Interventions specifically designed to foster humility

A pioneering study

In 2025, O’Connor and associates designed and validated an intervention that fosters intellectual humility.  In their study, 445 adults were assigned to one of three conditions.  In the first condition, participants completed a task, adapted from a procedure that Lu and Sinha (2019) applied, that was designed to induce dichotomous thinking—a style of thinking in which individuals tend to classify objects or items into two categories, such as right or wrong, and disregard nuances.  Specifically

• participants received pairs of pictures, such as a black dog and white dog or a pizza or salad,
• these individuals were then prompted to assign a binary label to each picture, such as black versus white or unhealthy versus healthy,
• similarly, participants listened to six scenarios and were prompted to decide, as rapidly as possible, whether the choice or action of the protagonist was right or wrong.

In the second condition, participants completed a task that was designed to induce dialectical thinking—a style in which individuals do not classify objects or items into two categories but recognise nuances, graded variations, and contradictions.  To achieve this goal

• participants read about a dilemma that Kohlberg posed in 1963, about a man, Heinz, who steals medicine he cannot afford to save his ill wife,
• the participants were then prompted to contemplate the dilemma from multiple perspectives and to consider three advantages and three disadvantages of his behaviour,
• the participants also considered why people cannot determine with certainty, whether this behaviour is right or wrong.

In the final condition, a control condition, participants read a passage from Moby Dick and rated their level of enjoyment.  All participants then completed various scales, such as

• the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale to measure various facets of intellectual humility,
• the Dichotomous Thinking Inventory (Oshio, 2009) that included questions like “It feels good when boundaries are clear for all things” and “Information should be defined as either true or false”,
• a measure that assesses the five main personality traits, in which individuals specify the degree to which various adjectives describe their character, such as compassionate, focussed, talkative, moody, and imaginative to assess agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience, respectively.

As the findings revealed, relative to the other participants, the individuals who read about Heinz—a task that was designed to elicit dialectical thinking—were more likely to exhibit intellectual humility.  This finding persisted after controlling personality and level of education.  A decrease in dichotomous thinking mediated this effect of dialectical thinking on intellectual humility.

The rationale

Arguably, if individuals tend to think dichotomously, they assume that other people are either proponents or opponents of various positions. These individuals, thus, presume they are unlikely to shift from one position, such as anti-vaccination, to an opposing position, such as pro-vaccination.  Therefore, they feel their beliefs will persist rather than shift.  These individuals will not be likely to listen to alternative perspectives.

In contrast, if individuals think dialectically rather than dichotomously, they assume that other people can espouse a range of positions on each issue—including nuanced and conflicting perspectives.  These individuals thus recognise their position may shift marginally and subtly over time.  Consequently, they may be more inclined to respect perspectives that diverge from their own position, manifesting as intellectual humility. 

The rationale

Arguably, if individuals tend to think dichotomously, they assume that other people are either proponents or opponents of various positions. These individuals, thus, presume they are unlikely to shift from one position, such as anti-vaccination, to an opposing position, such as pro-vaccination.  Therefore, they feel their beliefs will persist rather than shift.  These individuals will not be likely to listen to alternative perspectives.

In contrast, if individuals think dialectically rather than dichotomously, they assume that other people can espouse a range of positions on each issue—including nuanced and conflicting perspectives.  These individuals thus recognise their position may shift marginally and subtly over time.  Consequently, they may be more inclined to respect perspectives that diverge from their own position, manifesting as intellectual humility. 

Experimental protocols

As these findings imply, experiences, activities, or programs that encourage dialectical thinking should foster intellectual thinking. The first question, then, is whether dialectical thinking is indeed modifiable.

Some research protocols or activities can at least prime dialectical thinking temporarily.  These studies imply that particular exercises or circumstances might promote this thinking style. For example, in a study conducted by Li et al. (2021), university students were exposed to one of two conditions.  In the control condition

• participants received paper in which two circles appeared,
• one circle represented a goal they wanted to achieve—to be employed at an established company,
• the other circle represented the main cause or causes that could fulfill this goal, such as high grades,
• participants were invited to draw a line from the circle that represents the causes to the circle that represents the goal,
• finally, participants explained how they could foster these causes to achieve the goal.

The other condition, designed to promote dialectical thinking, was similar except

• four circles appeared on the paper, three of which represent a different cause of this goal,
• participants were invited to draw lines between multiple circles—to represent how the causes are related to each other and to the goal,
• finally, participants explained how these causes are interconnected to each other.

