There is an interesting podcast and article series from JSTOR on intellectual humility that I would recommend highly.
The first podcast in the series takes us through the basic definition of intellectual humility and some of the research questions and results that have sprung up in the last 20 years as a result of renewed interest in the concept by behavioral researchers and psychologists.
Intellectual humility is simply recognizing that something that you believe might, in fact, be wrong. Of course, it never feels like it's wrong. We wouldn't believe things that feel wrong, but an intellectually humble person recognizes that many of the things they confidently believe might, in fact, be inaccurate . . .
Almost all of us are far more confident in ourselves than we probably should be. Most people think that they are better than average on most dimensions, which of course is impossible. And we just go through life believing that we're on the side of the truth most of the time. . . .
I've had a lot of people say, I don't want to be intellectually humble because that means I'm going to be a pushover. I'm going to be wishy-washy. I won't take a stand on things. In the research, we don't find that. And I think the reason is that intellectual humility is based on three things.
I mean, why is it that I could be wrong about something? One is that I simply don't have all of the information that I need. The second possibility is that I have plenty of information, but that information may be biased in ways that I don't appreciate. And the third is that maybe I don't have the background or ability to really understand all of the evidence that's involved. There's a lot of things we believe, we believe that some expert told us, and not because we really figured it out. So what happens, I think, with intellectually humble people is when they think to themselves, I could be wrong about this. They go on a search for the validity of the information that supports the belief. They want to know, do I have all the information? Is that information biased? Do I have the ability to understand that information? It's a very logical and rational assessment of the validity of the belief. It's just not caving in because somebody else says that you're wrong.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Text Savvy to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.