Explicit measures of individual humility

To characterise the causes and consequences of humility, researchers need to measure this quality.  Because scholars have proposed many definitions of humility—and even proposed many definitions of specific variants of humility—researchers have developed and validated numerous instruments and procedures to gauge this quality. 

Introduction

Intellectual humility, roughly, represents the degree to which individuals recognise their beliefs may be flawed, update these beliefs in response to additional information, and consider perspectives that diverge from their assumptions.  To clarify this definition, Porter et al. (2022) conducted a systematic review to characterise intellectual humility and epistemic humility comprehensively and methodically. From a review of 60 relevant publications, they uncovered 18 distinct definitions of intellectual humility.   For example

• some of the definitions referred to the capacity of individuals to recognize limitations in their knowledge, beliefs, or conclusions,
• other definitions alluded to respect towards the beliefs, perspectives, or intellectual capabilities of other people,
• some definitions referred to a balanced or accurate, rather than biased or emotional, perception of these intellectual limitations,
• finally, some definitions alluded to a desire to learn rather than pursue intellectual status.

Researchers have developed several methods to gauge intellectual humility, including

• the General Intellectual Humility Scale (Leary et al., 2017),
• the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016),
• the Specific Intellectual Humility Scale (Hoyle et al., 2016),
• the limitations-owning intellectual humility scale (Haggard et al., 2018).

The General Intellectual Humility Scale

The General Intellectual Humility Scale comprises six items.  The items are

• I question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because they could be wrong.
• I reconsider my opinions when presented with new evidence.           
• I recognize the value in opinions that are different from my own.      
• I accept that my beliefs and attitudes may be wrong.
• In the face of conflicting evidence, I am open to changing my opinions.
• I like finding out new information that differs from what I already think is true.

This measure is positively associated with curiosity, thoroughness, and courage (Leary et al., 2017).  People who generate high scores on this measure also tend to prefer balanced and nuanced, rather than skewed or biased, articles. 

The Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale

In contrast to this scale, the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016), developed at Pepperdine University in California, comprises multiple facets or subscales including

• independence of intellect and ego, such as “When someone contradicts my most important beliefs, it feels like a personal attack” (reverse scored),
• openness to revising personal viewpoints, such as “I am open to revising my important beliefs in the face of new information”,
• respect for other’s viewpoint, such as “I can respect others, even if I disagree with them in important ways”,
• lack of intellectual overconfidence, such as “My ideas are usually better than other people’s ideas” (reverse scored).

The measure comprises 22 items (for a Polish version, see Bak & Kutnik, 2021).  Overall intellectual humility, derived from combining these four subscales, is positively associated with a measure of open-minded thinking, even after controlling age, social desirability, and some other measures of general humility.  Likewise, overall intellectual humility was inversely associated with narcissism and entitlement after controlling social desirability (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016). 

The Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale: Variations

Occasionally, researchers modify the instructions, but not the items, to measure the intellectual humility of people in particular settings or spheres.  To illustrate, Krumrei-Mancuso and Newman (2020) utilised these items to measure sociopolitical intellectual humility.  To achieve this goal,

• participants were instructed to answer the following questions about their beliefs and ideas around topics that are germane to society or politics, such as immigration, the environment, religious freedom, and gun control,
• next, participants completed the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale, typified by items like “I welcome different ways of thinking about important topics”.

This measure, therefore, purportedly assesses intellectual humility around sociopolitical beliefs in particular. As evidence of validity, participants who exhibited sociopolitical intellectual humility, as gauged by this instrument, were

• more likely to experience very negative feelings towards one political party and very strong positive feelings towards the rival political party, called affective polarisation,
• more inclined to revise their attitudes towards immigration in response to additional information—but only if these individuals had answered some questions that underscore the fallibility of their beliefs about immigration. 

The Alfano Intellectual Humility Scale

Researchers have developed other general measures of intellectual humility as well.  Alfano et al. (2017), for example, developed a measure that comprises 52 items and four subscales or facets including

• open-mindedness rather than intellectual arrogance, such as “I appreciate being corrected when I make a mistake”,  
• engagement instead of boredom, such as “I enjoy reading about the ideas of different cultures”,  
• intellectual modesty instead of intellectual vanity, such as “Being smarter than other people is not especially important to me”, and
• corrigibility instead of intellectual fragility, such as “When someone corrects a mistake I made, I do not feel embarrassed”.

