Evidence that Intellectual Curiosity Can Be Heightened via a Self-Affirmation Induction

Abstract

The dispositional trait of intellectual humility (IH) refers to the degree to which people recognize their beliefs might be fallible. For the most part, it has been conceptualized as a “trait” variable that reflects a stable individual difference, however, in the current study, we examined whether IH also has “state”-like characteristics by testing whether it is susceptible to modification via a self-affirmation (SA) induction, which in previous research has been shown to reduce defensiveness in the face of information that threatens the self. To test this hypothesis, we first threatened participants by having them read a counter-attitudinal essay that contradicted their belief in God and then allowed half of the participants to affirm the self by writing about an important value that they hold. Following this SA induction, all participants completed a brief IH measure. Consistent with our hypothesis, statistical analyses revealed that participants in the SA condition reported significantly higher IH than participants in the control (no affirmation) condition. These findings suggest that in addition to having features associated with relatively fixed personality traits, IH is also amenable to change on the basis of a simple situational manipulation under conditions of self-threat.