In recent years, intellectual humility (IH) has become an emerging topic in psychological research. In general, it refers to the admission and acceptance that one’s knowledge is limited, and one’s cognitive ability is imperfect. IH has been proven to be associated with many psychological attributes, such as Big Five, rational and objective thinking, academic achievement, and interpersonal relationships, et al. This article systematically reviews the definitions, characteristics, and measurements of IH, the factors influencing it, as well as its psychological functioning. Finally, we suggest that further research should investigate the relationship among the components of IH, and the inconsistent results in this area to clarify the factors mainly influencing IH and the mechanism of IH judgment.
KeywordsIntellectual HumilityDefinition and CharacteristicsMeasurementPsychological Functioning
Alfano, M., Iurino, K., Stey, P., Robinson, B., Christen, M., Yu, F., & Lapsley, D. K. (2017). Development and Validation of a Multi-Dimensional Measure of Intellectual Humility. PLoS ONE, 12, e0182950. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182950
Baehr, J. (2011). The Inquiring Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman.
Chancellor, J., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). Humble Beginnings: Current Trends, State Perspectives, and Hallmarks of Humility. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7, 819-833. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12069
Danovitch, J. H., Fisher, M., Schroder, H. M., Hambrick, D. Z., & Moser, J. (2019). Intelligence and Neurophysiological Markers of Error Monitoring Relate to Children’s Intellectual Humility. Child Development, 90, 924-939. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12960
Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., Worthington, E. L., Van Tongeren, D. R., Gartner, A. L., & Jennings, D. J. (2010). Relational Spirituality and Forgiveness: Development of the Spiritual Humility Scale (SHS). Journal of Psychology and Theology, 38, 91-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164711003800202
Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., Worthington, E. L., Van Tongeren, D. R., Gartner, A. L., Jennings, D. J., & Emmons, R. A. (2011). Relational Humility: Conceptualizing and Measuring Humility as a Personality Judgment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93, 225-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2011.558871
Davis, D. E., Rice, K. G., McElroy, S. E., DeBlaere, C., Choe, E., Van Tongeren, D. R., & Hook, J. N. (2016). Distinguishing Intellectual Humility and General Humility. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11, 215-224. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1048818
De Keersmaecker, J., & Roets, A. (2017). “Fake News”: Incorrect, but Hard to Correct. The Role of Cognitive Ability on the Impact of False Information on Social Impressions. Intelligence, 65, 107-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.10.005
Deffler, S. A., Leary, M. R., & Hoyle, R. H. (2016). Knowing What You Know: Intellectual Humility and Judgments of Recognition Memory. Personality and Individual Differences, 96, 255-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.016
Dunning, D. (2011). The Dunning-Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One’s Own Ignorance. In J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 44, pp. 247-296). Cambridge, MA: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-385522-0.00005-6
Gregg, A., Sedikides, C., & Gebauer, J. (2011). Dynamics of Identity: Between Self-Enhancement and Self-Assessment. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of Identity: Theory and Research (Vol. 1, pp. 305-327). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_14
Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2014). Exploring Solomon’s Paradox: Self-Distancing Eliminates the Self-Other Asymmetry in Wise Reasoning about Close Relationships in Younger and Older Adults. Psychological Science, 25, 1571-1580. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535400
Grossmann, I., Gerlach, T. M., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2016). Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 611-622. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616652206
Hagá, S., & Olson, K. R. (2017). “If I Only Had a Little Humility, I Would Be Perfect”: Children’s and Adults’ Perceptions of Intellectually Arrogant, Humble, and Diffident People. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12, 87-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167943
Haggard, M. C. (2016). Humility as Intellectual Virtue: Assessment and Uses of a Limitations-Owning Perspective of Intellectual Humility. Ph.D. Thesis, Ann Arbor, MI: Baylor University.
