Back to the Relational Roots of Humility: A Critical Narrative Review of Dyadic Studies

Abstract

After a slow start, research on humility has proliferated. On one hand, humility has been linked with benefits for physical health, mental health, and relationships across a range of settings (e.g., business, schools, psychotherapy, families). More recently, scholars have also warned about possible drawbacks of humility, particularly within relationships involving potential for abuse of power (e.g., gender norms applied differently for men than women). Thus, the purpose of the present review was to revisit the conceptual roots of work on humility as a relational virtue. Methodologically, much of the work on humility and relationships has ignored concerns about measurement and the need to study the construct with dyadic data and multiple methods. Accordingly, in this critical narrative review, our manuscript synthesizes research on humility employing dyadic data to consider humility as a social action. We found 15 articles (22 studies or independent samples) that examined humility using dyadic research designs. Although humility was correlated with relational benefits, these findings were often qualified by contextual factors, such as the personality of one’s relational partner or partners. Implications for future research on humility and its relational benefits are discussed.

Keywords

humility virtue relationships

Introduction

The current special issue focuses on research on positive social actions, defined as behaviors that are intended to have salutary effects on the well-being and success of another person or a group of people. This definition implies a strategy of research that examines behaviors involving at least two people: the actor who engages in the positive behavior, and the recipient who is targeted for other-oriented behavior (similar to how dyadic morality is studied; Gray & Wegner, 2009; Gray et al., 2012). Although positive psychology has influenced many subdisciplines of psychology, it has had limited influence on the day-to-day practice of psychotherapy or other interventions. Our goal for the present article is to consider the state of humility scholarship for attempting a similar transition to applied research (Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023). If we can facilitate a shift toward focusing on humility as a social action, it may facilitate the desired transition to applied work on humility—on how to teach, model, observe, and learn behaviors that express humility. This shift will provide a foundation for developing interventions, practices, and training programs that are replicable and scalable.

In the present article, we describe three phases of humility scholarship, and how the focus of the special issue on social actions may provide a way to resolve some of the chronic problems that have limited applied research on humility. We build on the suggestion that conceptual synthesis is needed, combined with more rigorous research designs to test falsifiable theory or hypotheses (Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023). Although thousands of studies on humility now exist, the focus of this special issue highlights that many of those studies used designs that only examine data from one perspective, failing to explore how humility and its associated social actions affect other people in a relationship with a humble person.

Definitions of Humility

Humility has been defined variously. Seminal work by Tangney (2000) distinguished humility from similar but related constructs such as modesty, narcissism, or self-enhancement. Intrapersonally, it involves an accurate view of self, as opposed to self-enhancement or inaccurate self-deprecation. Intrapersonally, it involves an orientation toward the well-being of others and regulation of tendencies toward egotism and selfishness in alignment with modesty norms for a context. Likewise, what distinguishes humility from related constructs is that it involves an inference regarding motivation—humble people are seen as sincerely other-oriented rather than selfish (Davis et al., 2010, 2011; Van Tongeren et al., 2019).

This latter point likely accounts for the complex conceptual literature seeking to measure true humility as opposed to false humility, where the expression of seemingly humble behavior conceals ulterior motives that are not at all humble. In this way, psychologically, humility involves a myth about a normatively good person (i.e., a type of moral excellence rarely actualized but sometimes attributed to an admired person). Psychological science cannot perfectly measure whether someone is actually such a good person, which is beyond the limits of what science can do (Wolterstorff, 2019); from a personality judgment perspective, the construct is perceived humility, this sidesteps the difficult task of discerning true humility (i.e., someone who acts in the interest of others without deception or self-interest). This normative boundary is well-known in the study of virtue (Ratchford et al., 2024). In what follows, we provide an account of how this conceptual approach (focusing on perceptions of humility) has led to divergence in how to study humility, as well as help people practice humble behavior.

Three Eras of Humility Scholarship

Scholarship on humility could be viewed as having three eras. The first phase was the strident era. In this phase, scholars held themselves to relentlessly high standards of measuring humility, assuming that humility could never be studied with self-reports because to do so would be so intrinsically paradoxical that measures would likely never show adequate evidence of construct validity (Tangney, 2000). Scholars wanted to assess a sincere and pure form of humility that was unadulterated by selfishness or deceit. It is not enough to think rightly and act rightly, but one must also do so for the right reasons—with proper motivation. It was important to distinguish humility from various forms of false humility, where people act humbly but with ulterior motives or come to feel harmful pride about their humility (Foulcher, 2015). Given that self-reports were assumed to be a likely dead end, teams explored various alternatives to self-reports, such as implicit measures, other-report measures, or behavioral measures (for a review, see Davis et al., 2010, 2011). In the end, there was no silver bullet; each approach had its own biases and limitations.

