People who felt misunderstood or uncared for as children can feel hurt and angry when they don’t feel understood as adults. This could lead them to think that the people they’re dealing with aren’t intelligent enough to understand them, but underneath that is a feeling of loneliness and isolation. Kids who are made to feel stupid can grow up wanting to flip the script and make others feel stupid, too.


It could also be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), wherein people have an inflated sense of self-importance. Some people with NPD convince themselves that they’re smarter than everyone else and even ridicule other people for their supposed subpar intelligence in the service of establishing this superiority. But “underneath all that is a deep sense of inferiority,”