As evidence of validity, one facet of this scale—open-mindedness—was inversely associated with the tendency of individuals to exaggerate their knowledge on a topic, even after controlling the six main personality traits (Thalmayer et al., 2011). Therefore, intellectual humility cannot simply be reduced to personality traits such as honesty or agreeableness.   Furthermore, the factor structure was similar in both the English and German version of these scales. 

The McElroy Intellectual Humility Scale

McElroy et al (2014) developed the Intellectual Humility Scale, derived from some religious concepts.  The scale comprises 17 items and two subscales:

• intellectual openness, such as “seeks out alternative viewpoints” and “is open to competing ideas”,
• intellectual arrogance, such as “often becomes angry when their ideas are not implemented” and “values winning an argument over maintaining a relationship”.

Subsequent findings indicate that intellectual humility—a blend of high intellectual openness and low intellectual arrogance—is positively associated with trusting relationships, forgiveness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.  Intellectual humility was not significantly associated with extraversion.  

The Specific Intellectual Humility Scale

In contrast to the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale, the Specific Intellectual Humility Scale measures intellectual humility in a particular setting, such as politics. This measure is designed to gauge whether individuals recognise that a specific opinion or belief may be flawed and realise the evidence of this opinion or belief may be limited.   The scale comprises nine items:

• My views about _______ are just as likely to be wrong as other views.
• I recognize that my views about _______ are based on limited evidence.         
• Although I have particular views about _______, I realize that I don’t know everything that I need to know about it. 
• It is quite likely that there are gaps in my understanding about _______.
• My sources for information about _______ might not be the best.    
• I am open to new information in the area of _______ that might change my view.      
• My views about _______ today may someday turn out to be wrong.
• When it comes to my views about _______ I may be overlooking evidence.
• My views about _______ may change with additional evidence or information.

Researchers can then substitute the blank spaces with specific domains, such as politics, religion, abortion, and climate change.  Across many domains, the questions conform to one factor (Hoyle et al., 2016).  Furthermore, overall intellectual humility, as measured by the General Humility Scale (Leary et al., 2017), was only modestly associated with humility in specific domains.

A state measure of intellectual humility

Some researchers want to assess whether a specific condition, circumstance, or activity might foster or disrupt intellectual humility.  To achieve this goal, these researchers need to administer a state measure of intellectual humility—a measure that can gauge variations of this quality over time. 

Zachry et al. (2018), for instance, constructed a state measure of intellectual humility.  To complete this measure, participants specify the degree to which they agree or disagree with 20 statements about their behaviour during a specific time period, such as one day.  Typical items include

• When I lacked knowledge about a subject, I admitted it to others.
• I viewed the challenging of my ideas as an opportunity to grow and learn.
• I asked others to provide constructive criticism of my ideas.
• Even when I was certain about my opinion, I researched information supporting the opposing viewpoint.
• I enjoyed trying to make sense of conflicting information.
• I was impressed by the knowledge of those around me.

As evidence of validity

• confirmatory factor analysis verified that all items relate to one factor: CFI = .92, SRMR = .045,
• on days on which individuals were embroiled in a disagreement with someone, their intellectual humility diminished.

The Intellectual Humility Scale in the classroom

DeVries et al. (2025b) constructed and validated a measure of intellectual humility that was designed to be administered in classrooms but could be adapted to other settings, such as workshops or meetings. This scale measures observable or expressed manifestations of intellectual humility. Specifically, to rate the intellectual humility of their teachers or instructors, students indicate the degree to which they agree or disagree with four statements, all of which commence with a phrase like “The instructor of this course”.  The remainder of these four statements are 

• Admitted if they did not know or understand something.
• Considered the perspectives and ideas of others.
• Acknowledged mistakes they made.
• Actively sought feedback from students, even if it was critical.

Similarly, to rate their own intellectual humility in the class, these four statements were modified slightly to:

• I admitted if I did not know or understand something.
• I considered the perspectives and ideas of others.
• I acknowledged mistakes I made.
• I actively sought feedback from others, even if it was critical.

To validate this scale, 1272 undergraduate students completed the eight items, evaluating themselves and their instructor in one to five courses.  The data were subjected to a cross-classified confirmatory factor analysis (cf., Goldstein, 1994)—a variant of factor analysis that can manage circumstances in which one student rates multiple instructors and multiple students rate each instructor. A model that assumed that each of the two scales assess one factor was deemed as acceptable: CFI = .95, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .075, and SRMR = .039.

