themselves.
      Being slightly cheeky is often quite helpful – especially when you have to go talk to your boss and you haven’t done something you should have done!

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