People judge each other’s intelligence all the time for a variety of reasons such as choosing a lab partner or at a job interview, but how accurate are these judgments? This study assesses the accuracy with which individuals can judge the intelligence of another after a 5-minute face-to-face interaction. One hundred and sixty-one Oregon State University undergraduate students each rated six other group members’ intelligence on a 1-72 scale after meeting for the first time. Later, they were administered three different intelligence tests: Raven’s Progressive Matrices, OTIS and a vocabulary test, which provides the study with good criteria for measuring intelligence as it utilizes multiple tests yet measures the same realm of intelligence. Contrary to expectations, there was little evidence (r=.12, p>.10) to support the contention that first impressions of intelligence are accurate; at least not in social situations. Implications of this study indicate that hasty judgments of intelligence can be misleading in situations that involve meeting multiple people at one time such as choosing study partners, committee members or at job interviews. Future studies should investigate whether longer interactions enable more accurate judgments of intelligence and whether other factors like social context and interaction motivations (e.g. job interview) matter