Daily Openness to Alternative Views

Reis et al. (2018), in their fourth study, developed a state measure of intellectual humility, called the Daily Openness to Alternative Views.  To construct this scale, Reis et al. invoked a definition of intellectual humility, proposed by a Templeton Foundation white paper (Samuelson et al., 2012).  This definition equates intellectual humility with the tendency of some individuals to be open to their fallibility and to recognise their intellectual debt to other people rather than feel overly confident in their opinions and powers. 

To develop the scale, Reis et al. (2018) delineated 26 behaviours that epitomise these qualities, invited undergraduate students to indicate whether they had initiated these behaviours during the day, and then retained the 16 most frequent behaviours.  Two more items that correspond to defensive responses than intellectual humility were also discarded.   The final set of 14 items included

• Today, I was curious about something and asked questions about it.
• Today, I read an article or blog, or listened to a radio or TV host with whose views I disagreed.
• Today, I acknowledged the limits of my own abilities or knowledge.
• Today, I was stubborn about something [reverse-scored]
• Today, I engaged in a novel activity suggested by someone else.
• Today, I admitted I was wrong about something.

As evidence of reliability and validity

• a principal components analyses confirmed that all items seem to be related to one component or scale
• Cronbach’s alpha was measured on 14 distinct days and ranged from 0.66 to 0.81, with an average of .76
• as hypothesised, this scale was positively associated with the degree to which individuals perceive other people in their life as responsive and caring: a purported cause of intellectual humility.

Actively Open-Minded Thinking About Evidence

The Actively Open-Minded Thinking About Evidence Scale, or AOT-E, constructed by Pennycook et al. (2020),  as not initially touted as a measure of intellectual humility.  However, this scale gauges a quality that is pivotal to intellectual humility: the extent to which individuals are willing to consider evidence to update their beliefs.  Indeed, Prike et al. (2024) administered this scale, together with two other instruments, to measure intellectual humility.  This scale comprises eight items including

• A person should always consider new possibilities.
• People should always take into consideration evidence that goes against their beliefs.
• Beliefs should always be revised in response to new information or evidence.
• Nobody can talk me out of something I know is right [reverse-scored].

In their supplementary material, Pennycook et al. (2020) present evidence that validates the AOT-E.  Specifically, in this validation study, 436 participants completed this scale as well as other instruments, including measures that assess open-minded thinking, need for cognition, faith in intuition, and cognitive reflection.  As this study revealed

• the AOT-E was positively and significantly associated with other measures of open-minded thinking, need for cognition, and cognitive reflection,
• the AOT-E was inversely and significantly associated with measures of faith in intuition and religious beliefs,
• alpha reliability was .77, suggestive of reasonable internal consistency.

Furthermore, as the other studies in this paper revealed, individuals who score high on this measure, and thus utilise evidence to update their beliefs, are not as likely to endorse opinions or assumptions that cannot be validated.  For example, these individuals did not tend to believe in extra-sensory perception, God, or the need to respect tradition but instead endorsed free speech on college campuses and anthropogenic global warming. Generally, these individuals espoused science and liberalism but not religious, paranormal, or conspiratorial beliefs (Pennycook et al., 2020).

Other scales

Haggard et al. (2018) proposed another perspective to measure intellectual humility.  According to this perspective, intellectual humility should be deemed as a balance between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility.  To measure intellectual humility from this perspective, Haggard et al. (2018) developed, and then validated, an instrument that comprises 12 items and 3 subscales:

• a love of learning, such as “I care about the truth” or “When I do not understand something, I try hard to figure it out”,
• appropriate or balanced discomfort with limitations, such as “I focus on my intellectual weaknesses too much” (reverse scored)
• the willingness to acknowledge or concede limitations, such as “I am quick to acknowledge my intellectual limitations” or “I have a hard time admitting when one of my beliefs is mistaken (reverse scored)”.

All three subscales were positively associated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability.   The first and third subscales were positively related to openness to experience, whereas the second subscale was positively related to extraversion.

In their systematic analysis, Porter et al. (2022) revealed that all the items that gauge intellectual humility, across a variety of instruments, can be divided into six clusters.  These six clusters measure the degree to which participants are

• not unduly concerned about the limitations or flaws in their knowledge, beliefs, or perspectives.
• aware of limitations in their knowledge, beliefs, or cognitive skills,
• appreciative and respectful of the knowledge, beliefs, perspectives, and attitudes of other people—even if they disagree with these individuals,
• comfortable with disagreements,
• motivated to learn and accrue more knowledge, information, and wisdom,
• not unduly concerned about whether their intellectual status, such as whether they are more informed than other people.

