Definitions of individual humility

Many scholars, researchers, commentators, and other individuals champion the benefits of humility.  Yet these individuals seldom agree on the precise definition of humility.  One hazy definition may be that humble people

• acknowledge, explore, and embrace their limitations and shortcomings—as well as their strengths,
• appreciate other people and perspectives,
• integrate these insights with their existing beliefs, values, capabilities, and tendencies. 

Although helpful, this definition does not encapsulate the many variants of humility that scholars have delineated.  Over the last couple of decades, scholars have differentiated many variants, including

• intellectual humility, sometimes conflated with epistemic humility—or roughly the tendency of individuals to appreciate the limitations in their knowledge and beliefs as well as a willingness to shift these beliefs in response to additional evidence,
• moral humility—or the inclination of some people to recognise their beliefs about which actions are right or wrong may be incorrect and to be receptive to other perspectives (Smith & Kouchaki, 2018),
• relational humility—or the willingness of individuals to regulate their personal needs or emotions to improve relationships and accommodate the needs of other people (Davis et al., 2011),
• political humility—or the capacity of individuals to consider the merits and drawbacks of their political opinions and to be receptive to other ideologies (Hodge et al., 2021),
• cultural humility—or a receptivity to other cultural perspectives,
• ecological humility—a label to describe people who interact humbly with the resources of this planet (Narvaez, 2019),
• existential humility—a description of individuals who contemplate their role or place in the universe (Van Tongeren, 2022),
• general humility: a form of humility that encompasses all these facets.

Even the definitions of these variants remain contentious.  For example, June Tangney (2000), from George Mason University, in her review of general humility, depicted some diverse and conflicting definitions that scholars and researchers have proposed.  From this review, she extracted six cardinal features of general humility:

• accurate self-assessment: humble people tend to evaluate their achievements and capabilities accurately,
• acknowledgment of limitations: humble people can acknowledge their errors, shortcomings, uncertainty, and other limitations,
• openness: humble people are receptive to ideas or information that contradicts their assumptions or preferences,
• perspective: humble people recognise they are merely one person in an enormous, interconnected world and thus do not inflate their significance to society,
• limited self-focus: humble people do not consider only their own needs or perspective—but consider the needs and perspectives of other people and the universe more broadly,
• appreciation: humble people appreciate the value of other people, objects, and experiences.

To help characterise humility, Tangney also clarified the characteristics that do not define this quality.  Specifically

• humility should not be equated with a low self-esteem,
• people who are humble do not underestimate their capabilities, achievements, or worth to society,
• humility is broader than modesty—because modesty may overlap with only the first two features of the previous definition,
• humility is not merely the absence of narcissism, because some individuals who are not at all narcissistic do not necessarily exhibit all the hallmarks of humility, such as perspective or appreciation, as defined in the previous definition.   

Roughly, intellectual humility is the tendency of individuals to recognise the limitations in their knowledge and beliefs as well as shift these beliefs in response to additional evidence.  Nevertheless, as Nathan Ballantyne (2023), from Arizona State University, outlined, researchers have posed many diverse, and arguably conflicting, definitions of intellectual humility.  Specifically, Ballantyne divided these definitions into four clusters: attitude management, realistic self-assessment, low self-concern, and mixed accounts.

Attitude management

According to some researchers and scholars, individuals who are intellectually humble are more willing to modify their attitudes in response to additional evidence—and are thus not as defensive when their perspectives on various topics, such as abortion or conservation, are challenged.  To illustrate,

• Hoyle et al. (2016) defined intellectual humility as a trait that affects the extent to which individuals are typically willing to reconsider and to modify their opinions,
• Van Tongeren et al. (2014) proposed that intellectual humility can be observed when people do not respond defensively to information that challenges their beliefs,
• Davis and Hook (2014) suggested that people who are intellectually humble can moderate their need to seem right about their beliefs or ideas.  

These definitions vary, however, as to whether they regard intellectual humility as a trait, motive, or capability.

Realistic self-assessment

Other researchers and scholars define people as intellectually humble if they can accurately evaluate their beliefs or attitudes—or at least accurately evaluate the degree to which they can appraise their beliefs or attitudes effectively.  That is, if people are intellectually humble, they may recognise their opinions could be biased or misguided. For example

• Gregg and Mahadevan (2014) define intellectual humility as individuals who can realistically evaluate their capacity to understand and to utilise knowledge,
• Church and Barrett (2016) propose that intellectual humility is the capacity of individuals to accurately monitor the validity of their beliefs.

