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.  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 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.

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.

Researchers have developed other measures of intellectual humility as well.  Alfano et al. (2017), for example, developed a measure that comprises 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”.

Furthermore, 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. 

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.

Many studies have uncovered the benefits of intellectual humility—the tendency of individuals to acknowledge limitations in their knowledge or uncertainty in their beliefs as well as to embrace diverse perspectives. Nevertheless, researchers have raised the concern that some people may orient their attention unduly to their limitations, even to the degree they overlook their strengths, compromising their learning, confidence, motivation, and other goals.  This possibility, however, does not indicate that intellectual humility should be moderated.  Instead, this possibility implies that researchers may need to differentiate two overlapping but distinct attributes: intellectual humility and intellectual servility.  As Mcelroy-Heltzel et al. (2023) suggest, although both attributes correspond to an awareness of limitations in knowledge and beliefs

• in people who experience intellectual humility, this awareness of limitations tends to emanate from a motivation to learn and to extend knowledge,
• in people who experience intellectual servility, this awareness of limitations may emanate from limitations in self-esteem or confidence,
• people who experience intellectual humility are thus more attuned to their intellectual strengths than are people who experience intellectual servility.

Accordingly, unlike intellectual humility, intellectual servility may coincide with a range of undesirable attributes or behaviour.  To illustrate, Mcelroy-Heltzel et al. (2023) conducted a study of 94 undergraduate students, representing diverse races, who completed a questionnaire that included the following scales:

• a measure of intellectual servility, such as “‘I defer to others so they will like me (about an issue I care deeply about)” (McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2021),
• the Specific Intellectual Humility Scale,
• the Big Five Inventory (John et al., 1991) to assess conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism,
• the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (Slaney et al., 2001) to gauge adaptive perfectionism, defined as high standards, and maladaptive perfectionism, defined as people who never feel satisfied with their performance, such as “Doing my best never seems to be enough”,
• a measure of civic engagement, such as the frequency with which they “attended a political rally or speech” (Smith, 2013).

As the findings revealed, intellectual servility, although positively associated with intellectual humility, was inversely associated with conscientiousness, openness to experience, and civic engagement but positively associated with maladaptive perfectionism: a tendency that disrupts academic performance (Madigan, 2019). Thus, intellectual servility shares features with intellectual humility, such as an awareness of personal limitations, but is underpinned by limited confidence and not the inspiration to learn.

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. 

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.

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.

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.