Introduction

Intellectual humility is a subset of a broader trait or quality called general humility.  When individuals exhibit general humility, they are willing to acknowledge their limitations—but not only limitations in their knowledge, beliefs, or other intellectual matters.  Instead, they acknowledge limitations in other circumstances as well.  For example, these individuals may recognise limitations in their capacity to regulate their emotions, to develop friendships, and to thrive in many other spheres of life.  Furthermore, these individuals respect not only the beliefs or perspectives of diverse people but also their behaviours, emotions, and other qualities.  To measure general humility, researchers utilise a variety of scales including

• the relational humility scale (Davis et al., 2011),
• the humility inventory (Brown et al., 2013),
• expressed humility (Owens et al., 2015),
• the state humility scale (Kruse et al., 2017).

The relational humility scale: general humility versus intellectual humility

The relational humility scale, also utilised to measure general humility, comprises 16 items. Specifically

• five of the items represent a subscale called global humility, such as “My close friends would consider me as humble” or “I am a truly humble person”,
• seven of the items correspond to a subscale called superiority—the inverse of humility—such as “Certain tasks are beneath me” or “I think of myself as overly important”, and
• four of the items represent a subscale called accurate view of self, such as “I know my weaknesses”.

This measure of general humility is positively associated with empathy, forgiveness, trusting relationships with parents, and positive emotions (Davis et al., 2011).  Typically, however, when this scale is utilised, respondents assess the humility of someone else (e.g., Farrell et al., 2015).  That is, the respondents assess the degree to which they agree or disagree with items like “He or she thinks of himself or herself too highly” or “He or she knows himself or herself well”.  Relational humility thus refers to the extent to which individuals perceive another significant person in their life as humble.   

Davis et al. (2016) explored whether the distinction between general humility and intellectual humility is helpful.  In the first study, over 1000 undergraduate students, from a large American university, completed

• the Intellectual Humility Scale (McElroy et al., 2014)—an instrument that measures both intellectual arrogance, such as “I value winning an argument over maintaining a relationship”, and intellectual openness, such as “I am open to competing ideas”,
• the relational humility scale to measure general humility,
• a set of items that assess openness to experience and agreeableness.

Interestingly, after controlling intellectual humility, general humility was positively associated with openness to experience and agreeableness. Similarly, after controlling general humility, intellectual humility was positively associated with openness to experience and agreeableness. Therefore, intellectual humility and general humility uniquely contribute to these personal traits and, accordingly, are not redundant. 

The humility inventory

Brown et al. (2013), concerned that attempts to appear favourably, called social desirability biases, may bias many other measures of humility, attempted to construct an instrument that circumvents this problem.  First, they asked participants to define humility.  From these definitions, they derived five key features of humility—and developed items to represent each feature.  Subsequent analyses, however, confirmed only three of these subscales: esteem for others, a systemic perspective; acceptance of fallibility.  The scale comprised 15 items.  Despite excellent stability over time, in a later review, McElroy-Heltzel et al. (2019) suggested that evidence of internal consistency and construct validity is not especially robust. 

The expressed humility scale

The expressed humility scale, constructed and substantiated by Owens et al. (2013), was developed to measure humility in organisations.  The scale comprises three subscales:

• willingness to view oneself accurately, such as “I actively seek feedback even if it is critical”,
• appreciation of others’ strengths, such as “I show appreciation of the unique contributions of others” or “I take notice of others’ strengths”, and
• teachability, such as “I am willing to learn from others”.

Overall humility was relatively stable across time, generating a correlation of .56 over one month.  Furthermore, overall humility was strongly and positively associated with the motivation to learn and emotional stability as well as inversely related to narcissism. 

