Measuring how smart people are is somewhat pointless – intelligence is categorical. Somebody can be super good at analytical ‘figuring out stuff,’ and super useless at conceptualizing what to do next.

Research shows that people tend to think they’re funnier, more logical, more popular, better looking, nicer, more trustworthy, wiser, and more intelligent than others.

A further complication is that only effortful tasks tend to register: this means that the more expert we are at something, the less we will see brain activity. An expert will show lower levels of activation than someone unfamiliar with the task: equally a part of the brain that is normally not particularly significant in a certain task may show up

Dweck and Mueller found that children who were praised for their “smartness” did roughly 25 percent worse on the final set of problems compared with how they did on the first set. They were more likely to blame their poor performance on a lack of ability; consequently, they enjoyed working on the problems less and gave up on them sooner.

For example, a small study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard looked at the IQ of some of their workers in two situations. At first they tested their IQ when they were not being distracted or interrupted. Then they tested their IQ when they were receiving emails and phone calls. The study found that ‘technological distraction’ – just getting emails an