The second phase was the relaxed era. Around 2010, several teams independently shifted their definitions in a way that lowered the moral standard of humility slightly (Davis et al., 2010; Owens & Hekman, 2012; Owens et al., 2013). Humility was conceptualized as a signal of trustworthiness about another person, based on the inference that someone is oriented toward the betterment of others. Is someone known to have an accurate view of their strengths and weaknesses? Is someone known to respect modesty norms and regulate egotism in their relationships with others? Is someone known as relating to others based on motives of benefiting other people and balancing the interests of others and the relationship with self-interest? If so, they are likely trustworthy. These inferences are subjective and prone to bias, but people make them routinely in their day-to-day lives (Funder, 1995). This shift to treating humility as trust language aligned with established theorizing (Karabegovic & Mercier, 2023) and methods (i.e., triangulation of measures from different sources; Vazire, 2010) within personality and social psychology. Here, humility is malleable: it takes years to earn a solid reputation, but a single action could rupture trust within a relationship or network of relationships. This subtle conceptual shift launched a variety of research programs exploring benefits of humility (for a review, see Van Tongeren et al., 2019).

The third phase could be called the embarrassment era. A series of critiques began to mount regarding the growing number of definitions and measures of humility, beginning with McElroy-Heltzel et al. (2019), which noted an “embarrassment of riches” from the ever-growing number of new measures. After the initial concerns about survey-based measures, the field now has over 30 measures, including over 20 contextual measures, such as humility about one’s beliefs, values, and worldview (intellectual humility; Porter, Baldwin, et al., 2022; Porter, Elnakouri, et al., 2022). There are measures of many types of humility (e.g., spiritual, cultural, etc.), and to make matters worse, scholars are also noting the potential for abuse of power with humility language (e.g., an employee from a marginalized group feeling pressure to conform to social expectations) when humility norms unfairly put pressure on someone to conform to dominant social expectations (Choe et al., 2024; Moon & Sandage, 2019; Qin et al., 2020; Van Tongeren et al., 2023).

Although these are crude categories, these three eras are a way to understand the current challenges facing scholarship on humility. Do people have the same understanding of what it means to be humble? Also, how do power dynamics within a relationship affect our understanding of humility? Maybe humility is a virtue we want other people to have toward us, but we are reluctant to express it unless we have good reason to trust a relationship. Furthermore, humility may create the potential for betrayal, if we expect reciprocity from others, but they instead exploit our vulnerability within the relationship (Moon & Sandage, 2019). These are complexities that would need to be addressed in a research program on when and how to promote humble social actions. Indeed, additional conceptual innovation is needed to help scholars begin to think about how to promote humble behavior that is appropriately calibrated to the context of someone’s social roles and degree of power.

Toward Applied Research on Humility

These unresolved conceptual issues made some scholars wary of engaging applied research on humility (Davis, 2023; Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023) and may at least partially explain why, compared with other positive psychology fields like forgiveness or gratitude, very little work has attempted to promote humility (Lavelock et al., 2014). In a recent special issue focused on the “conceptual sprawl” of humility, scholars have offered perspectives on how to advance applied research on humility (Ballantyne, 2023; Davis, Ballantyne, et al., 2023; Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023), including calls for (a) conceptual innovation and (b) returning to fundamentals of higher standards for research design and evaluation of criterion-related validity (Davis, 2023; Davis, Ballantyne, et al., 2023; Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023; Owens, 2022). The approach we adopted in the current manuscript was to focus specifically on research studies that could move us toward studying specific social actions associated with humility. Brad Owens et al. have a thriving program of research on humility in organizations focused on behavioral expressions of humility in leaders. To begin the research program, their team conducted a grounded theory study on leaders to clarify behaviors of humility contextualized to the role of business leaders (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Presumably, expressions of humility might differ for business subordinates, and they also might differ for other roles, such as a good romantic partner, friend, or family member.

Their approach explicitly considers the power dynamics of humility, aligning with theories that suggest humility involves trustworthy or cooperative behavior, especially in situations when one has the power to exploit a relationship (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Van Tongeren et al., 2024). Humble behavior must align with role expectations within a relationship, which is a type of implicit or explicit commitment or promise. An implication of this work is that seeking to teach people to act humbly requires one to consider the context of a person’s positionality and role expectations. For example, consider information needed to evaluate humility toward an exchange of ideas (sometimes called intellectual humility; Whitcomb et al., 2017). To consider whether someone is trustworthy in how they exchange ideas with others, we need information about the epistemic norms operating within their relationship or network of relationships. A theologian has different norms than a lawyer or a research psychologist. People tend to hold themselves to higher epistemic norms when there is social accountability that holds various members of a group to higher standards of truth-seeking (Karabegovic & Mercier, 2023).

The Present Review

Given the unresolved challenges of the embarrassment era, we wanted to revisit research studies that align most closely with the idea of studying humility as behavior that affects another person. Now several decades after Tangney’s (2000) seminal work, theorizing that humility is relational in nature has helped to launch a series of research programs on potential benefits of humility. Although there are thousands of studies on humility, most of that scholarship has focused on the perspective of only one individual. If additional conceptual refinement is needed to set the stage for applied research, then perhaps homing in on studies of humility within actual relationships involving at least two people might help to clarify how to address the existing challenges. We agree with the idea of increasing the rigor of research studies in order to improve the quality of theory or hypothesis falsification (Davis, Bowes, et al., 2023). Although several scholars have undertaken initiatives to provide a synthesis of the literature on humility and its associated benefits for oneself and for others (AlSheddi, 2020; Nielsen & Marrone, 2018; Porter et al., 2022), a limitation of these reviews is that most findings only focus on person (the actor or the recipient) but fail to study humility relationally. The focus on studying humility as a social action is likely a shift that could help the transition to applied work in humility scholarship (Van Tongeren et al., 2023a, 2023b).