Accordingly, to prime dialectical thinking, participants were encouraged to consider the multifaceted relationships between causes and some outcome.  In this study, dialectical thinking affected the expectations of individuals around climate change.  That is, participants who experienced dialectical thinking predicted that changes in the climate may be stable over time but include cycles rather than only a linear trend (Li et al., 2021).  This study, therefore, reveals that specific activities may prime dialectical thinking.

Strategies to encourage dialectical thinking: Debates

These experimental protocols, however, may not be useful in everyday settings.  Fortunately, research has shown that various interventions can foster dialectical thinking in practice.

For example, as Hu, Wang, et al. (2021) revealed, after individuals write about periods in which they studied abroad, they are more likely to think dialectically.  They are, for example, more likely to feel that two contradictory statements may both seem reasonable—such as the notion that excessive use of mobile phones can promote ADHD but also improve concentration (for a similar measure, see Peng & Nisbett, 1999).      

Other studies have also explored the conditions that promote dialectical thinking.  To illustrate, Li et al. (2021) examined whether debates at university foster dialectical thinking in students. In the first study, 48 undergraduate students, enrolled at Jiangxi Normal University, participated in debates about six topics, such as whether forgiveness is a panacea or whether cooperation facilitates learning more than competition.  Before and after this set of debates, these students answered questions that assess their position on each topic, ranging from a scale from 1 to 7.  After the debates,

• students were more inclined to choose a number that was closer to the midpoint of 4,
• hence, students tended to adopt a moderate position on these issues, emblematic of dialectical thinking.

The second study compared the level of dialectical thinking style of 124 students who attended one of two classes: a class in which debates were often organised and a class in which debates were not organised. Otherwise, the classes were identical. At the start and end of each semester, all students completed a measure of dialectical thinking (Wu & Lin, 2005; for evidence of validity, see Zhang et al., 2011). This scale assessed the degree to which the students consider matters from different perspectives, integrate their beliefs with the perspective of other people, and strive to maintain interpersonal harmony.  As the results demonstrated, at the end of this semester, students were more likely to think dialectically—such as consider multiple perspectives and integrate these perspectives with their own beliefs—if they had participated in debates than if they had not participated in debates.   Presumably, debates may foster dialectical thinking because

• during debates, participants need to consider opposing perspectives,
• debates might highlight that most issues are nuanced.

Strategies to encourage dialectical thinking: Insights from DBT

Finally, practitioners who apply dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT, as first proposed by Linehan (1993), also utilise a range of strategies to encourage dialectical thinking. Bonavitacola et al. (2019) outlines many of the approaches that DBT practitioners can utilise to foster dialectical thinking in clients—approaches that could be adapted to other settings as well.  Here are some approaches that could be adopted in many settings, such as workplaces too (for other sources of these approaches, see Miller et al, 2006; Rathus & Miller, 2014).  Leaders and authorities—such as managers, teachers, mentors, and practitioners—could

• acknowledge that neither they nor anyone else is the font of truth,
• acknowledge that, although data and evidence are informative, intuitions and hunches are also useful,
• prioritise and encourage thoughts that are helpful or useful rather than necessarily true or accurate, acknowledging that objective truth is nuanced, multifaceted, and sometimes contradictory.
• encourage individuals to shun words that imply extremes, such as replace always with sometimes,
• inspire people to identify the kernel of truth in all perspectives, recognising that nobody is always correct,
• suggest that individuals substitute absolute statements, such as “you should…” or “you are…” with references to intuitions or feelings, such as “I sometimes feel that…”,
• encourage individuals to consider the similarities rather than differences between people who espouse conflicting beliefs or ideologies,
• suggest that people could relinquish blame and, instead, recognise that most behaviours or outcomes can be ascribed to multiple and interrelated events and interactions over time, and
• distribute worksheets in which individuals need to distinguish the dialectical statements, such as “I can understand why you feel this way, and I feel differently about this matter”, from the dichotomous statements, such as “I know I am right about this matter”.

Although these approaches may be helpful, managers, teachers, mentors, and practitioners should model dialectical thinking themselves when they encourage dialectical thinking.  These individuals should not, for example, imply that people must always think dialectically.  Instead, these individuals should convey these approaches as perspectives that may be helpful. 

