Conservatism, anti-vaccination attitudes, and intellectual humility: examining their associations through a social judgment theory framework.

Previous research has consistently found that more political conservatism is related to higher anti-vaccination attitudes. However, little work has investigated how intellectual humility could potentially contribute to this relationship. Employing the social judgment theory of attitude change, we examined whether conservatism could mediate the association between intellectual humility and anti-vaccination attitudes. Participants (N = 1,293; 40.1% female; Mage = 38.23 years, SDage = 11.61, range of age was 18-78) completed a multifaceted measure of intellectual humility, an assessment of four types of anti-vaccination attitudes, and a measure of political orientation. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that decreased levels of most aspects of intellectual humility (i.e., independence of intellect and ego, openness to revising one's viewpoint, and lack of intellectual overconfidence) are associated with more conservative political views, which in turn is associated with stronger anti-vaccination attitudes, particularly worries about unforeseen future effects, concerns about commercial profiteering, and preference for natural immunity. These findings suggest that intellectual humility could reflect one's latitude widths, thereby predicting their openness to vaccine massaging, and thus may play an important role in addressing anti-vaccination attitudes, especially when politics is involved.

Intellectual Humility and Responsiveness to Public Health Recommendations.

We examined the association between intellectual humility (IH)-a willingness to consider credible new information and alternative views and revise one's own views if warranted-and adherence to experts' health behavior recommendations in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study 1 (N = 541) results showed that people higher in IH are more likely to engage in recommended health behaviors (e.g., mask-wearing, social distancing)-even when controlling for political affiliation. Additional analyses focused specifically on mask-wearing produced initial evidence consistent with mediation of the IH-mask-wearing relationship by the beliefs that mask-wearing 1) is an effective way to slow the spread of COVID-19 and 2) protects others. Based on the pathway from IH to mask-wearing through a concern for others found in Study 1, Study 2 further examined the relationship between IH and prosocial tendencies. The results from Study 2 (Ns for correlation coefficients ranged from 265 to 702) showed an association between IH and several values and traits that reflect a concern for others (e.g., agreeableness, benevolence). These findings suggest that IH may influence behavior through both intra- and interpersonal mechanisms. Implications of these findings for the health-behavior domain are discussed.

Predicting resistance management skill from psychotherapy experience, intellectual humility and emotion regulation.

OBJECTIVE: Resistance management in psychotherapy remains a foundational skill that is associated with positive client outcomes (Westra, H. A., & Norouzian, N. (2018). Using motivational interviewing to manage process markers of ambivalence and resistance in cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 42(2), 193-203). However, little is known about which therapist characteristics contribute to successful management of resistance. Research has suggested that psychotherapy performance does not improve with experience (Goldberg, S. B., Rousmaniere, T., Miller, S. D., Whipple, J., Nielsen, S. L., Hoyt, W. T., & Wampold, B. E. (2016). Do psychotherapists improve with time and experience? A longitudinal analysis of outcomes in a clinical setting. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(1), 1-11), that psychotherapists lack humility (Macdonald, J., & Mellor-Clark, J. (2015). Correcting psychotherapists' blindsidedness: Formal feedback as a means of overcoming the natural limitations of therapists. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 22(3), 249-257), and that difficult therapeutic moments may dysregulate therapist emotions (Muran, J. C., & Eubanks, C. F. (2020). Therapist performance under pressure: Negotiating emotion, difference, and rupture. American Psychological Association). This study aimed to 1) identify whether psychotherapy experience (i.e., training versus no training and number of years of psychotherapy experience) was associated with resistance management skill, and 2) identify whether humility and difficulties regulating emotions among trained individuals were each associated with resistance management. METHOD: A sample of 76 trained and 98 untrained participants were recruited for the present study. All participants completed the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale (CIHS, Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J., & Rouse, S. V. (2016). The development and validation of the comprehensive intellectual humility scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98(2), 209-221), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation: Development, factor structure, and initial validation of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26(1), 41-54), and the Resistance Vignette Task (RVT; Westra, H. A., Nourazian, N., Poulin, L., Hara, K., Coyne, A., Constantino, M. J., Olson, D., & Antony, M. M. (2021). Testing a deliberate practice workshop for developing appropriate responsivity to resistance markers: A randomized clinical trial. Psychotherapy, 58, 175-185 ) which was used to assess resistance management skill. RESULTS: Trained individuals performed significantly better on resistance management than untrained individuals; however, years of experience within the trained sample were not associated with resistance management. Conversely, lower humility and greater difficulties regulating emotions were each associated with significantly poorer resistance management in trained individuals. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest the possibility of improving training to focus on key skills, like resistance management, through supporting humility and emotion regulation in training, as opposed to simply acquiring more experience.