Therefore, in the present review, we employed a critical narrative review to identify evidence and knowledge gaps concerning associations of humility with effects on others that are based on more rigorous approaches. We focused on studies that used dyadic data that include at least two relational partners. These research designs have several advantages, including (a) modeling interdependence; (b) accounting for biases from different sources; (c) integrating information from two or more relationship partners to estimate humility; and (d) allowing scholars to study how humility may affect individuals and relationships (Kenny & Ledermann, 2010). Given the focus on humility as a personality judgment, we also anticipated that most studies would have failed to move toward studying humility as actual behavior and would measure the perception of humility, so a key challenge of this review is to begin to anticipate how to close the gap to studying humble behavior more directly. These approaches may help us begin to understand how humility affects relationships, including when and how humility might undermine flourishing if others within a system exploit someone’s generous motivation to serve the interests of others, not just themselves.

Method

Search and Inclusion Criteria

Our study’s inclusion criteria involved selecting studies based on specific requirements. First, only studies incorporating a quantitative measure of humility were considered. Second, dyadic studies must involve humility ratings from multiple individuals. Third, studies were included if they contained another measure of potential social outcomes. Our search was conducted on January 31, 2024 and we used the term “humil*”(i.e., variations of the stem). We searched PsycINFO and ProQuest Central Database. We also only included articles written in English. In total, this search strategy yielded a total of 7,179 articles to screen for inclusion in this manuscript. The screening team comprised two doctoral students in Counseling Psychology, a postdoctoral research associate, and two master’s level students specializing in mental health counseling. The study’s first author led the training and provided ongoing feedback throughout the process. Duplicates were removed (k = 2,325). Studies (k = 3,468) that did not include a measure of humility were removed next. At this point, 21 articles were advanced for coding by the first author because they included dyadic designs. Full-text review was conducted by the first author. We excluded six articles that did not include a measure of potential benefits (i.e., only humility was measured). This left us with 16 articles (21 independent samples) for additional coding and analyses. An overview of all included articles, study characteristics, and summary of key findings related to humility and social outcomes can be found in Supplemental Table 1.

Results

Overview of Samples and Measures

Studies were conducted in a range of countries, although most (k = 16) were in the United States. Most studies occurred in the lab with strangers (k = 11), although dyadic studies also occurred in couples (k = 6) or employees at work (k = 5). Several of the articles used the same dataset with a study of the transition to parenthood with 69 couples who completed a series of measures and behavioral activities before and after the birth of their first child.

Most studies used measures of humility that were contextualized to the setting. Lab-based studies used the broadest range of measures. When studying humility toward beliefs, researchers tended to use measures of intellectual humility or cultural humility. If studying humility in leaders, studies tended to use the Owens et al. (2013) measure of expressed humility. Regarding consensus, some studies showed a high degree of convergence (an estimate of the covariation between raters) between raters (e.g., in Cohen et al., 2013, rs ranged from .43 to .56 for the honesty-humility subscale), whereas, other lab-based studies showed serious problems (i.e., very low) with consensus among raters (Meagher et al., 2015, 2019, 2021, rs ranged from .00 to .214 and p < .05). In contrast, an exemplary set of studies by Lehmann et al. (2023) estimated actor, partner, and relationship components, finding that all three elements accounted for important variability in humility ratings.

Lab Studies

In lab-based studies that used some form of dyadic data, humility was generally associated with benefits. For example, one study had participants join a group of strangers to participate in three activities designed to make humility more evident by creating some potential for conflict or egotism to emerge. When a participant’s humility was higher, they were rated by group members as having higher status and acceptance over time (Davis et al., 2013). We interpreted perceived status and acceptance as signs of relational trust, consistent with theorized benefits of humility for relationships.

In three studies, the social benefits of humility depended on one’s relational context. In Amistad et al. (2018), participants completed measures of humility and other personality traits, and then a week later, participants completed a set of negotiation tasks with a dyad partner. When negotiating with a humbler partner, agreeableness was associated with greater economic value. Again, we are interpreting the consensus relational ratings as indicators of positive social benefits within dyadic relationships (actual behavior was not measured).

Humility toward one’s ideas was most beneficial when talking with someone else high in humility. Rodriguez et al. (2017) paired people based on an area of religious disagreement and had them engage in a 10-min discussion. Participants reported greater degrees of attitude change when both partners were high in humility toward each other’s ideas. Once again, this shows that when people inferred humility in a target person, they also showed signs of relational influence within that relationship, consistent with prior theorizing about the benefits of humility.

Finally, being inaccurate about one’s humility might be associated with potential for burnout. In de Vries et al. (2022), 459 employees completed measures of self- and other reports of humility; they also measured burnout and workplace well-being. Not only was humility related to burnout and workplace well-being, but also being wrong about how one is seen by others amplified this relationship. Although this study did have dyadic data, it did not report on how perceptions of humility affected rater’s burnout or well-being.