Awareness of social complexity

Other studies imply that a range of other interventions could also foster dialectical thinking.  To illustrate, the behaviours of people, including the beliefs they espouse, often varies across settings and circumstances.  A person might seem compassionate in one setting, like a café, but hostile in another setting, such as a bar.  That is, people are sometimes unpredictable or even inconsistent over time.  Some individuals are more aware than other individuals of the degree to which people may shift their behaviour over time and across settings—called social complexity.  Interestingly, this awareness that people may shift their behaviour over time and across settings is positively associated with coping flexibility or the capacity of people to apply many coping strategies in challenging or stressful circumstances (e.g., Kurman, 2011).

As revealed by Ng and Chen (2023)—two academics from the Hong Kong Metropolitan University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University respectively—dialectical thinking mediates the association between this awareness of social complexity and coping flexibility.  This finding, therefore, implies that an awareness of social complexity may foster dialectical thinking. 

Specifically, in one of their studies, 171 adults, living in Hong Kong, completed an online survey. The survey comprised three measures:

• awareness of social complexity, derived from the Social Axioms Survey II (Leung et al., 2012), that included items such as “People may have opposite behaviours on different occasions”,
• the dialectical self scale (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2015), exemplified by items like “I sometimes believe two things that contradict each other”, and
• the coping flexibility scale (Kato, 2012) that included items like “When stressed, I use several ways to cope and make the situation better”.

As structural equation modelling revealed, dialectical thinking mediated the association between an awareness of social complexity and coping flexibility.  A longitudinal study, in which participants completed the survey one two occasions, separated by a year, replicated these findings.  Social complexity at one time predicted dialectical thinking at a later time, after controlling dialectical thinking at the previous time (Ng & Chen, 2023). These results confirm that awareness of social complexity may foster dialectical thinking rather than vice versa. 

Presumably, when individuals recognise that people may change their behaviour and attitude across settings, they gradually appreciate that specific events can generate a range of outcomes, depending on the circumstances. They realise that such events cannot be simply categorised as positive or negative—an awareness that epitomises and promotes dialectical thinking.  Because of this dialectical thinking, individuals realise that some coping strategies, such as meditation, may be effective in some circumstances but not in other circumstances.  Over time, individuals are more inclined to learn which strategies are effective in various settings, enhancing their coping flexibility (cf., Cheng, 2009).

The benefit of guided conversations

Rather than merely foster the determinants of humility, researchers have also developed interventions that are purposefully designed to elicit humility—especially intellectual humility.  One of these interventions is predicated on the notion that people tend to feel less defensive if they can establish trusting relationships.  Thorson et al. (2025), for example, designed and validated an intervention that revolves around four guided conversations.  Each conversation was designed to enable pairs of individuals to practice specific norms and expectations they learned in a classroom to address a challenging situation.  Here is an outline of these four conversations:

• Expectation: Show we care about the feelings and perspectives of the other person even if we disagree.  In response to a series of prompts, participants shared their values with one another, paraphrased one another to demonstrate understanding, and discussed how their values were similar and different.
• Expectation: We acknowledge that our beliefs could be incorrect. Participants discussed two scenarios that are morally ambiguous.  They each shared how they would respond to the circumstance and paraphrased the responses of one another. They also considered how their background or values may have influenced their perspectives.
• Expectation: We welcome clumsy conversations and forgive errors: Participants discussed an issue about which they feel strongly.  They asked each other guided questions to explore these opinions.  Next, the participants discussed these opinions, exploring how they feel when other people misconstrue or disapprove these perspectives.
• Expectation: We manage our emotions during conversations. Participants identified an issue over which they disagree.  The individuals explained their position in turn, followed a guide to ask each other questions, and paraphrased one another.  Finally, the participants discussed the similarities and differences in their opinions.

After each conversation, the participants, who comprised over 9000 adults, individually answered some questions that were designed to assess their potential to become friends, their trust in this person, and the degree to which they felt accepted by this person.  They also completed a measure of intellectual humility both before the intervention as well as immediately after and a month after the intervention.  A sample item was “I accept that my beliefs may be wrong”.

Intellectual humility did significantly improve over time. If the potential to become friends, trust, and degree to which they felt accepted by the other person was elevated, this improvement was especially pronounced.  That is, a sense of affiliation during these conversations amplified the effect of this intervention on intellectual humility.  Arguably, this sense of affiliation diminishes the need in individuals to inflate themselves.  Individuals do not feel as defensive, fostering their willingness to acknowledge their limitations (for a similar theory, see Itzchakov & Reis 2021).  