The Ou measure of humility

In an unpublished but accessible doctoral thesis, Ou (2011), while enrolled at Arizona State University, designed and validated a measure of general humility that comprises 18 items and 6 subscales.  This scale assesses the dimensions that Tangney (2000, 2002) differentiated in her careful analysis of this humility. Participants may complete this scale either to evaluate the humility of someone else—such as a leader—or to evaluate their own humility.  The six sub-scales comprise

• self-awareness (e.g., “This person admits when he or she does not know how to do something”),
• other appreciation (e.g., “This person takes notice of others’ strengths”),
• self-improvement (e.g., “This person is open to the ideas and advice of others.”),
• low self-focus (e.g., “This person is not interested in obtaining fame for himself or herself”),
• self-transcendent pursuit (e.g., “This person devotes his or her time to the betterment of the society”),
• transcendent self-concept (e.g., “This person believes that there is something in the world greater than himself or herself”).

To develop this scale, Ou (2011) first constructed items that correspond to the facets of humility that Tangney (2000, 2002) identified.  Next, Ou arranged a panel of 17 individuals, including management professors and management consultants, to refine and to extend these items.  Then, to improve content validity, Ou asked 12 doctoral candidates, studying management, to evaluate and to sort these items.  Finally, Ou recruited 276 business students, and later 336 MBA students, to complete the revised scale as well as other measures—such as measures of learning goal orientation, modesty, narcissism, core self-evaluation, and social desirability.  Overall, as these data revealed

• the items can be divided into six facets, as a confirmatory factor analysis verified, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94 and RMSEA = 0.05,
• the measure of humility is distinct from measures of learning goal orientation, modesty, narcissism, and core self-evaluation, as confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated,
• however, humility was positively associated with learning goal orientation, modesty, narcissism, and core self-evaluation, but inversely associated with narcissism, as hypothesised.

The Elliott measure of humility

In 2010, while enrolled at the University of Tennessee, Jeffrey Elliott also submitted a doctoral thesis that developed and validated a measure of humility.  To develop this instrument

• Elliott first wrote 20 questions that correspond to the six features of humility that Tangney (2000) distinguished,
• 46 psychology students wrote about a time in which they experienced feelings of humility as well as defined humility—information that Elliott utilised to generate 40 more questions. 

Next, to gauge their humility, 120 undergraduate students answered these 60 questions as well as measures of

• narcissism—and specifically the Narcissistic Personality Inventory,
• religious and existential wellbeing (Ellison, 1983), comprising items like “I believe there is some real purpose for my life”,
• faith maturity (Benson et al., 1993) and religious maturity (Dudley, & Cruise, 1990), gauging the degree to which people commit to their faith and, for example, strive to assist other people,
• empathy (Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972), typified by items like “I feel upset when I see someone cry”,
• satisfaction with life, and other traits or beliefs.

After discarding questions that are not related to the total score, 32 questions were retained.  For each question, participants specified the degree to which they agree or disagree with these questions on a 5-point rating scale.  Typical items were

• when confronted with my mistakes, my first response is to explain why I did it [reverse-scored],
• I feel honoured when others ask for my help. 

The average score on these 32 questions, gauging humility, was positively associated with religious maturity.  Similar studies subsequently revealed that total humility was positively related to empathy and inversely, but only moderately, related to three features of narcissism: entitlement, exploitation, and self-sufficiency. Principal components analysis uncovered four subscales that, in aggregate, comprise 13 of the 32 items and generate only modest levels of internal consistency (Elliott, 2010):

• openness, such as, “I am usually quick to rationalize my failures” [reverse-scored],
• self-forgetfulness, such as “When someone else is being recognized, I think about my accomplishments” [reverse-scored],
• accurate self-assessment, such as “The challenges ahead of me often cause me to feel overwhelmed”, and
• focus on other people, such as “I feel valuable doing “lowly” things for others”.

State humility

Other measures are designed to measure state humility: the level of humility that individuals are exhibiting or experiencing at a specific time.  One of the most prevalent of these scales is the state humility scale that Kruse et al. (2017) developed.  This scale comprises six items, and the last three items are reverse scored:

• I feel that, overall, I am no better or worse than the average person.
• I feel that I have both many strengths and flaws.
• I feel that I do not deserve more respect than other people.
• To be completely honest, I feel that I am better than most people.
• I feel that I deserve more respect than everyone else.
• I feel that I do not have very many weaknesses.

Scores on this scale are strongly and inversely associated with narcissism.  The scale was explicit designed to circumvent the concern that people who are not humble may not acknowledge or even be aware of this tendency.  Consequently, the items did not refer to humility explicitly.  In addition, some of the items depicted characteristics, such as “I feel that I do not deserve more respect than other people”, that people who are not humble would be unwilling to concede, even if they wanted to depict themselves favourably.