Couples

Several studies (k = 6) focused on potential social benefits of humility within couples’ relationships. A series of publications used the same dataset of 69 couples assessed at multiple time-points before and after their transition to parenthood (Odilavadze et al., 2019; Reid et al., 2016; Ripley et al., 2016; Van Tongeren et al., 2019). In Reid et al. (2016), humility was associated with relationship satisfaction over time, and these results held even while controlling for trait forgiveness. Another study also found gender moderated the relationship between humility and relationship satisfaction—namely, humility of husbands was associated with satisfaction of their partner (Odilavadze et al., 2019). If replicated in other samples, these findings might indicate potential power dynamics that affect the benefits of humility. Once again, when tested, we see some evidence that the benefits of humility depended on one’s relational context. For example, in two studies by Van Tongeren et al. (2019), humility worked best when both partners practiced high humility (i.e., the complementarity of humility hypothesis). In Study 1, couples completed measures of humility at Time 1 and measures of stress, anxiety, and depression at Time 1 (before birth of the first child) as well as Time 2 (around 3 months after birth). As predicted, when both partners were high in humility, couples reported better outcomes than when one or both partners were lower in humility. In Study 2, they replicated this pattern in a sample of recently married couples, and this time, they also included a biomarker (blood pressure). Again, as predicted, outcomes were best when both partners were high in humility, relative to when one or both partners were lower in humility.

In sum, humility was associated with benefits for one’s romantic partner and the quality of the romantic relationship, but such beneficial associations might be moderated by gender dynamics in a couple’s sociocultural context, and benefits were highest when both partners were high in humility. As it relates to the themes of the special issue, there is initial evidence that humility is associated with benefits to a relational partner, and that is showing up somewhat consistently. The part that is less clear is the specific behaviors that lead a partner to be seen as humble—what goes into the inference or judgment that one is partnered with a humble person?

Workplace

Although not typical (Kelemen et al., 2023), some organizational researchers are beginning to use dyadic designs to study humility. An excellent example involves a recent series of three studies by Lehmann et al. (2023). The first two pilot studies demonstrate the approach of using round-robin ratings of humility to partition variability in humility ratings into four parts: actor (i.e., how one tends to see others), partner (i.e., one’s reputation with others), relationship (i.e., the way someone is uniquely seen by others), and error. As predicted, in both pilot studies, they showed considerable variability in interpersonal humility. To some extent, people’s humility is unique to their relationship with another person. In the main study, they showed that humility (the relational estimate) correlated with psychological safety and performance.

Again, when tested, studies found evidence that the benefits of humility depend on one’s partner. In a sample of Chinese managers and subordinates, higher congruence (i.e., where both people showed high humility) was associated with affective attachment as well as greater employee voice (Shaw & Mao, 2023). Similarly, in a study of dyads in organizations in China, low congruence of humility between leaders and subordinates was associated with negative outcomes, including counterproductive and productive work behaviors (Qin et al., 2020).

In sum, studies of humility in the workplace depicted associations of humility with beneficial outcomes for one’s coworkers or subordinates in the workplace. However, how humility was associated with benefits to others varied based on the relational context.

Discussion

Scholarship on humility has gone through several phases, including early work where standards were very high, followed by a period of more pragmatic compromise, and now, a phase where key challenges need to be addressed to set the stage for applied work on humility in settings, such as education, healthcare, science, or relationships (Davis, Ballantyne, et al., 2023). In this critical narrative review, we joined other teams in focusing on the potential merit of a shift toward thinking about how to do a better job studying humility in actual relationships. We agree with others who have noted the need to keep pushing toward studying humility behavior and when and how such behavior has benefits to those in relationship with the target person (Van Tongeren et al., 2023a, 2023b). As a starting place, we homed in on research designs using dyadic data, given the advantages for studying how humility works within relationships (Kenny & Ledermann, 2010).

The most striking result of our review is how failing to define humility as a social action resulted in major portions of the field that are studying perceptions of humility (i.e., viewing oneself as humble, viewing another person as humble) without any acknowledgment of the differences in role expectations, specific humble behavior, or variability in how that behavior affected the targets of humble action. This gap has resulted in large portions of basic science on humility that may not provide enough detail on how to inform interventions intended to help people develop habits of humility that will benefit their relationships. None of the studies in our review studied humility with actual behavior; all relied on inferences of either self-report or other report.

A basic illustration can highlight the problem. If humility involves a balance between too much arrogance and too much deference or servility (Haggard et al., 2018), then it would be extremely difficult to know how to design a program to promote leadership training in women in the United States. For some people, selected based on their demonstration of competence and agency, enacting growth in humility might involve regulating arrogance by slowing down and engaging in behaviors that emphasize listening and integrating different perspectives before acting. On the other hand, for a leader prone to deference, growing in humility would require empowerment and perhaps an emphasis on balancing pressure to be humble with other virtues such as courage or even proper pride. A successful intervention would need to provide someone with internal and systemic relational supports to act with “proper humility” that avoids the extremes of arrogance or deference, which might require strategies to help someone differentiate from unhealthy internalization of gender norms that unfairly treat women to different standards than men (Priebe & Van Tongeren, 2021).

Although admittedly imperfect, the findings from dyadic data do begin to give a more nuanced picture of how humility may provide benefits within ongoing relationships. Overall, the evidence suggests that humility is associated with benefits for relational partners—such as less conflict, greater psychological well-being, and higher satisfaction in the relational context—but these benefits are not unconditional. In lab studies, humility was associated with greater status and acceptance in groups getting to know each other (Davis et al., 2013). At the same time, the benefits of humility were not always consistent across relational contexts. For example, if one’s partner was humble, then agreeableness was related to more positive economic outcomes during a negotiation task (Amistad et al., 2018). This finding raises the provocative implication that, for people with humble character to ensure relational benefits for dyads or groups, they may have to choose their relational contexts carefully. Perhaps a key challenge for humble cultures is instilling certain norms that structurally protect relationships from exploitative behavior (Dunning, 2023).