Ineffective interventions around collaborative dialogue

Some interventions that were designed to foster collaborative dialogue have not demonstrated the capacity to successfully boost intellectual humility.  To illustrate, one study, conducted by Prinzing and Vazquez (2026), compared adolescents who had enrolled in a program that revolved around collaborative dialogue with adolescents who had not enrolled in this program on intellectual humility.  The program was called the National High School Ethics Bowl.  During this program

• students discussed ongoing ethical and political issues within a format that deters an adversarial style but promotes respect,
• in particular, students are judged on the degree to which they engage in the ideas of their opponent and respond thoughtfully.

Before and after this experience, students who had completed the program as well as students who had not completed the program received a series of measures, such as

• the Intellectual Humility Scale (Leary et al., 2017), comprising items like “I accept that my beliefs and attitudes may be wrong”,
• the overclaiming technique (Paulhus et al., 2003), in which participants indicate whether they are familiar with 25 concepts, such as the Federal Bureau of Budget Inspections, many of which are fictitious,
• questions that gauge the degree to which the participants feel warm or favourable towards people whose political and ethical opinions diverge markedly from their own beliefs.

The program did not appear to significantly boost intellectual humility.  That is, the degree to which intellectual humility, purported familiarity with fictitious concepts, or attitudes towards diverse opinions changed over time did not differ between students who completed the program and their peers. Two additional studies, one of which was a randomised control trial, replicated this pattern of results. 

Visual Thinking Strategies

Visual Thinking Strategies, sometimes called VTS, may also foster intellectual humility.  This approach, proposed and promulgated by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine, revolves around guided discussions of artworks and other visual media (Albert et al., 2022; Housen, 2002).  Visual Thinking Strategies are designed to enhance the observation, reasoning, and communication skills of individuals.  Specifically, while examining a visual image, individuals are prompted to consider what is happening, to contemplate the evidence of this interpretation, and then to explore the picture even further. The facilitator of this conversation paraphrases the responses of participants, highlights some features of the image that substantiate these responses, and integrates the perspectives of participants. Several key principles guide this approach. For example

• the facilitator encourages individuals to derive interpretations from observable details rather than personal opinion,
• the facilitator validates rather than judges or refutes the perspectives of participants so individuals feel safe to express and to explore their experiences,
• the facilitator encourages participants to utilise, to extend, and to integrate the interpretations of one another, exemplifying the role of collective dialogue and a shared pursuit of meaning,
• the facilitator attempts to shift the initial tendency of individuals to describe visual features to more nuanced, abstract, and critical analyses.

Because of several reasons, Visual Thinking Strategies may promote intellectual humility. For example

• participants are exposed to multiple interpretations of one visual image—and thus recognise their beliefs may not encompass all possibilities and could thus be limited,
• participants develop their metacognitive ability, in which they learn to contemplate why they reach specific conclusions—an ability that could encourage these individuals to recognise their beliefs may be derived from biases rather than evidence,
• participants learn to tolerate uncertainty—and thus do not feel the need to feign knowledge,
• because responses are not judged as right or wrong, individuals are not as defensive when other participants extend their previous interpretations—and hence become more willing to revise their beliefs.

Ardenghi et al. (2026) explored the possibility that Visual Thinking Strategies may foster intellectual humility.  In this study, Italian medical students completed a module on communication skills; 102 of the 138 students also attended sessions that utilised Visual Thinking Strategies.  Before and after the module, the students completed several measures including the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale.  Three subscales of this measure improved as a consequence of the communication module:

• independence of intellect and ego, exemplified by items like “When someone contradicts my most important beliefs, it feels like a personal attack” [reverse scored],
• respect for the perspectives of other people, corresponding to items like “I can respect others, even if I disagree with them in important ways”.
• and limited intellectual overconfidence, typified by items like “My ideas are usually better than other people’s ideas” [reverse scored].

However, this improvement in intellectual humility did not significantly depend on whether students were exposed to Visual Thinking Strategies.  Admittedly, the small control group, comprising only 36 students, might have obscured the effect of this approach.  Furthermore, the communication module might also have included the key features of Visual Thinking Strategies, such as exploration of multiple perspectives. 

As Ruzzante et al. (2025) revealed at the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, after people complete tests of their knowledge, their intellectual humility improves.  For example, in one of these studies, participants completed 60 questions that were designed to test knowledge on six topics, such as evolution, climate change, abortion, and other matters.  To construct this test, the researchers

• constructed a significantly larger sample of questions,
• distributed these questions to a sample of 100 people,
• for each item, calculated the correlation between the total number of questions people answered correctly and whether the participant answered this question correctly,
• only items that generated a high correlation and thus tend to be answered correctly only by participants who excelled on this test were retained.  

