This is Hidden Brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantan.
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, you know, told things like,
like, oh, you're too stupid to go on the fourth grade.
You idiot, like that sort of thing.
But yeah, it was really, it was really painful.
This week on Hidden Brain,
many of us have knee-jocked conclusions about what intelligence is and how it can be measured.