A second context in which dyadic studies have begun to explore the social benefits of humility involves romantic relationships. Once again, in general, studies reported positive associations between humility and relational benefits to partners, including greater relationship satisfaction and lower stress. The benefits of humility were most evident when both partners were seen as high in humility (Van Tongeren et al., 2019). These findings converge with findings from lab studies regarding humility and negotiation (Amistad et al., 2018). In addition, they align with broader work on possible risks of being too high in agreeableness (McNulty & Fincham, 2012).

A third context in which dyadic studies have explored social benefits of humility involves workplace relationships between coworkers. Although most scholarship in organizational psychology has focused on leaders using primarily other reports, we found a few studies beginning to use dyadic designs to examine humility within workplace relationships. One exemplary study by Lehmann et al. (2023) showcased the potential of round-robin designs. They isolated specific effects, including someone’s reputation of humility within a group (i.e., partner effects), as well as the degree to which someone is viewed as uniquely humble relative to other people within the group (i.e., relationship effects). This interpersonal humility was linked with greater psychological safety as well as performance ratings. Thus, findings in the work context converge with broader scholarship on how humility in one’s colleagues can create a positive work environment that fosters a variety of benefits, such as engagement and productivity (Chandler et al., 2023; Kelemen et al., 2023). Again, scholars replicated the finding that congruence in humility may enhance benefits (Qin et al., 2020; Shaw & Mao, 2023). Thus, it is important to consider the dynamics of power and status in understanding the social outcomes of humility in the workplace.

Limitations

Our review has several important limitations, based on characteristics of the studies included in the review. Dyadic data on humility, which focuses on the interplay of humility between two individuals (e.g., couples, participants interacting in the lab), is a relatively new and underexplored area of research. First, it is worth noting that the body of research on dyadic humility is still quite small. This makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions or establish consistent patterns. Most studies have focused on specific contexts (e.g., romantic relationships) and have not explored other dyadic relationships in depth.

Second, many of the studies included in our review were conducted in Western cultures, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other cultural contexts. It is unclear how cultural differences might impact the expression and perception of humility in different dyadic contexts. In terms of positionality of authors, our team included scholars born in either the United States or South Korea. Regarding ethnicity, our team included White and Asian individuals. The team included cis-gender men and women. Our team identified as having a variety of political orientations, especially regarding loyalty to ethnic subcultures salient in the United States. Potential cultural bias was a major focus of discussions as we developed our argument. Our process of writing the manuscript involved giving all members the authority to revise writing and any discrepancies were discussed with the first author to determine arguments that reflected the collective views of the team. Future research should examine the social outcomes of humility in diverse cultural settings, considering how cultural norms and values may shape the expression and perception of humility. We would be especially interested in seeing future research examine contexts that strain humility by focusing on how people navigate loyalty conflicts in which commitment to other virtues such as truth-seeking may come into conflict with loyalty demands of peers.

Third, most studies used survey measures of humility, which may be susceptible to social desirability bias. The current special issue focused on social actions. Even in cases where the researcher attempted to measure behavioral expressions of humility (Owens et al., 2013), we did not find any studies that moved toward measuring actual behavior and adding sufficient conceptual and design control to treat that behavior as an expression of humility. Measuring humility, especially in a dyadic context, is complex. Existing scales might not fully capture the nuances of how humility is expressed and perceived between two people. There is a need for validated behavioral measures specifically designed for dyadic humility research. Future research should incorporate behavioral measures of humility so that the full potential of personality judgment theory can be applied to the study of humility. Innovations in language models may provide new avenues for efficiently gathering and processing non-self-report data (Van Tongeren et al., 2023a, 2023b).

Fourth, the research designs in the present study typically did not attempt to infer the causal direction of the association between humility and benefits. Experimental or longitudinal designs might allow tests of causal direction. To this point, it is worth keeping in mind the limited work on state humility. Although findings by Lehmann et al. (2023) suggest that people may contextualize humble behavior to particular relationships, very little is known about how this might happen. Presumably, people may regulate attention and moment-to-moment goals in ways that regulate focus on humility or avoiding modesty norm violations. Likely, certain self-conscious emotions may enhance attention to the self and egoistic needs, which may make it difficult to attend to others and consider their interests. People may rely on a variety of emotions (e.g., gratitude, awe, joy, curiosity, interest) to promote a sense of transcendence.

Fifth, research in the current review generally focused on individual or relational factors, with limited attention to the role of contextual pressure. Although humility occurs within relationships, these relationships exist within a larger social context. Humility is expressed and experienced in larger social groups and communities. Dyadic data on humility can be influenced by various factors like relationship quality, personality traits, and cultural norms. Disentangling the specific effects of humility from these other factors can be challenging. Future research should examine the social outcomes of humility in ways that also consider the broader social contexts, considering how it may influence group dynamics, cooperation, and conflict resolution.

