Scientists have discovered which people consider themselves smarter than everyone else

Research: conspiracy theorists significantly overestimate their intelligence and support from others. An international group of scientists published the results of a large-scale study in the prestigious journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB).

A large-scale study involving more than four thousand Americans revealed an interesting pattern. Participants in the experiment performed various tests on logic, perception, and risk assessment, after which they evaluated their own success. Comparing self-assessment with actual results, scientists found that people who tend to unreasonably highly evaluate their abilities are much more likely to believe in various conspiracy theories - from denying the Moon landing to the belief that vaccination is a tool of government control.

"We knew that supporters of conspiracy theories are often very confident in their correctness," explained the study's author, Cornell University professor Gordon Pennycook. "But now it has become clear that they generally exhibit excessive confidence in their intellectual abilities."

Particularly revealing was an experiment with virtually indistinguishable images, where participants' success depended more on random guessing than on real skills. Even under these conditions, people confident in their success demonstrated a higher propensity for conspiratorial views. This observation confirms that inflated self-esteem is a stable personality characteristic, not a situational phenomenon.

In addition, conspiracy theorists greatly overestimate how many people support them. Although on average only 12% of respondents shared a particular theory, those who believed in it thought they were in the majority - 93% of cases.

Although it was previously believed that faith in conspiracies is due to the desire to feel special or explain events in a convenient worldview, the new research shows: a much bigger role is played by simple distortion of perception - overestimation of one's own mental abilities and confidence that "everyone thinks so."