Broader instruments that entail humility

The Situated Wise Reasoning Scale

Some broader instruments or scales include humility as a subscale.  For example, one of the five main subscales of the Situated Wise Reasoning Scale revolves around intellectual humility. 

Brienza et al. (2018) developed the Situated Wise Reasoning Scale to address previous limitations of measures that assess wisdom. That is, according to these authors, previous measures of wisdom invite participants to evaluate whether they generally reach impartial, unbiased decisions to balance their needs and interests.  However, because these measures prompt individuals to consider how they reach choices in general, rather than in response to specific challenges, the responses of participants are often biased.  For example, participants tend to recall the times they reached suitable decisions, overestimating their wisdom.

To override this limitation, the Situated Wise Reasoning Scale prompts individuals to first recall a specific, challenging situation, such as a single conflict or disagreement with a friend or colleague.  Next, participants answer a series of questions that prompt these individuals to visualise the situation as vividly as possible and recall their feelings, thoughts, and responses.  Finally, these participants indicate the degree to which 21 statements, such as “I put myself in the other person’s shoes”, characterise their response or behaviour during this situation.  These 21 statements can be divided into five subscales:

• intellectual humility—or recognition of limits of knowledge, such as “I behaved as if there may be some information to which I did not have access” and “I double-checked whether my opinion on the situation might be incorrect”,
• consider the other’s perspective, such as “I made an effort to take the other person’s perspective”,
• consideration of change and the multiple ways the situation may unfold, such as “I considered alternative solutions as the situation evolved”,
• search for a compromise or resolution to the conflict, such as “I tried my best to find a way to accommodate both of us”, and
• view of the event from the vantage point of an outsider, such as “I tried to see the conflict from the point of view of an uninvolved person”.

Brienza et al. (2018) conducted a series of eight studies that validate this scale.  To illustrate some of the key findings

• wise reasoning tended to diminish with age, until the mid 40s, and then increased with age,
• wise reasoning tended to be associated with the extent to which individuals balance conflicting goals; for example, when individuals reported wise reasoning, they tended to balance their work and family responsibilities well—and also balanced their need to cooperate and need to pursue their personal interests well,
• several of the subscales, including intellectual humility, were positively associated with many helpful mindsets, such as the belief that conflicts and relationships are modifiable, the capacity to reappraise upsetting events, mindfulness, and perspective taking.

One common measure of humility is derived from the HEXACO model.  To clarify, over many decades, psychology researchers tend to divide personality traits into five clusters, representing extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience, called the five-factor model or Big 5.  In more recent decades, Ashton and Lee proposed the HEXACO model—a model that comprises six main traits instead (Ashton & Lee, 2008; Ashton & Lee, 2019; Ashton & Lee, 2020). Despite some changes to the labels and refinements to the definitions, five of these traits roughly correspond to the five-factor model.  The HEXACO model also introduced a sixth trait, labelled honesty and humility, comprising sincerity, morality, modesty, and compliance with norms rather than greed or materialism.  Typical items can be accessed from a specific webpage and include

• I wouldn’t use flattery to get a raise or promotion at work, even if I thought it would succeed.
• If I knew that I could never get caught, I would be willing to steal a million dollars (reverse scored).
• Having a lot of money is not especially important to me.
• I think that I am entitled to more respect than the average person is (reverse scored).
• I want people to know that I am an important person of high status (reverse scored).
• I wouldn’t pretend to like someone just to get that person to do favours for me.

Many scholars perceive the HEXACO model as more compelling than was the previous five-factor model.  Specifically, the HEXACO model was derived from a larger pool of labels, from multiple languages, that describe tendencies or dispositions (Lee & Ashton, 2020). Nevertheless, other researchers suggested that honesty and humility could be assimilated with agreeableness.  That is, some of the key features of honesty and humility, such as politeness, modesty, and prosocial behaviour, may be signs of agreeableness instead (e.g., DeYoung, 2020).

One complication to this matter is that definitions of agreeableness differ between the five-factor model and the HEXACO model.  In this HEXACO model, agreeableness, defined as patience, forgiveness, gentleness, leniency, and cooperation, diverges conceptually and empirically from honesty and humility (Zettler et al., 2020).  However, whether agreeableness, as defined in the five-factor model, diverges from honesty and humility is a different question.  