Training for Wisdom: The Distanced-Self-Reflection Diary Method.

How can people wisely navigate social conflict? Two preregistered longitudinal experiments (Study 1: Canadian adults; Study 2: American and Canadian adults; total N = 555) tested whether encouraging distanced (i.e., third-person) self-reflection would help promote wisdom. Both experiments measured wise reasoning (i.e., intellectual humility, open-mindedness about how situations could unfold, consideration of and attempts to integrate diverse viewpoints) about challenging interpersonal events. In a month-long experiment (Study 1), participants used either a third- or first-person perspective in diary reflections on each day's most significant experience. Compared with preintervention assessments, assessments made after the intervention revealed that participants reflecting in the third person showed a significant increase in wise reasoning about interpersonal challenges. These effects were statistically accounted for by shifts in diary-based reflections toward a broader self-focus. A week-long experiment (Study 2) replicated the third-person self-reflection effect on wise reasoning (vs. first-person and no-pronoun control conditions). These findings suggest an efficient and evidence-based method for fostering wise reasoning.

Intellectual humility's association with vaccine attitudes and intentions.

Vaccinations are critical to public health but uptake levels remain suboptimal. Intellectual humility, a virtue characterized by nonjudgmental recognition of one's own intellectual fallibility, may support the promotion of favorable vaccine attitudes. The current study investigated whether intellectual humility is related to anti-vaccination attitudes and intentions to vaccinate against the flu. Through an online survey management system, participants (N = 246, Mage = 39.06 years, SDage = 10.57, 50.80% female, 79.20% White, 6.50% Black/African American, 7.80% Asian, 1.20% Hispanic/Latino, and 5.30% Other) completed a measure for intellectual humility, the anti-vaccination attitudes (VAX) scale, and a three-item flu vaccine intention scale. We found that intellectual humility negatively correlated with anti-vaccination attitudes. This correlation was largely driven by openness to revising one's viewpoint and lack of intellectual overconfidence. Additionally, we found that intellectual humility did not relate to flu vaccination intentions. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings and their potential to support the eventual development of strategies to leverage intellectual humility into a health promotion strategy.

Intellectual humility and perceptions of political opponents.

OBJECTIVE: Intellectual humility (IH) refers to the recognition that personal beliefs might be wrong. We investigate possible interpersonal implications of IH for how people perceive the intellectual capabilities and moral character of their sociopolitical opponents and for their willingness to associate with those opponents. METHOD: In four initial studies (N = 1,926, Mage  = 38, 880 females, 1,035 males), we measured IH, intellectual and moral derogation of opponents, and willingness to befriend opponents. In two additional studies (N = 568, Mage  = 40, 252 females, 314 males), we presented participants with a specific opponent on certain sociopolitical issues and several social media posts from that opponent in which he expressed his views on the issue. We then measured IH, intellectual, and moral derogation of the opponent, participants' willingness to befriend the opponent, participants' willingness to "friend" the opponent on social media, and participants' willingness to "follow" the opponent on social media. RESULTS: Low-IH relative to high-IH participants were more likely to derogate the intellectual capabilities and moral character of their opponents, less willing to befriend their opponents, and less willing to "friend" and "follow" an opponent on social media. CONCLUSIONS: IH may have important interpersonal implications for person perception, and for understanding social extremism and polarization.

