Are famous people and celebrities smarter?

Yes and no. The truth is, it depends. Famous people and celebrities in some fields are probably smarter than average, whilst celebrities from other fields are probably just average. Keep reading to know why !

Does fame have anything to do with IQ?

Fame might have something to do with IQ, but very little. We could not find any research on the matter, so this is just a guess. The thing is, many activities and fields that lead to fame are not of intellectual nature or IQ is not necessarily correlated at all with performance in the said fields (Eg: sports or music).

Along these lines, there are other fields in which IQ is important that might lead to fame among the general public, like research or entrepreneurship. In these cases, reaching incredibly huge amounts of success within these fields is necessary to become famous. And in order to reach such huge amounts of success, having a high IQ is a necessary condition (remember we are talking about fields of intellectual nature).

For instance, there’s no doubt Albert Einstein’s IQ was behind him making the great discoveries that would make him so famous and internationally acclaimed.

In conclusion, IQ does not lead to fame, being exceptional in domains that are highly valued by society does. In some domains, IQ is a necessity if one wants to stand out and get to the top, in others, IQ is not among the most important skills needed to succeed.

Is the IQ of celebrities higher than average?

No, the IQ of celebrities can’t be higher than the average IQ, since in their fields having a high IQ is not a skill necessary to succeed. What leads to fame is being an amazing performer in the domains that are most valued by society (eg: football, basketball, etc…). In most of these fields, IQ is not within the set of skills that is necessary to succeed. For instance, in sports, IQ would not be important, having a great physical fitness and a lot of domain-specific talent would.

However, some people become famous for their deeds in intellectual domains, such as scientific research. In such cases, yes, they have a higher IQ than average, since a high IQ is what leads to exceptional performance within their domains, which will in turn lead to fame.

We are basically repeating the same we have mentioned above, since both questions “if fame has anything to do with IQ” and if “celebrities’ IQ is higher” are essentially the same.

What if the goal itself was not exceptional performance within a domain but becoming famous instead? Would a smart person have an advantage?

This is a very interesting question. All things being equal, yes, the smarter person would have a great advantage. If two people were challenged to become famous, assuming they both have average talent and skills in most domains, the one with the highest IQ would be more likely to reach the goal.

Why? You might be wondering.

Well, in this case, fame is not a consequence, but a goal. It is like a reasoning problem to be solved “How do I get from point A to point B”.

And, as you know, IQ is all about reasoning ability, so the smarter person would probably be able to come up with a better plan. He would also be able to execute it better.

Of course, becoming famous in itself is hard, and there is also a lot of luck and randomness involved. Becoming famous (depending on what we are meaning by fame) might also be impossible for most people.

Maybe social skills would be far more important than IQ for such a weird experiment.

The answer to the question would also depend on what we define as fame and on how we would measure it.

Since there is little data from which we could draw any reliable hypotheses, the best we can do is to guess!

And, of course, the second best thing you can do is to take our free IQ test to find out if you would really have a higher likelihood of becoming famous.