Sixth, the review focused on the social benefits of humility, but it is also important to consider potential negative outcomes or unintended effects (Choe et al., 2024; Moon & Sandage, 2019; Floyd-Thomas, 2020). For example, humility may be exploited in certain situations or lead to unhealthy dynamics in relationships characterized by power imbalances. Future research should explore the potential downsides of humility and identify the conditions under which it may not be beneficial. Research has primarily focused on the positive outcomes of dyadic humility (e.g., relationship satisfaction). It is important to explore potential negative outcomes or nuances, such as how humility might be exploited or lead to unhealthy dynamics in certain relationships.

Implications for Practice

Research progresses gradually, so the most important implication of our review is to temper enthusiasm about humility in applied contexts. Humility scholars are making progress. But currently the cultural and disciplinary critiques warrant caution in assuming that basic science on humility can be easily translated into applied contexts. Granted, there are signs of benefits of humility across a variety of contexts; we see that when a target person is seen as humble, that is a sign that the person is seen as trustworthy relative to the expectations of their role. The target person is seen as not acting in ways that offend local norms and expectations of the role. This is certainly progress, and work on humility is increasingly informing how people think about their work across a variety of contexts, such as organizational leadership, healthcare, and psychotherapy. But when we looked at studies of actual relationships (i.e., dyadic data), we found little detail on the actual behavior that is deemed humble. That means we have much to learn, and we suspect that practical attempts to help people practice humility in real-world contexts may complement and support basic science. Albeit tentative, our current theorizing is that humility works to help address challenges of cooperation. In cases where one partner defects, humility may have costs, but if somehow relationships or systems can reinforce trustworthy behavior, then humility will shine by securing better potential outcomes for two or more relational partners.

Implications for Future Research

We also want to conclude with a few related cautions for scholars. First, applied research involves moving from descriptive questions to normative questions. Even if researchers try to be as fair and unbiased as possible, humility refers to normative language. Recent critiques of positive psychology have uncovered chronic problems with research on virtues, and some of these problems may never entirely resolve (Davis, 2019; Ng & Tay, 2020). For example, to the degree that humility involves doing something “for the right reason,” it may be impossible for psychologists to reduce the gap between operational definitions and conceptions of virtue based in other fields, such as philosophy or theology (Fowers et al., 2024).

Second, focusing on actual behavior may provide a clearer path forward than simply multiplying new measures of humility for various roles and relational contexts. Where will the creation of new types of humility stop? Measures of humility are not like toothbrushes; we do not need one per team (Mischel, 2008). Empirically, the debates about measurement may eventually reach a point of diminishing marginal return.

Here are some examples, for someone interested in a deep dive of work documenting response bias consistent with a “modesty effect” for self-reports of humility, which is the idea that the more humble someone is, perhaps, the more likely they are to underestimate their humility on self-report measures (Davis et al., 2010). Overall, self-reports generally show evidence of construct validity (Ashton et al., 2014). Several teams developed clever ways of creating behavior measures of cheating or dishonesty, and humility self-reports predicted these criterion variables (Hilbig et al., 2015; Zettler et al., 2016). That said, scholars have clearly documented response bias related to the concern. One study used item-response theory where they were able to isolate a response bias, consistent with the modesty effect, relative to other personality traits (Zettler et al., 2016). Likewise, when contextually rewarded (e.g., job interviews), people may self-enhance on ratings of humility (Grieve & de Groot, 2011; MacCann, 2013). Other studies have used confirmatory factor analysis to demonstrate a method factor associated with evaluativeness (Anglim et al., 2017; Ashton & Lee, 2010). Taken together, the threat to validity appears, and measures of humility tend to show evidence of construct validity with a variety of criterion variables, such as ability to deceive during mock interview process (Schneider & Goffin, 2012), attrition from a study (Satherley et al., 2015), intention to fake (Grieve, 2012), self-monitoring, emotional manipulation (Grieve, 2011), and strategies of impression management (Law et al., 2016; Müller & Moshagen, 2019).

The suggestions by Owen (2022) align quite well with the theme of the special issue to focus on positive social behaviors and their outcomes on actual relationships—not just self-report predicting self-reports. Only some measures will hold up to rigorous tests of criterion-related validity (c.f., Costello et al., 2023). If scholars return to some of the tried-and-true approaches for other new fields of study, then conceptual refinement will occur as research designs (e.g., experiments, longitudinal studies set up to test causal claims) test hypotheses designed to increase the odds of falsification. Theoretical precision helped scholars advance in the past, and we think similar innovations may help set the stage for applied research on humility. This approach involves revisiting the idea that humility is inherently relational and examining how it functions in different social contexts (Lehmann et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2021). By studying social behaviors associated with humility in actual relationships, it will help us clarify how to help people grow in humility.