Understanding College Students' Perceptions Regarding Mindfulness: The Impact on Intellectual Humility, Faith Development, Religious Communication Apprehension, and Religious Communication.

The objective of the investigation was to test the impact of mindfulness on intellectual humility, faith development, religious communication apprehension, and religious communication. A new scale was developed to measure religious communication. Results revealed (a) mindfulness predicted faith development, intellectual arrogance, and openness; (b) mindfulness predicted less religious communication apprehension, (c) mindfulness did not predict religious communication. Findings help support the notion that greater mindfulness favorably impacts humble faith development. Mindfulness also seemed to buffer less anxiety but with no significant increase in religious communication.

Humility, Relational Spirituality, and Well-being among Religious Leaders: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Prior research has demonstrated positive associations between general humility and well-being, and posited a protective effect for intellectual humility against maladjustment among religious leaders. We tested a model that extended findings on general humility to include intellectual humility among religious leaders (N = 258; M age = 42.31; 43% female; 63.7% White; 91.9% Christian affiliation). We observed a positive general humility-well-being association. Contrary to expectations, we observed risk effects for religion-specific intellectual humility. Our findings also point to the possibility that these risk effects might be attenuated by the integration of high levels of general and intellectual humility.

Toward an understanding of collective intellectual humility.

The study of intellectual humility (IH), which is gaining increasing interest among cognitive scientists, has been dominated by a focus on individuals. We propose that IH operates at the collective level as the tendency of a collective's members to attend to each other's intellectual limitations and the limitations of their collective cognitive efforts. Given people's propensity to better recognize others' limitations than their own, IH may be more readily achievable in collectives than individuals. We describe the socio-cognitive dynamics that can interfere with collective IH and offer the solution of building intellectually humbling environments that create a culture of IH that can outlast the given membership of a collective. We conclude with promising research directions.

Unveiling the perception of politicians' intellectual humility.

Embracing intellectual humility has been touted as a potential key factor in improving relationships among people with different perspectives. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted on how individuals perceive those who express their views with intellectual humility, and no research, to our knowledge, examined perceptions of intellectual humility in political leaders specifically. This study aimed to examine to what extent perceivers value intellectual humility in the face of a polarizing topic (abortion) and when it is expressed by political leaders (hypothetical presidential candidates) sharing or opposing one's view. We predicted that individuals would like the same-view leader more than the opposing-view leader; however, they would also prefer leaders expressing intellectual humility overall. Importantly, we also explored whether individuals would be more tolerant of intellectual arrogance when arrogance came from a leader who shared (vs. opposed) their ideology. A pilot study (N = 94) confirmed all these predictions. A preregistered study with a larger sample (N = 927) replicated these patterns and showed that positive evaluations of leaders' intellectual humility were also contingent on their views and the ways they expressed intellectual humility (openness to alternative views or fallibility of their own view). While perceivers evaluated both the same and opposing-view leaders' openness to alternative views positively, they evaluated the same-view (but not the opposing-view) leaders' expression of fallibility negatively. Our findings shed light on the boundary conditions of valuing intellectual humility while offering insights on when and why people may refrain from expressing humility themselves and knowingly or unknowingly contribute to polarizing discourse.

Complexity appreciated: How the communication of complexity impacts topic-specific intellectual humility and epistemic trustworthiness.

In the context of science communication, complexity is often reduced. This study employs a 2 × 2 experimental design (N = 432) to investigate how two factors, namely the communication of complexity (reduced vs not reduced) and the provision of suggestions for concrete action (suggested vs not suggested), influence individuals' productive engagement with the socio-scientific topic of sustainable energy. Measured variables include topic-specific intellectual humility, judgements of source trustworthiness, willingness to act, anxiety, and hope. As expected, communication of complexity led to higher topic-specific intellectual humility, higher epistemic trustworthiness and higher anxiety. When a concrete action was communicated, participants reported lower topic-specific intellectual humility. Participants' willingness to act was not significantly affected by the experimental manipulation. The results of the study imply that the communication of complexity does not hinder people's productive engagement with science.