Participants indicate whether each statement is true or false. Typical statements, available at this website, include

• Homo sapiens descends from Neanderthal man.
• More than half of the scientists who are climate change sceptics specialise in climatology.
• Fertility is impaired for a certain period following the surgical abortion.
• Prozac is a drug recommended for pregnant women as well.
• A urine test is needed to diagnose feline immunodeficiency.

Immediately before and two weeks after completing this test, 828 other participants completed the scale that Leary et al. (2017) validated to measure intellectual humility, called the General Intellectual Humility Scale.  A typical item is “I question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because they could be wrong”.   The findings revealed that, two weeks after completing the knowledge test, intellectual humility improved significantly. Ruzzante et al. (2025) proposed two reasons to explain this finding:

• First, while completing these questions, individuals become more attuned to the limitations of knowledge—and this awareness of limitations epitomises and fosters intellectual humility.
• Second, while completing these questions, individuals tend to deliberate more carefully—and this deliberation might override more automatic and biased thoughts about their competence.

The benefits of a course on epistemology and social ethics

Some modules or courses at university have been designed to foster intellectual humility.  For example, one study, conducted by Meagher, Gunn et al. (2019), investigated whether a philosophy course on epistemology and social ethics, lasting eight hours a week for five weeks, might foster humility.  Specifically,

• during the first week of this course, students learned a range of moral concepts, such as intrinsic versus instrumental value, normative versus descriptive claims, as well as obligatory versus permissible, and supererogatory moral actions,
• some but not all cohorts of students were also exposed to information about intellectual humility, such as the defining features of this concept,
• in addition to lectures, students attended workshops in which small groups read about an ethical dilemma, such as an article about sweatshops, affirmative action, climate change, libertarianism, animal experimentation, before discussing these dilemmas, under the guidance of a professor, with reference to the moral concepts they learned.

Meagher, Gunn et al. (2019) conducted a study to explore whether these classes do indeed foster intellectual humility.  Before and after these classes, students participated in a range of activities, partly designed to examine the impact of this course.  For example,

• the students completed the General Intellectual Humility Scale (Leary et al., 2017), comprising items like “I question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because they could be wrong”,
• the students also completed two instruments that measure attributes that overlap with humility: one instrument assesses the tendency of individuals to reach a compromise, illustrated by items like “During conflict I negotiate with my peers so that a compromise can be reached” (see Rahim, 1983) and the other instrument assesses a tolerance of opposing beliefs, illustrated by items like “It is desirable to be in harmony, rather than in discord, with others of different opinions than one’s own” (Choi et al., 2007),
• the students also rated other members of their team, usually comprising between four and seven members, on several attributes, such as the degree to which they were intellectually humble, intellectually arrogant, extraverted, sympathetic, and so forth.

The degree to which the students rated themselves as high in intellectual humility, willing to compromise, and tolerant of opposing beliefs did not significantly increase after completing the course.  However, relative to students who completed the classes that did not allude to intellectual humility, student who completed the classes that did allude to intellectual humility during most discussions were rated as higher in this quality by peers.  However, variations between the classes were not controlled effectively, warranting further research to assess the impact of this course.

Introduction

Instead of more confined interventions, some researchers have designed more comprehensive interventions, comprising multiple activities, to foster humility.  For example, Harmon-Jones et al. (2025) designed a program that comprises a blend of videos and writing tasks.  Specifically, across four separate days, participants watched four videos including

• a video that utilises expansive images to depict the universe, adapted from Stellar et al. (2018),
• a video that outlines the Dunning-Kruger effect, presented in TED-Ed,
• a speech in which Ash Barty, an Australian tennis player, exudes humility,
• a video in which swimwear designer, Cristel Carrisi, discusses how she recognises, understands, and owns her own mistakes.

In addition, also across four separate days, participants completed four writing tasks:

• on one day, they wrote for three minutes about a time they behaved altruistically and five minutes about their strengths and limitations (cf Lavelock et al., 2014),
• one the second day, they wrote for 10 minutes a letter of gratitude to someone and the impact of this person on their lives,
• on the third day, they wrote for 8 minutes about their day while refraining from the word “I” to focus on the inherent value of people, objects, and experiences,
• on the fourth day, they wrote about how other people, luck, and other forces contributed towards their accomplishments.
• finally, on the fifth day, they wrote about a time they experienced awe.

