Intellectual humility: Validation and comparison of four self-report scales in the German context

Holding specific views with humility: Conceptualization and measurement of specific intellectual humility

Objectives Intellectual humility refers to a tendency to recognize and accept that one’s personal beliefs or knowledge may be fallible and limited. The purpose of this study is to examine whether preschool teachers’ intellectual humility predicts self-development needs and teamwork, which in turn, predict professional knowledge. In other words, the current study investigates the dual mediating effects of self-development needs and teamwork in the relationship between intellectual humility and professional knowledge in preschool teachers. Methods A total of 206 teachers across 32 preschools participated in this study. The participating teachers completed questionnaires on intellectual humility, self-development needs, teamwork, and professional knowledge. SPSS 25.0 was used to test the mediating effect of self-development needs and teamwork on the relationship between intellectual humility and professional knowledge in teachers. In addition, PROCESS macro version 3.4 (Hayes, 2017) was used to confirm the indirect effect. Results The teachers’ intellectual humility predicts professional knowledge via self-development needs and teamwork. In other words, teachers who acknowledge their own intellectual limits and are open to new experiences and learning opportunities have a higher level of professional knowledge in teaching, and this relation is mediated by both self-development needs and teamwork. The bootstrapping results also suggest that the indirect effect is statistically significant. Conclusion This study is the first to introduce and apply a new concept of intellectual humility in a Korean sample. By showing the relationship between intellectual humility, self-development needs, teacher teamwork, and professional knowledge, the study highlights the importance of intellectual virtue in preschool teachers. Keywords: intellectual humility, self-development needs, teacher teamwork, professional knowledge

This study examines select psychometric properties (i.e., internal reliability, and factorial, convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity) of three commonly-used measures of anxiety disorder symptoms in adolescents in the context of multi-trait, multi-method matrix analyses. A sample of 331 adolescents (age M = 17.1; 75.3% white; 71.0% female) completed three self-report scales that assess symptoms of separation anxiety, social anxiety, panic, and generalized anxiety, as well as measures of depression, experiential avoidance, and intolerance of uncertainty. Measures of panic disorder symptoms showed poor factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity. A multi-trait, multi-method matrix model to understand the relationships among the measures of separation anxiety, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety symptoms provided a reasonable fit to the data. Measures of separation anxiety showed poor discriminant and criterion validity, suggesting limited relevance of separation anxiety in this adolescent sample. Measures of social anxiety generally showed evidence of adequate-to-good factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity. Measures of generalized anxiety showed adequate -to-good factorial and convergent validity, and poor-to-adequate discriminant validity. The associations of measures of social and generalized anxiety with measures of depression, experiential avoidance, and intolerance of uncertainty were at least partially independent of method variance. The findings of this study add to the growing literature that evaluates the strengths and limitations of these scales for clinical practice and research.

Affective polarization, the extent to which political actors treat each other as disliked outgroups, is challenging political exchange and deliberation, for example, via mistrust of the "political enemy" and unwillingness to discuss political topics with them. The present experiments address this problem and study what makes people approach, and not avoid, potential discussion partners in the context of polarized political topics in Germany. We hypothesized that intellectual humility, the recognition of one's intellectual limitations, would predict both less affective polarization and higher approach and lower avoidance tendencies toward contrary-minded others. Across four preregistered online-survey experiments (N = 1,668), we manipulated how intellectually humble a target person was perceived and measured participants' self-reported (topic-specific) intellectual humility. Results revealed that participants' intellectual humility was consistently negatively correlated with affective polarization. Additionally, intellectual humility of both the target person and the participants was beneficial, and sometimes even necessary, to make participants approach, and not avoid, the target person. Intellectual humility was more important than moral conviction, opinion, and opinion strength. Furthermore, the effects on approach and avoidance were mediated by more positive expectations regarding the debate, and the effects on future willingness for contact by higher target liking. Our findings suggest that intellectual humility is an important characteristic to enable political exchange as it leads to seeing political outgroups more positively and to a higher willingness to engage in intergroup contact. Implications for intergroup contact of political groups as well as ideas for future research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

ABSTRACTIntellectual humility, the recognition of one's intellectual limitations, is promising to make controversial political debates more constructive. However, it is unknown how to best enhance a person's intellectual humility in experiments or interventions. Therefore, we studied how to promote intellectual humility by adapting and conceptually replicating five different approaches suggested in previous work: the explanatory depth approach, growth mindset intervention, a humility information text, listing unknowns and self‐distancing. Results of a preregistered online intervention tournament (N1 = 1503) showed that intellectual humility about political topics was enhanced via providing information about the benefits of intellectual humility in controversial political discussions. Study 2 replicated and extended this finding regarding expressed intellectual humility in written text with a sample quota‐stratified for Germany's population regarding age, gender and education (N2 = 1654). However, the intervention did not lead to higher engagement with diverse viewpoints and effects on general intellectual humility and pre–post differences in self‐rated knowledge were inconsistent. We discuss how our studies provide a starting point for effectively increasing intellectual humility in experiments and in interventions.