Conclusion

Empirical research on humility as a relational construct using dyadic research designs is in the beginning stages. Although we generally see evidence that humility provides relational benefits, it also has some drawbacks in situations involving untrustworthy relationships or broader systems. Thus, the benefits of humility are not universally applicable and more needs to be known about how to practice humility in a way that leads to benefits for individuals, families, and communities. A commitment to studying humility relationally involves attending to a variety of possible moderators of the target person, relational partners, and the broader social context. Rigorous research designs that aim to understand how humility works—research that creates falsifiable tests of theory—will help advance knowledge, as we learn through trial and error. These theories need to be grounded within broader accounts of self-regulation, such as stress-and-coping theory or attachment theory. Theory may help future studies move toward measuring behavior more directly. Multimethod approaches are needed to capture the complexity of culture and lived experience of people seeking to practice humility while balancing power dynamics and difficult cultural differences. We have so much to learn about this elusive virtue.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-prv-10.1177_26320770251359597 – Supplemental material for Back to the Relational Roots of Humility: A Critical Narrative Review of Dyadic Studies

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-prv-10.1177_26320770251359597 for Back to the Relational Roots of Humility: A Critical Narrative Review of Dyadic Studies by Don E. Davis, Hee Chan Woo, Yejin Lee, Aaron T. McLaughlin, Jamian Coleman, Joshua N. Hook and Daryl R. Van Tongeren in Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Don E. Davis

Daryl R. Van Tongeren

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We would like to acknowledge the generous financial support of the John Templeton Foundation (grant number 62265), Applied Research on Intellectual Humility: A Request for Proposals.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

References

AlSheddi

(2020). Humility and bridging differences: A systematic literature review of humility in relation to diversity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 79, 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2020.06.002

Amistad

Dunlop

P. D.

Anglim

Fells

(2018). Personality and integrative negotiations: A HEXACO investigation of actor, partner, and actor-partner interaction effects on objective and subjective outcomes. European Journal of Personality, 32(4), 427–442. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2166

Anglim

Morse

de Vries

R. E.

MacCann

Marty

(2017). Comparing job applicants to non-applicants using an item-level bifactor model on the HEXACO personality inventory. European Journal of Personality, 31(6), 669–684. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2120

Ashton

M. C.

Lee

(2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868306294907

Ashton

M. C.

Lee

(2010). Trait and source factors in HEXACO-PI-R self- and observer reports. European Journal of Personality, 24(3), 278–289. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.759

Ashton

M. C.

Lee

de Vries

R. E.

(2014). The HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality factors: A review of research and theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523838

Ballantyne

(2023). Recent work on intellectual humility: A philosopher’s perspective. Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 200–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1940252

Chandler

J. A.

Johnson

N. E.

Jordan

S. L.

Darren

K. B.

Short

J. C.

(2023). A meta-analysis of humble leadership: Reviewing individual, team, and organizational outcomes of leader humility. Leadership Quarterly, 34(1), 101660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101660

Choe

E. J.

Blake

Huenergarde

M. C.

Wells

L. S.

Srisarajivakul

E. N.

(2024). When you are the “other”: A scoping review of the experiences of clinicians of color working with White clients. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 71(3), 170–178. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000729

10.

Cohen

T. R.

Panter

A. T.

Turan

Morse

Kim

(2013). Agreement and similarity in self-other perceptions of moral character. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(6), 816–830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.08.009

11.

Costello

T. H.

Newton

Lin

Pennycook

(2023). A metacognitive blindspot in intellectual humility measures. Open Science, Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/gux95

12.

Davis

D. E.

(2019). Envisioning more virtuous virtues. Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(1), 72–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1528383

13.

Davis

D. E.

(2023). The interdisciplinary study of intellectual humility: An introduction to the special issue. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 197–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154707

14.

Davis

D. E.

Ballantyne

Hook

J. N.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

(2023). Conclusion to the special issue on the interdisciplinary study of intellectual humility: Unifying themes from divergent theories and research programs. Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 316–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2155231

15.

Davis

D. E.

Bowes

McLaughlin

Hsu

Gazaway

McElroy-Heltzel

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Hook

J. N.

(2023). In search of convergent creativity: Content analysis of research on intellectual humility. Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 304–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154706

16.

Davis

D. E.

Hook

J. N.

(2019). Cultural humility: Conclusion to the special issue. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 47(3), 230–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091647119856463

17.

Davis

D. E.

Hook

J. N.

Worthington

E. L.

Jr. Van Tongeren

D. R.

Gartner

A. L.

Jennings

D. J.

Emmons

R. A.

(2011). Relational humility: Conceptualizing and measuring humility as a personality judgment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93(3), 225–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2011.558871

18.

Davis

D. E.

Worthington

E. L.

Hook

J. N.

(2010). Humility: Review of measurement strategies and conceptualization as personality judgment. Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(4), 243–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439761003791672

19.

Davis

D. E.

Worthington

E. L.

Hook

J. N.

Emmons

R. A.

Hill

P. C.

Bollinger

R. A.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

(2013). Humility and the development and repair of social bonds: Two longitudinal studies. Self and Identity, 12(1), 58–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2011.636509

20.

de Vries

Broks

V. M. A.

Bloemers

Kuntze

de Vries

R. E

. (2022). Self-, other-, and meta-perceptions of personality: Relations with burnout symptoms and eudaimonic workplace well-being. PLoS One, 17(7), e0272095. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272095

21.

Dunning

(2023). Where does intellectual humility reside? Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 264–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2155220

22.

Floyd-Thomas

S. M.

(2020). Oppressive humility: A womanist view of humility, flourishing, and the secret of joy. In Rosa

D. C. R. M.-L.

(Ed.), The joy of humility: The beginning and end of the virtues (pp. 13–42). Baylor University Press.

23.

Foulcher

(2015). Reclaiming humility: Four studies in the monastic tradition. Liturgical Press.

24.