In the control condition, participants completed similar tasks, except the videos and writing were not designed to foster humility.  At various times, participants also completed measures that assess feelings of anger, fear, happiness, and relaxation. To measure humility, these individuals also indicated the degree to which they felt modest, open-minded, down-to-earth, respectful, and tolerant.  The intervention significantly increased levels of humility and diminished levels of anger.  

A spiritually-integrated positive psychology intervention

Some interventions, designed to foster humility, combine spirituality and positive psychology interventions.  For example, Cuthbert et al. (2018) designed and evaluated an intervention, customised to suit religious leaders, that comprises 16 exercises, introduced across four distinct sessions.  To illustrate these exercises, participants

• learned about the key features of humility,
• developed a personal humility development plan,
• wrote about exemplars of humility,
• contemplated the consequences of behaviours that are devoid of humility, such as pride or selfishness,
• engaged in prayer that focussed on god and the needs of other people,
• completed a kind act but anonymously,
• wrote a letter of gratitude towards someone,
• practiced active listening during a conversation in which the parties disagree,
• reflected upon how they respond to feedback,
• sought and received feedback from a colleague, friend, and subordinate.

Before and after this intervention, 41 religious leaders who completed the modules and 30 religious leaders who had not been exposed to the modules answered a series of questions including

• the Expressed Humility Scale (Owens et al., 2013), comprising items like “I actively seek feedback even if it is critical”,
• the relational humility scale (David et al., 2011), exemplified by items like “Most people would consider me to be a humble person”,
• the intellectual humility scale (Leary et al., 2017), epitomised by items like “I accept that my beliefs and attitudes might be wrong”,
• a measure of spiritual humility (e.g., Davis, Hook, et al., 2010), comprising items like “I am humble before the sacred”,

Furthermore, a close friend or relative also evaluated these participants on the various measures of humility.  However, relative to their peers, participants who completed the modules did not report a significant increase in general humility, intellectual humility, or spiritual humility.  One possibility is that, after completing the modules, participants become more attuned to the limitations in their humility. Consistent with this possibility, the program did increase the correlation between how participants rated themselves and how a friend or relative rated these participants (Cuthbert et al., 2018).

The PROVE intervention

One of the first interventions that was designed to foster humility is called PROVE (Lavelock, Worthington, et al., 2014; to access, visit this site, and then locate “the path to humility”).  PROVE is a sequence of exercises, embedded in a workbook, that participants complete.  The workbook comprises about 80 pages. Inserted within this workbook are five activities that participants complete, corresponding to the acronym PROVE.  Specifically, these participants

• pick a time when they were not humble in the past—and contemplate how they could have acted differently,
• remember their abilities and achievements within a broader picture and how they could have behaved with greater humility,
• open themselves to other perspectives and behaviours, such as delegate tasks to other people,
• value everything, such as consider the facets of life that evoke feelings of gratitude and awe,
• examine their limitations, such as writing a letter to themselves about their strengths and shortcomings.

Besides these activities, participants also

• contemplate famous quotes about humility,
• watch videos and answer questions about famous acts of humility, such as the Chappaquiddick speech that Ted Kennedy presented in 1969,
• sign a contract, pledging they will be humble in the future,
• transcribe the benefits of humility,
• differentiate humility from other similar attributes,
• as well as complete many other exercises.

The PROVE intervention: Evidence

To validate this intervention, Lavelock, Worthington, et al. (2017) conducted two studies.  In one study, undergraduate students were randomly assigned to complete the PROVE workbook or one of four other workbooks, designed to promote forgiveness, patience, self-control, or positivity respectively.  In addition, in one control condition, participants received no workbook to complete.  Before and after completing the workbook, the researchers administered a series of measures including

• the modesty and humility scale of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), comprising items like “I don’t brag about my accomplishments”,
• the trait Forgivingness Scale (Berry et al., 2005), exemplified by items like “I have always forgiven those who have hurt me”,
• the Patience Scale (Schnitker & Emmons, 2007), comprising items like “In general, waiting in lines doesn’t bother me”,
• the Brief Self-Control Scale (Tangney et al., 2004), exemplified by items like “I am good at resisting temptation”, and
• the positive and negative affect scale.

In contrast to the control condition, if participants had completed the PROVE Humility workbook, their levels of humility, forgiveness, and patience improved significantly over time whereas their negative affect subsided.  Indeed, the PROVE Humility workbook enhanced these virtues more than did the other workbooks.