Haggard, M. C., Rowatt, W. C., Leman, J. C., Meagher, B. R., Moore, C., Fergus, T. et al. (2018). Finding Middle Ground between Intellectual Arrogance and Intellectual Servility: Development and Assessment of the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 184-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.014
Hazlett, A. (2012). Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility. Episteme, 9, 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11
Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Owen, J., Worthington Jr., E. L., & Utsey, S. O. (2013). Cultural Humility: Measuring Openness to Culturally Diverse Clients. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60, 353-366. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032595
Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Van Tongeren, D. R., Hill, P. C., Worthington, E. L., Farrell, J. E., & Dieke, P. (2015). Intellectual Humility and Forgiveness of Religious Leaders. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10, 499-506. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1004554
Hoyle, R. H., Davisson, E. K., Diebels, K. J., & Leary, M. R. (2016). Holding Specific Views with Humility: Conceptualization and Measurement of Specific Intellectual Humility. Personality and Individual Differences, 97, 165-172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.03.043
Jarvinen, M. J., & Paulus, T. B. (2016). Attachment and Cognitive Openness: Emotional Underpinnings of Intellectual Humility. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12, 74-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167944
Kross, E., & Grossmann, I. (2012). Boosting Wisdom: Distance from the Self Enhances Wise Reasoning, Attitudes, and Behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141, 43-48. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024158
Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J. (2016). Intellectual Humility and Prosocial Values: Direct and Mediated Effects. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12, 13-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167938
Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J., & Rouse, S. V. (2016). The Development and Validation of the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98, 209-221. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2015.1068174
Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J., Haggard, M. C., LaBouff, J. P., & Rowatt, W. C. (2020). Links between Intellectual Humility and Acquiring Knowledge. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 15, 155-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1579359
Leary, M. R., Diebels, K. J., Davisson, E. K., Jongman-Sereno, K. P., Isherwood, J. C., Raimi, K. T. et al. (2017). Cognitive and Interpersonal Features of Intellectual Humility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 793-813. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217697695
McElroy, S. E., Rice, K. G., Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., Hill, P. C., Worthington, E. L., & Van Tongeren, D. R. (2014). Intellectual Humility: Scale Development and Theoretical Elaborations in the Context of Religious Leadership. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 42, 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164711404200103
Meagher, B. R., Leman, J. C., Bias, J. P., Latendresse, S. J., & Rowatt, W. C. (2015). Contrasting Self-Report and Consensus Ratings of Intellectual Humility and Arrogance. Journal of Research in Personality, 58, 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.07.002
Peters, A., Rowat, W., & Johnson, M. (2011). Associations between Dispositional Humility and Social Relationship Quality. Psychology, 2, 155-161. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2011.23025
Porter, T., & Schumann, K. (2018). Intellectual Humility and Openness to the Opposing View. Self and Identity, 17, 139-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2017.1361861
Reis, H. T., Lee, K. Y., O’Keefe, S. D., & Clark, M. S. (2018). Perceived Partner Responsiveness Promotes Intellectual Humility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 21-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.05.006
Rowatt, W. C., Powers, C., Targhetta, V., Comer, J., Kennedy, S., & LaBouff, J. P. (2006). Development and Initial Validation of an Implicit Measure of Humility Relative to Arrogance. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1, 198-211. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760600885671
Samuelson, P. L., & Church, I. M. (2015). When Cognition Turns Vicious: Heuristics and Biases in Light of Virtue Epistemology. Philosophical Psychology, 28, 1095-1113. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2014.904197
Samuelson, P. L., Jarvinen, M. J., Paulus, T. B., Church, I. M., Hardy, S. A., & Barrett, J. L. (2015). Implicit Theories of Intellectual Virtues and Vices: A Focus on Intellectual Humility. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10, 389-406. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2014.967802
Tangney, J. P. (2000). Humility: Theoretical Perspectives, Empirical Findings and Directions for Future Research. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 70-82. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2000.19.1.70
Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance. Psychological Review, 117, 440-463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963
Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1989). Levels of Personal Agency: Individual Variation in Action Identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 660-671. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.660
Wang, J., & Yang, X. (2019). Intellectual Humility and Owning One’s Limitations. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 12, 353-369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-019-00260-8
Whitcomb, D., Battaly, H., Baehr, J., & Howard-Snyder, D. (2017). Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94, 509-539. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12228
Wright, J. C., Nadelhoffer, T., Perini, T., Langville, A., Echols, M., & Venezia, K. (2017). The Psychological Significance of Humility. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12, 3-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167940
Zachry, C. E., Phan, L. V., Blackie, L. E. R., & Jayawickreme, E. (2018). Situation-Based Contingencies Underlying Wisdom-Content Manifestations: Examining Intellectual Humility in Daily Life. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 73, 1404-1415. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby016
Zakay, D., & Glicksohn, J. (1992). Overconfidence in a Multiple-Choice Test and Its Relationship to Achievement. The Psychological Record, 42, 519-524. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399619
Zmigrod, L., Zmigrod, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2019). The Psychological Roots of Intellectual Humility: The Role of Intelligence and Cognitive Flexibility. Personality and Individual Differences, 141, 200-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.016