Intellectual humility as a tool to combat false beliefs: An individual-based approach to belief revision.

False beliefs pose significant societal threats, including health risks, political polarization and even violence. In two studies (N = 884) we explored the efficacy of an individual-based approach to correcting false beliefs. We examined whether the character virtue of intellectual humility (IH)-an appreciation of one's intellectual boundaries-encourages revising one's false beliefs in response to counter-information. Our research produced encouraging but also mixed findings. Among participants who held false beliefs about the risks of vaccines (Study 1) and the 2020 US Election being rigged (Study 2), those with higher IH explored more information opposing these false beliefs. This exploration of opposing information, in turn, predicted updating away from these inaccurate health and political beliefs. IH did not directly predict updating away from false beliefs, however, suggesting that this effect-if it exists-may not be particularly powerful. Taken together, these results provide moderate support for IH as a character trait that can foster belief revision but, simultaneously, suggest that alternate pathways to combat false beliefs and misinformation may be preferred.

Comparing the influence of intellectual humility, religiosity, and political conservatism on vaccine attitudes in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Three studies of US, Canada, and UK respondents examined pro-vaccine attitudes as predicted by intellectual humility, belief in science, religiosity, and political attitudes. Intellectual humility refers to the capacity to understand limits of one's own beliefs and showed strong relationship to pro-vaccine attitudes across samples. Pro-vaccine attitudes were correlated with intellectual humility and negatively correlated with political conservatism and religiosity. Regression models compared overlapping influences of belief predictors on vaccine attitudes. Across countries, intellectual humility was the most consistent predictor of pro-vaccine attitudes when controlling for other beliefs and thinking styles (political conservatism, belief in science, religiosity). In comparison, political conservatism was a significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in regression models on US and Canadian respondents, and religiosity only held as a predictor in regression models in the US sample. We conclude with a discussion of intellectual humility as a predictor of vaccine attitudes and implications for research and persuasion.

Reproducibility in chemistry research.

Chemistry is a reproducible science whose pillars - synthesis and analysis - actually comprise a huge collection of highly reproducible experimental methods to synthesize and analyze substances. The historical development of chemistry, furthermore, shows that reproducibility of methods has been the companion of novelty and creative innovation. The "publish or perish" principle dominating global academia since over two decades, however, intrinsically contributes to the publication of non-reproducible research outcomes also in chemistry. A study on reproducibility of chemistry research seems therefore timely, especially now that chemists are slowly but inevitably adopting open science and its tools such as the preprint, open access, and data sharing. We conclude presenting three simple guidelines for enhanced publication of research findings in chemistry.

A Review of Updated Guidelines on Breastfeeding with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Using Relational Decision-Making and Intellectual Humility to Support Infant Feeding Choices.

This article summarizes the updated guidelines on breastfeeding with HIV with an emphasis on using relational decision-making and intellectual humility to support the conversation around infant feeding choices. The complex cultural experiences and historical disparities that influence these decisions are highlighted, along with an overview of the recent changes to recommendations for breastfeeding in people with HIV. The article describes individualized clinical scenarios that consider infant feeding decisions, outlines communication and support strategies for health care providers, and proposes a relational decision-making model to guide discussions on infant feeding options.

Women, the intellectually humble, and liberals write more persuasive political arguments.

If sincere attempts at political persuasion are central to the functioning of democracy, then what attributes of individuals make them more persuasive toward fellow citizens? To examine this, we asked 594 Democrats and Republicans to write politically persuasive arguments on any topic of their choice and then gave those arguments to a US representative sample of 3,131 to rate the persuasiveness, totaling 54,686 judgments. We consistently found that arguments written by women, liberals, the intellectually humble, and those low on party identification were rated as more persuasive. These patterns were robust to controls for the demographics and partisanship of judges and persuaders, the topics written about, argument length, and the emotional sentiments of the arguments. Women's superior persuasiveness was partially, but not fully, explained by the fact that their arguments were longer, of a higher grade level, and expressed less dominance than men's. Intergroup dynamics also affected persuasiveness, as arguments written for in-party members were more persuasive than the ones written for out-party members. These findings suggest that an individual's personal and psychological characteristics durably provide them with a persuasive advantage when they engage in sincere attempts at changing the hearts and minds of fellow citizens.