Exploring intellectual humility through the lens of artificial intelligence: Top terms, features and a predictive model

The disruption of attachment bonds through bereavement often leads to unfulfilled relational needs, emphasizing the importance of evaluating these processes systematically. Based on Erskine and Payàs's conceptualization of relational needs, the present study aims to develop and psychometrically validate the Relational Needs in Grief Scale (RNGS). Data from 354 bereaved participants in an online cross-sectional survey were collected to investigate the instrument's factorial structure, reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity. Results from Exploratory Factor Analysis identified two factors: "Need for Protection and Validity" and "Need for Mutuality". Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed the scale's two-dimensional nature. Stepwise elimination of underperforming items led to substantial improvements in model fit. The Need for Protection and Validation was positively associated with attachment-related anxiety and negatively with avoidance, and it significantly predicted prolonged grief symptoms. The final 11-item total scale and subscales yielded high internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach's α: 0.81-0.94, McDonald's ω: 0.81-0.95) and satisfactory convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity. The RNGS constitutes a novel and psychometrically valid tool for both research and clinical practice, enabling the systematic assessment of the relational needs profile and informing the development of tailored interventions.

The purpose of this investigation is to develop and validate a short form of the Generalized Ethnocentrism Scale (GENE). The GENE scale measures people’s tendency to consider their culture as the center of the world. A total of four studies were conducted using samples of college students. In the Study 1 has been examined the underlying factor structure of the GENE measure. Based on this study, the Short Form Generalized Ethnocentrism Scale is proposed (SFGENE-7). In the second study, the two-factor structure evidenced in Study 1, was supported by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The psychometric properties of the short form of the GENE scale were also satisfactory. In the third study, the two-factor structure was submitted again to CFA. The investigation of the relationship between ethnocentrism and external variables was also examined. The results supported the convergent, discriminant and incremental validities. Finally, in the fourth study, temporal stability of the short form of the GENE scale has been assessed. The results demonstrated that the SFGENE-7 had adequate test-retest reliability. Overall, results reveal that the SFGENE-7 has adequate levels of reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and incremental validity. We obtained a short, reliable, and valid instrument to assess ethnocentrism.

Intellectual humility is a worthwhile virtue. Whitcomb et al. (Philos Phenomenol Res 94(3):520, 2017) recently propose a novel account of intellectual humility. According to this account, intellectual humility consists of proper attentiveness to and owning of one’s intellectual limitations. We argue that this account is in accordance with empirical work on intellectual humility, but it has two problems. It leaves open the possibility that one can be both intellectually humble and arrogant and that it does not adequately explain the strangeness associated with self-attribution of intellectual humility. Subsequently, we explore an interesting connection between intellectual humility and ignorance. Our view is that intellectual humility can lead to ignorance in the internalist sense, but this is acceptable, in that intellectual humility also gives rise to valuable epistemic standings, such as understanding and wisdom.

An examination of the structural, discriminant, nomological, and incremental predictive validity of the MSCEIT© V2.0

Addressing humanity’s grand challenges requires productive dialogue. One way to improve dialogue is by helping people build skills in dealing with information using an approach rooted in the intellectual virtues. There are a number of intellectual virtues, but a recent line of multidisciplinary research suggests beginning with intellectual humility (IH) as a cornerstone. At heart, IH is being open to the possibility that one might be mistaken. It has been defined as recognizing one’s intellectual limitations, having little concern with intellect-derived social status, and accurately valuing one’s beliefs according to the evidence. IH has obvious relevance to the information field, but to date there has been scant mention of IH in the information literature. This short paper reports on the first study connecting measures of IH to information seeking and use, a quantitative online survey with 201 participants. The results of this study suggest that individuals with higher IH are more likely to: be older; favor easily accessible information sources; search in multiple places for information; and find that discovering information ignites further interest in their search. Moreover, those with higher IH are less likely to look upon themselves negatively, or think others would, for using a given information source. These findings suggest avenues for further research on IH and information behavior, literacy and design.KeywordsIntellectual humilityIntellectual virtuesInformation behaviorInformation seekingInformation use

Finding middle ground between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility: Development and assessment of the limitations-owning intellectual humility scale

Étude des qualités psychométriques de la version française du How I Think Questionnaire dans un échantillon d’adolescents français

Validation du questionnaire EORTC In-Patsat32 de satisfaction des patients atteints de cancer dans les établissements de soins au Maroc

Are holistic thinkers intellectually humbler? A first test