Virtues of “intellectual humility”
Intellectual humility is neither a character flaw nor a sign of being a pushover.
Instead, wrote science reporter Brian Resnick in an article posted on Vox.com, “it’s a method of thinking. It’s about entertaining the possibility that you may be wrong and being open to learning from the experience of others. Intellectual humility is about being actively curious about your blind spots.”
In an effort to promote intellectual humility in psychology, two researchers, Tal Yarkoni, PhD, and Christopher F. Chabris, PhD, launched the Loss-of-Confidence project. The project is a safe space where researchers who doubt a previous finding in psychology can recalibrate. “I do think it’s a cultural issue that people are not willing to admit mistakes,” said Julia M. Rohrer, a PhD candidate and personality psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin who joined the team in 2017. “Our broader goal is to gently nudge the whole scientific system and psychology toward a different culture where it’s okay, normalized, and expected for researchers to admit past mistakes and not get penalized for it.”
Put another way, the aim is to foster a culture where intellectually humble, honest, and curious people can thrive. For that to occur, “we all, even the smartest among us, need to better appreciate our cognitive blind spots,” Mr. Resnick wrote. “Our minds are more imperfect and imprecise than we’d often like to admit.”
In a recent paper, Ms. Rohrer and her associates said the Loss-of-Confidence project grew out of an online discussion in the wake of a post by Dana R. Carney, PhD, and associates on power poses. In that post, Dr. Carney explains why she changed her position on the value of power poses, concluding that the data gathered by her lab at the time leading to the power poses theory (Psychol Sci. 2010 Oct 21 [10]:1363-8) were real but flimsy. “My views have been updated to reflect the evidence,” she wrote. “As such, I do not believe that ‘power pose’ effects are real.”
In the Vox.com article, Mr. Resnick wrote that intellectual humility is needed for two reasons. “One is that our culture promotes and rewards overconfidence and arrogance. At the same time, when we are wrong – out of ignorance or error – and realize it, our culture doesn’t make it easy to admit it. Humbling moments too easily can turn into moments of humiliation.”