Intellectual humility

Intellectual humility is a metacognitive process characterized by recognizing the limits of one's knowledge and acknowledging one's fallibility. It involves several components, including not thinking too highly of oneself, refraining from believing one's own views are superior to others', lacking intellectual vanity, being open to new ideas, and acknowledging mistakes and shortcomings. It is positively associated with openness to new ideas, empathy, prosocial values, tolerance for diverse perspectives, and scrutiny of misinformation. Individuals with higher levels of intellectual humility experience benefits such as improved decision-making, positive social interactions, and the moderation of conflicts. There is a long history of philosophers considering the importance of intellectual humility as a 'virtue'. The modern study of this phenomenon began in the mid-2000s.

Definition
Intellectual humility is a psychological process, a metacognitive entity, defined as "the recognition of the limits of one’s knowledge and an awareness of one’s fallibility."

Components
Intellectual humility is "a multifaceted and multilayered virtue" which involves several key components that shape an individual's intellectual disposition. An intellectually humbler person will:
 * Not think too highly of themselves
 * Not think that one’s beliefs or attitudes are better or more correct than other viewpoints
 * Will lack intellectual vanity
 * Not boast or brag about their intellectual accomplishments
 * Not be defensive when challenged or try to explain away their intellectual shortcomings
 * Take complaints and criticism seriously
 * Acknowledge their mistakes and shortcomings
 * Show open-mindedness to new ideas
 * "Own" their intellectual limitations

It is positively associated with:
 * Openness to new ideas
 * Empathy
 * Prosocial values
 * Tolerance for diverse people and perspectives; and *Scrutiny of misinformation
 * Greater openness to learning about different political views, lower affective polarization, and higher religious tolerance

Benefits
There are a variety of benefits to individuals who have higher intellectual humility including:


 * Improved Decision-Making: "more likely to process information in ways that enhance their knowledge and understanding than people lower in intellectual humility."
 * Positive interactions: "more positive social interactions, especially when disagreements arise . .. . people who are more intellectually humble to be liked better than those low in IH.

At a social level there are also benefits including the moderation of conflicts and may lead to greater compromise.

The consequences of the reverse - i.e. overconfidence - can be problematic. As social psychologist Scott Plous wrote, "No problem in judgement and decision making is more prevalent and more potentially catastrophic than overconfidence." It has been blamed for lawsuits, strikes, wars, poor corporate acquisitions, and stock market bubbles and crashes.

A large study of nearly 50,000 participants from over 68 countries the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020) found that "open-mindedness turns out to be the strongest  predictor  for  rejecting  conspiracy  beliefs" (and support for public health measures) related to COVID-19.

Learning Intellectual Humility
A study found that users of an online tool could experience small- to medium-sized increase in their intellectual humility.

History
For millennia, philosophers have championed "a recognition of one's epistemic limit" and have named it an epistemic virtue.

Perhaps the first recorded instance of intellectual humility is when Socrates (in The Apology) remarked: "Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor think I know."

Waclaw Bąk et al. identify Socrates as "the ideal example" of intellectual humility. Studies by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Gordon Allport discuss humility with regard to one's knowledge without using the phrase "intellectual humility.

Notwithstanding this long history, attention from social and behavioural scientists is much more recent - roughly starting in the mid-2000s. One of the first focused studies of intellectual humility was conducted by Roberts and Woods in 2003.