Fallibility Salience Increases Intellectual Humility: Implications for People's Willingness to Investigate Political Misinformation.

The spread of online political misinformation has ramifications for political polarization, trust in political systems, and the functioning of democracy. In this article, we advance findings on investigative behaviors-actions aimed at determining the veracity of information encountered online-in response to political misinformation. Across three preregistered studies (N = 889), we find that investigative behaviors increase accuracy discernment of political misinformation (Study 1), that intellectual humility reliably predicts investigative behaviors in this context (Study 2), and test a novel fallibility salience manipulation to increase intellectual humility (Study 3). We discuss the implications of these findings for reducing the impacts of political misinformation.

Using self-affirmation to increase intellectual humility in debate.

Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio- and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants' discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As expected, the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants' self-rated prosocial affect (e.g. empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implications of these findings for understanding the social psychological mechanisms underpinning intellectual humility are considered.

Intellectual Humility: How Recognizing the Fallibility of Our Beliefs and Owning Our Limits May Create a Better Relationship Between the Physical Therapy Profession and Disability.

Despite the many advancements over the history of the profession, physical therapy remains in a somewhat paradoxical relationship with disability. The physical therapist profession values disability as diversity but continues to focus on the normalization of body functions as the primary means to promote functionality in people with disability. This focus, consistent with a medicalized view of disability, may prevent physical therapists from empowering individuals with disability to explore alternative, yet effective, perceptual-motor strategies to achieve their functional goals. Additionally, recent research documents implicit, negative biases of physical therapists and physical therapist assistants toward people with disability, again consistent with the medicalized view that disability is the product of an imperfectly functioning body. Dominant underlying beliefs in any profession are often difficult to counter because they are so pervasive, and those beliefs can be reinforced and made stronger when challenged. The purpose of this Perspective article is to introduce physical therapists to a rising construct in psychology-intellectual humility-that may help to facilitate the profession's relationship with disability. Intellectual humility is predicated on recognizing the fallibility of one's beliefs and related practices. Intellectual humility is a promising construct for physical therapy to address the disability paradox and confront implicit attitudes that have served as the basis for many dominant ideas about disability. This Perspective synthesizes views and evidence from the behavioral and social sciences, philosophy, and critical disability studies to contribute to the ongoing evolution of the profession with respect to disability. IMPACT: The development of enhanced intellectual humility in physical therapy may help to challenge long-held beliefs among physical therapists about disability-many of which are unnoticed, unquestioned, and difficult to counter.

Keep Calm and Be Humble: Can Intellectual Humility Predict Test Anxiety?

Test anxiety is common and may lead to a range of negative outcomes, including poor exam performance. Therefore, it is important to explore psychological predictors of test anxiety. In this paper, we examined whether intellectual humility can predict test anxiety. In Study 1, college students (N = 181) completed an intellectual humility measure with four subscales and two different measures of test anxiety. In Study 2 (N = 196), a community sample recruited from an online workforce completed the same measures. In both studies, we found that intellectual humility was negatively related to test anxiety, such that higher intellectual humility predicted lower test anxiety. Specifically, Study 1 demonstrated a negative correlation between intellectual humility and the Sarason Test Anxiety Scale; Study 2 confirmed this negative relationship with both the Sarason and Westside test anxiety scales. We also found that this relationship was largely driven by the intellectual humility subscale of Independence of Intellect and Ego. Additionally, these results were present even when controlling for key demographic factors. These findings highlight intellectual humility's role in predicting exam anxiety and offer a potential avenue for intellectual humility to be leveraged into interventions to decrease exam anxiety in the future.