To clarify, the NEO, a measure that researchers often use to gauge the five-factor model defines agreeableness as a blend of altruism, compliance, modesty, tendermindedness, trust, and straightforwardness—representing candid and honest communication (Costa & McCrae, 1992).  Modesty and straightforwardness seem to overlap with sincerity: a key feature of honesty and humility. However, other measures of the five-factor model, such as The Big Five Inventory-2 (Soto & John, 2017), define agreeableness as compassion, trust, and respectfulness—facets that do not as patently overlap with honesty and humility.

In 2025, Christian Blötner conducted a study to ascertain whether honesty and humility can be integrated with agreeableness, as defined in the five factor model.  Blötner, however, argued that agreeableness primarily revolves around the motivation to establish positive relationships with other people, whereas honesty and humility mainly revolves around the sincerity of individuals about themselves—a sincerity that may consolidate relationships but is not intended to fulfill this goal.  To investigate these relationships, Blötner distributed surveys to four distinct samples of German adults, each comprising between 594 and 1799 individuals.  The surveys comprised many scales, such as measures of the dark tetrad, aggression, impulsivity, motives, and empathy, as well as the five-factor model and the HEXACO model. 

In general, the findings indicate that agreeableness, as defined by the five-factor model, is positively associated with honesty and humility.  However, the trait of honesty and humility is not redundant but predicts various outcomes after controlling agreeableness.  To illustrate,

• in general, honesty and humility are more strongly, and of course, inversely, related to dark tetrad traits, such as narcissism or Machiavellianism as well as criminal tendencies, than are measures of agreeableness,
• agreeableness was more strongly and negatively related to anger and cynicism than was honesty and humility; and agreeableness was inversely associated with anger and cynicism after controlling honesty and humility,
• agreeableness was more strongly associated with forgiveness than was honesty and humility—and related to forgiveness after controlling honesty and humility,
• nevertheless, honesty and humility were significantly associated with anger, cynicism, and forgiveness after controlling agreeableness.

The association between the honesty and humility scale and other measures of humility

Few studies have explored whether this honesty and humility subscale of the HEXACO model does indeed overlap with other measures of humility, such as general humility or cultural humility.  For example, studies have not definitively ascertained whether this subscale overlaps with intellectual humility (see Bąk, et al., 2022, for similar concerns).   Nevertheless, some exceptions have been published.  To illustrate

• the Expressed Humility Scale (Owens et al., 2013)—a measure of the degree to which individuals seek feedback, acknowledge uncertainty, and demonstrate humility at work—is highly related to the honesty and humility subscale (r = .55),
• the relational humility scale (Davis et al., 2013), another global measure of humility, is also highly correlated with the honesty and humility subscale (r = .56).

A measure of intellectual humility, but applied to existential matters

Some individuals demonstrate existential humility: the capacity or tendency to recognise, and to some extent accept, that human life is both transitory and limited in impact.  That is, they exhibit intellectual humility about beliefs that revolve around existential questions, such as the meaning of life or what happens to people after they die. 

McLaughlin et al. (2023) developed and validated a procedure that assesses the degree to which individuals exhibit humility about these existential beliefs.  To complete this procedure, participants first read an excerpt that conveys insights about existential concerns.  For example, this excerpt delineates four clusters of existential concerns, such as

• the concern about the reality that all humans will die
• the concern that humans never receive guidelines or rules on how to live their lives,
• the concern that all humans are fundamentally isolated from one another, and
• the concern that human lives and decisions may, ultimately, be futile and meaningless.

Participants were then asked to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with various statements about these matters.  These statements included

• I would never change what I believe about these things [reverse scored]
• My beliefs about these issues may be incorrect.
• I would be willing to revise what I believe about these topics.
• I am interested to learn how other people think about these issues.
• I am open to explore these topics more in the future.

The responses of 344 participants to these questions uncovered three factors or sub-scales:

• commitment to these beliefs, such as “I doubt I would change my mind on these issues”,
• awareness of limitations in beliefs, such as “I realize that my perspective about these issues may be wrong”, and
• openness to change, such as “I would be excited to learn from others about these issues”.

A subsequent study of 340 US adults, who completed this procedure together with a range of other measures, validated this measure.  For example, this study revealed that

• two of the sub-scales, awareness of limitations in beliefs and openness to change, were positively associated with flourishing and meaning in life,
• the subscales were only modestly related to a measure of general humility, derived from the relational humility scale; hence, this measure of humility around existential beliefs is distinct from general humility.