A second quasi-experimental study replicated these findings, after revising the workbooks in response to feedback.  The revised workbook was confined to humility, whereas the previous workbook had introduced other virtues as well.  In contrast to participants who did not complete any workbook, participants who completed this revised workbook reported elevated levels of humility, forgiveness, and patience as well as diminished levels of negative affect.

The Grounded to Grow online intervention

Lee, Wong et al. (2025), in collaboration with a team of psychologists, designed an online intervention, called Grounded to Grow, that may promote intellectual humility.  This intervention, although primarily developed to help people manage conflict about religious or spiritual beliefs, revolves around information and activities that are intended to foster intellectual humility.  The program comprises four modules that participants may complete, usually within four hours, at any time.  The modules

• utilise videos, graphics, text, auditory experiences, and other media to convey information,
• include an overview, psychoeducation, experiential activities, reflection, and summaries,
• revolve around the metaphor of a tree, in which the values are roots, the beliefs are branches, metacognition is the canopy, and the self is the trunk,
• in addition to this one hour, for each module, participants receive an email a few days later, introducing some activities that could reinforce the learning.  

The first module is designed to affirm the values of participants—partly to enhance their openness towards other perspectives and prevent defensive reactions (Hanel et al., 2023; Marie et al., 2022; Van Tongeren et al., 2014).  The module equates values to the roots to a tree, affording a solid foundation and nourishing the organism.  During this module, participants complete the Schwartz values survey and other tools to ascertain their values.  Then, these individuals are invited to uncover opportunities to integrate their most cherished values into their daily lives as well as to complete the 3-S Stretch (Avants and Margolin, 2004) to reinforce and to affirm these values.  Psychoeducation revolves around how conflicting values can elicit a sense of threat and how to navigate these challenges (Lee, Wong, et al., 2025).    

The second module equates beliefs to the tree branches.  This analogy demonstrates that people can stretch their beliefs into the world but might clash with beliefs from other trees.  During this module, participants explore their core beliefs about themselves, other people, and the world as well as consider beliefs that contradict their assumptions.  Participants then consider how to manage their emotions when exposed to contradictory beliefs, such as self-compassion and psychological distancing.  The individuals complete a guided visualisation in which they imagine a conflict from the perspective of someone else.  In addition, these individuals consider how contradictory beliefs may emanate from shared values—in essence, the same tree.  This module also entails psychoeducation about the definitions, features, and benefits of intellectual humility, with reference to famous people (Lee, Wong, et al., 2025). 

The third module depicts the treetop as the capacity of individuals to contemplate their beliefs, relevant because intellectual humility is a meta-cognition, in which people recognise their assumptions may be incorrect or incomplete. The module includes a video of Kathryn Schulz about common limitations and errors in the thoughts and assumptions of individuals.  Participants are then invited to consider how they feel when they commit these cognitive errors, how they manage the ensuing discomfort, and how to utilise these opportunities to discover wonder and awe.  Furthermore, participants reflect upon someone who embodies intellectual humility.    

Finally, the fourth module equates the trunk with the whole self—the feature of a tree that can sway and be flexible but remain strong in the midst of conflict.  Participants then imagine meeting an older, wiser version of themselves, grounded in their values, but unafraid to acknowledge their mistakes.  In addition, these individuals consider the people and facets of life for which they are grateful. 

In a qualitative study, participants who completed these modules tended to perceive the experience favourably (Lee, Wong, et al., 2025).  For example, these participants indicated that

• they learned to be more open-minded and patient in response to conflicting opinions,
• they learned how to listen to diverse perspectives,
• they were more inclined to accept instances in which they do not know the answer or were incorrect,
• they perceived conflicts as opportunities to learn and grow.

According to many scholars, the pressure on academics and researchers to publish and to attract research income compromises humility.  That is, to impress reviewers and judges, academics feel compelled to inflate the significance, novelty, and validity of their research rather than genuinely acknowledge the limitations of this work.  Indeed, many journals and funders explicitly welcome only research that is transformative and groundbreaking (Kail, 2012), perhaps overlooking the observation that research seldom fulfills these attributes.  Consequently, over recent decades, the proportion of positive words in scientific papers has soared (Vinkers et al., 2015).

