We’ve all come across people that have immediately struck us as intelligent. There are, undeniably, certain quirks or traits that immediately give off an air of knowing more than the average joe.

However, there are just as many behaviors assumed to be signs of intellect, that really aren’t. Or even if they do historically denote a higher IQ, people hijack these traits in an effort to seem smarter. In an age of blatant misinformation and fake experts, knowing how to spot the difference seems more vital than ever.

That’s why the answers to this question, “What is NOT a sign of intelligence, but people think it is?” posed on Reddit, could be helpful. Or at the very least, it’ll give you a boost of vindication for not thinking that one guy at trivia night was the genius everyone else thought he was.

Below are the 10 most popular themes we pulled.

Having an opinion on everything

“Smart people that I know refrain from giving opinions on things they don’t know. Partly because they have good awareness of what they actually know…I also think that the more intelligent you are, the more you recognize the nuance in every subject, and therefore it becomes more difficult to state a flat-out, black and white opinion.”

“The absolute inability of some people to simply say ‘I don’t know’ is astounding. They’ll speculate vague scenarios for an hour without even being able to explain where they believe they are getting their hunches.”

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Challenging or contradicting everything people say

“I have a colleague that does this and I’ve started to disengage and let them dig their own hole because some of the contrarian positions she takes is just plain stupid.”

“I’ve noticed a lot of people who are like this tend to also have a self-righteous attitude.”

Telling it like it is

“In my experience people who ‘tell it like it is’ are generally on the lower side of........

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