The paradox of humility

To assess humility, as well as many other characteristics of people, participants are often asked to answer a series of questions about themselves, such as “I am a humble person” or “I feel like a failure”.  In these instances, the purpose of these questions, called self-report tests or explicit measures, are somewhat transparent.

Lira and McElroy-Heltzel (2024) outlined some of the challenges researchers experience when they utilise self-report measures to evaluate humility.  First, for various reasons, individuals may not be able to report their humility accurately (see also Grum & von Collani, 2007).  To illustrate,

• consider individuals who are very humble,
• these individuals should recognise their beliefs in general, and hence their beliefs about themselves, may not be entirely knowable or accurate,
• consequently, these individuals cannot be certain whether they are indeed very humble,
• when asked to indicate their level of humility on a 5-point scale, they are thus unlikely to indicate 5.

In contrast, individuals who are conceited do not challenge their beliefs.  Hence, their beliefs about their humility may be inaccurate.  In principle, conceited individuals may be more likely than humble individuals to indicate their humility is 5 on a 5-point scale (McElroy et al., 2014).

Even if individuals could accurately identify their level of humility, they may deliberately inflate these levels.  That is, participants often distort their responses, often to appear more appealing (Greenwald et al., 1998). 

However, Lira and McElroy-Heltzel (2024) presented a second concern about these measures of humility.  Specifically, these measures tend to disregard the setting, circumstance, or context.  To illustrate, individuals may demonstrate humility under some circumstances, such as when discussing a matter that is not vital to their identity, but conceited under other circumstances, such as when stressed or threatened.  Similarly, when asked a question, individuals who defer to someone else might seem humble if they are unfamiliar with the topic but seem odd or servile if they are an expert.  Therefore, measures of intellectual humility tend to overlook

• the emotions the circumstances evoke,
• the degree to which a belief is central to the identity of these individuals,
• their expertise on a topic, and many other considerations.

Application of learning sciences

To address this concern, Lira and McElroy-Heltzel (2024) argued that multi-modal learning analytics—such as physiological measures and videos of people while they learn—may complement self-report measures. To illustrate

• people who are intellectually humble may display moderate levels of physiological reactivity while learning, as measured by electrodermal activity,
• people who are intellectually humble may display behaviours that are congruent with intellectual humility, such as reading perspectives that oppose their opinions—representing enacted rather than merely prescribed beliefs,
• people who are not interested in learning might generate low levels of physiological reactivity while learning.

Whole trait theory

Implicit in many studies is the assumption that humility is relatively stable over time.  Variability across time is assumed to be random error.  Whole Trait Theory challenges this assumption.

Whole Trait Theory (e.g., Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2021) assumes that personality traits are not fixed but shift dynamically over time.  Specifically, according to proponents of this theory,

• traits, such as the degree to which a person is humble, should be represented not as a single number but as a distribution or range of states that vary over time,
• traits do not only represent how people typically behave but also the underlying social and cognition operations, such as the goals, strategies, expectations, and interpretations of situations, that shape how people behave in specific circumstances,
• hence, the variability of behaviour, such as humility, across settings should not be regarded as noise to be disregarded but as information that facilitates an understanding of this quality,
• researchers should thus apply specific methodologies, such as ecological momentary assessment, to measure behaviour over time and the correlates of this behaviour.

To illustrate, according to Jayawickreme and Fleeson (2023), if researchers want to characterise intellectual humility, they should measure relevant behaviours and possible determinants of these behaviours frequently—such as once a day over one month.  Consistent with this approach, Zachry et al. (2018) measured the intellectual humility of individuals and their conversations with individuals at multiple times.  They discovered that intellectual humility may increase when the other person seems moral and drop when the other person seems disagreeable. 

As Jayawickreme and Fleeson (2023), proposed, a range of goals could impede or foster intellectual humility.  For instance,

• when individuals want to demonstrate their solidarity with a collective—especially a collective that espouses a specific ideology—they may feel reluctant to question this ideology, potentially manifesting as a decline in intellectual humility
• alternatively, when individuals feel they need to understand the truth about some matter, intellectual humility may escalate.

From this perspective, the behaviours that epitomise intellectual humility, such as an acknowledgement of uncertainty and respect towards diverse perspectives, could emanate from the interplay of many goals, appraisals, and beliefs.  These goals, appraisals, and beliefs may also influence other relevant behaviours that affect intellectual virtues, such as a balance between the need to question personal beliefs and the need to maintain some conviction.