Yet, despite this pressure to inflate the value of their research, most scientists and researchers cherish intellectual humility (Anderson et al., 2007).  These individuals believe that researchers must acknowledge the limitations, flaws, ambiguities, or uncertainty of their work.  If this intellectual humility wanes, the public will become increasingly dubious about research (e.g., Pashler & De Ruiter, 2017).  The impact and benefits of such research will thus plummet.

To address this concern, Hoekstra and Vazire (2021) suggested that reviewers should be encouraged to evaluate manuscripts partly on the degree to which the authors demonstrated intellectual humility. In contrast to journal editors and some other stakeholders, reviewers are uniquely positioned because they tend to value intellectual humility and experience no incentive to prefer research in which the claims may be exaggerated.  To enable reviewers to evaluate the intellectual humility of manuscripts, Hoekstra and Vazire (2021) suggest a series of 19 criteria these reviews should consider.  For example, the manuscript should

• specify the limitations and boundary conditions of the main conclusions in the abstract,
• acknowledge rather than overlook some of the contradictions in the literature—rather than attempt to propose a misleading sense of coherence,
• stipulate when the researchers or academics reached decisions about data collection, transformations of data, analyses, and so forth,
• when summarising the results, include the full range of findings—including the most damning patterns,
• present alternative explanations of results as convincingly as possible,
• acknowledge limitations of the research throughout the discussion rather than confine these limitations to a circumscribed section at the end,
• after publication, insist that press releases or public reports about the research acknowledge the limitations and correct exaggerations or misrepresentations of this research.

After reviewing the literature in 2022, Knöchelmann et al. (2025) suggested a series of other activities or principles that could be applied to promote intellectual humility.  These activities included

• listing unknowns or asking questions in response to opposing beliefs,
• explaining a concept in detail,
• self-distancing,
• justifying the benefits of intellectual humility in text, and
• fostering a growth mindset.

Listing unknowns.

The method of listing unknowns emanates from the work of Walters et al. (2017). According to these authors, people tend to overestimate the likelihood their beliefs or predictions are correct, called overconfidence, because they overlook the information they do not know. Thus, after people consider the possibility of unknown information, this overconfidence diminishes.  Individuals become more likely to recognise their beliefs or predictions may be incorrect: a manifestation of intellectual humility.

To illustrate, in one study, conducted by Walters et al. (2017), 254 undergraduate students completed a series of multiple-choice questions, designed to test their general knowledge.  After completing each question, these participants specified the likelihood they were correct on a scale that ranged from 0% to 100%, called a confidence rating.  Before answering each question

• some participants were prompted to consider unknowns—that is, information they do not know that could help these individuals ascertain which choice is correct,
• other participants were prompted to consider two reasons that one of the alternative choices may be correct,
• finally, some participants received neither of these instructions. 

As the findings revealed, relative to the other individuals, participants who had considered unknowns were the least inclined to overestimate the likelihood they would be correct (Walters et al., 2017).  In essence, these participants displayed the most intellectual humility.  However, these participants

• answered fewer questions correctly than individuals prompted to consider two reasons that one of the alternative choices may be correct
• but more questions correctly than individuals assigned to the control condition. 

Asking questions in response to an opposing beliefs

Similar to listing unknowns, when individuals listen to a perspective that contradicts their own beliefs, they can ask questions to understand this opposing perspective better—a practice that implies they are unaware of all the relevant information (Chen et al., 2010).  This practice, in which people ask questions rather than express statements in response to divergent opinions, increases the likelihood that individuals are willing to respect and to interact with someone who adopt opposing beliefs. 

For example, in the second study that Chen et al. (2010) conducted, 49 undergraduate students watched a video of someone expressing an opinion about veganism that diverged from their own beliefs.  Next, depending on the condition to which they had been assigned

• the researcher instructed some participants to construct three open-ended questions they could ask that would clarify why this person has adopted this opinion,
• the researcher instructed other participants to consider how the opinions of this speaker differs from their own beliefs.

Then, all participants rated the degree to which they would be willing to converse with this person in the future.  Finally, these individuals indicated the degree to which they perceive opponents of veganism and proponents of veganism favourably.  Specifically, participants rated the degree to which typical members of each faction are warm, open-minded, intelligence, reasonable, objective, and moral.  As hypothesised, if individuals had posed questions, rather than merely considered differences, in response to someone who had expressed an opposing belief

• they were more willing to interact with this person in the future,
• they perceived individuals whose opinions differ from their own beliefs more favourably.

Indeed, as the first study revealed (Chen et al., 2010), participants who asked questions were also perceived by more favourably by their opponents.