Low self-concern

Some researchers and scholars instead define intellectual humility as a mindset or trait in which individuals are not unduly concerned with the significance, status, or superiority of their intellectual beliefs, attitudes, or capabilities.  For instance

• according to Schellenberg (2015), when people experience intellectual humility, they are not too concerned about the importance, prestige, or glory of their intellectual perspectives or capacities—and thus can pursue their intellectual goals, such as develop knowledge, unhindered by these concerns,
• according to Roberts and Cleveland (2016), intellectual humility is the absence of intellectual pride—in which individuals are not preoccupied with the importance, status, power, or superiority of their intellectual knowledge, beliefs, or pursuits.

Mixed accounts

Finally, other researchers and scholars, when defining intellectual humility, refer to two or more of these clusters (e.g., Hopkin et al., 2014).  Yet, even within each of these four clusters, the definitions vary appreciably (Ballantyne, 2023).  To illustrate, scholars have not reached consensus on

• whether intellectual humility is a mindset that individuals may activate at various times, a capability that individuals have acquired, a personality trait or tendency, a suite of attitudes or values, or something else,
• whether researchers should assess the intellectual humility of people in general, the intellectual humility of people in specific domains, such as politics, or the intellectual humility of people on specific beliefs (cf., Hoyle et al., 2016),
• whether the tendency to consider the needs of other people, such as debate respectfully, is central to intellectual humility or merely a possible consequence of intellectual humility, as Ballantyne (2023) argues.

Implications and causes of this diversity

Because of this diversity in definitions, the causes and consequences of one characterisation of intellectual humility may diverge from the causes and consequences of other characterisations of intellectual humility.  This divergence may prevent a lucid understanding of intellectual humility.

According to Ballantyne (2023), one possible source of this diversity emanates from how researchers derive these definitions.  For example, some researchers merely adapt definitions of general humility and then confine these definitions to the intellectual domain.  These researchers, therefore, assume that intellectual humility is a subset of general humility.  Other researchers, however, regard intellectual humility as comprising features that general humility does not encompass.   To reconcile these perspectives, Ballantyne (2023) argues that scholars should first delineate the core or mandatory features of intellectual humility.  He argues that intellectual humility could represent the degree to which people can moderate personal motives—such as their motivation to perceive themselves as superior—to prioritise the need to process information that aligns with reality.   

Overview

According to Green et al. (2023), some people demonstrate existential arrogance—or the tendency to believe their life can significantly shape, and even improve, the world enduringly and monumentally.  To maintain this perspective, these individuals depend on significant beliefs, such as the belief in their intelligence, to spark their motivation. If they revised their beliefs, key facets of their identity would dissolve.  Consequently, individuals who display existential arrogance are often unwilling to revise their beliefs in response to evidence, manifesting as intellectual arrogance.

The converse of this perspective is existential humility: the capacity or tendency of individuals to recognise, and to accept, that human life is both transitory and limited in impact.  In contrast to their existentially arrogant counterparts, people who demonstrate existential humility may be more willing to update their beliefs over time, revealing an overlap between existential humility and intellectual humility. 

Indeed, as Green et al. (2023) argue, to gauge intellectual humility, researchers should assess this attribute in response to existential threats. That is, people can readily display and experience intellectual humility in settings or circumstances that foster this humility—such as workplaces in which peers are willing to question their beliefs.  In contrast, people cannot as readily maintain this intellectual humility when conviction or certainty in their beliefs is reinforced or adaptive. 

The authors invoked terror management theory to propose that intellectual humility should be tested in response to existential threats.  Specifically, according to terror management theory (Greenberg et al., 1990), because of several immutable properties of the university, human lives are, from one perspective, futile and meaningless. Death is the only certainty in a world that humans cannot readily shape or control but need to reach decisions and navigate regardless.  When individuals recognise the futility of their lives, they experience a profoundly unpleasant state, called existential threat.  If humans had not evolved to experience this sensation, they would not have felt as compelled to preserve their life, eradicating the species over time. 

To circumvent this existential threat, individuals develop an understanding of how the world operates and the role of humans in this world.  For example, they may believe that some entity, such as a collective or ideology, will persist indefinitely.  To belong to this entity, they learn the norms they must observe, such as the rituals they must practice.  Accordingly, they feel their contributions or role will be recognised and preserved indefinitely, after they die, called symbolic immortality.

Because these beliefs about the world temper existential anxiety, individuals furiously defend threats to these perspectives, such as arguments that contradict their opinions about religion (Greenberg et al., 1990; Solomon et al., 2004).  In response to reminders of their death, for example, individuals fiercely defend their nation (Nelson et al., 1997) or the other collectives to which they belong (Harmon-Jones et al., 1996). Accordingly, individuals are especially inclined to defend beliefs that temper their existential anxieties—beliefs that confer a sense of immortality.  Consequently, people who recognise the limitations of these existential beliefs and gradually update these beliefs over time display profound intellectual humility. These individuals are especially likely to be tolerant of diverse religions, ideologies, and perspectives. such as their motivation to perceive themselves as superior—to prioritise the need to process information that aligns with reality.