Fowers

B. J.

Novak

L. F.

Calder

A. J.

Kiknadze

N. C.

(2024). Can a theory of human flourishing be formulated? Toward a science of flourishing. Review of General Psychology, 28(2), 123–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680231225223

25.

Funder

D. C.

(1995). On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach. Psychological Review, 102(4), 652–670. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.4.652

26.

Gray

Waytz

Young

(2012). The moral dyad: A fundamental template unifying moral judgment. Psychological Inquiry, 23(2), 206–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2012.686247

27.

Gray

Wegner

D. M.

(2009). Moral typecasting: Divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3), 505–520. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013748

28.

Grieve

(2011). Mirror Mirror: The role of self-monitoring and sincerity in emotional manipulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(8), 981–985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.08.004

29.

Grieve

(2012). The role of personality, psychopathy, and previous experience with assessment in intentions to fake in psychological testing. Current Psychology, 31(4), 414–422, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-012-9158-x

30.

Grieve

de Groot

H. T.

(2011). Does online psychological test administration facilitate faking? Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2386–2391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.08.001

31.

Haggard

Rowatt

W. C.

Leman

J. C.

Meagher

Moore

Fergus

Whitcomb

Battaly

Baehr

Howard-Snyder

(2018). Finding middle ground between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility: Development and assessment of the limitations-owning intellectual humility scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 124, 184–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.014

32.

Hilbig

B. E.

Moshagen

Zettler

(2015). Truth will out: Linking personality, morality, and honesty through indirect questioning. Social Psychological Personality Science, 6(2), 140–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614553640

33.

Karabegovic

Mercier

(2023). The reputational benefits of intellectual humility. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 15(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-023-00679-9

34.

Kelemen

T. K.

Matthews

S. H.

Matthews

M. J.

Henry

S. E.

(2023). Humble leadership: A review and synthesis of leader expressed humility. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(2), 202–224. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2608

35.

Kenny

D. A.

Ledermann

(2010). Detecting, measuring, and testing dyadic patterns in the actor-partner interdependence model. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(3), 359–366. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019651

36.

Lavelock

C. R.

Worthington

E. L.

Jr. Davis

D. E.

Griffin

B. J.

Reid

C. A.

Hook

J. N.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

(2014). The quiet virtue speaks: An intervention to promote humility. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 42(1), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164711404200111

37.

Law

S. J.

Bourdage

O’Neill

T. A.

(2016). To fake or not to fake: Antecedents to interview faking, warning instructions, and its impact on applicant reactions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1771. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01771

38.

Lehmann

Pery

Kluger

A. N.

Hekman

D. R.

Owens

B. P.

Malloy

T. E.

(2023). Relationship-specific (dyadic) humility: How your humility predicts my psychological safety and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(5), 809–825. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001059

39.

MacCann

(2013). Instructed faking of the HEXACO reduces facet reliability and involves more Gc than Gf. Personality and individual differences, 55(7), 828–833.

40.

McElroy-Heltzel

S. E.

Davis

D. E.

DeBlaere

Worthington

E. L.

Jr. Hook

J. N.

(2019). Embarrassment of riches in the measurement of humility: A critical review of 22 measures. Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(3), 393–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1460686

41.

McNulty

J. K.

Fincham

F. D.

(2012). Beyond positive psychology? Toward a contextual view of psychological processes and well-being. American Psychologist, 67(2), 101–110. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024572

42.

Meagher

B. R.

Gunn

Sheff

Van Tongeren

D. R.

(2019). An intellectually humbling experience: Changes in interpersonal perception and cultural reasoning across a five-week course. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 47(3), 217–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091647119837010

43.

Meagher

B. R.

Leman

J. C.

Bias

J. P.

Latendresse

S. J.

Rowatt

W. C.

(2015). Contrasting self-report and consensus ratings of intellectual humility and arrogance. Journal of Research in Personality, 58, 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.07.002

44.

Meagher

B. R.

Leman

J. C.

Heidenga

C. A.

Ringquist

M. R.

Rowatt

W. C.

(2021). Intellectual humility in conversation: Distinct behavioral indicators of self and peer ratings. Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(3), 417–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1738536

45.

Mischel

(2008, December 1). The toothbrush problem. APS Observer, 21(11). https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-toothbrush-problem

46.

Moon

S. H.

Sandage

S. J.

(2019). Cultural humility for people of color: Critique of current theory and practice. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 47(2), 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/00916471198424

47.

Müller

Moshagen

(2019). Controlling for response bias in self-ratings of personality: A comparison of impression management scales and the overclaiming technique. Journal of Personality Assessment, 101(3), 229–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2018.1451870

48.

Tay

(2020). Lost in translation: The construct representation of character virtues. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(2), 309–326. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619886014

49.

Nielsen

Marrone

J. A.

(2018). Humility: Our current understanding of the construct and its role in organizations. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(4), 805–824. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12160

50.

Odilavadze

Panjikidze

Martskvishvili

Mestvirishvili

Kvitsiani

(2019). The role of personality and love style in marital satisfaction: Does similarity matter? Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 7(4), 288–297. https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp.2020.91436

51.

Owens

B. P.

(2022). Commentary: Letting measurement refine conceptualization. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(2), 244–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154700

52.

Owens

B. P.

Hekman

D. R.

(2012). Modeling how to grow: An inductive examination of humble leader behaviors, contingencies, and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 787–818. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0441

53.

Owens

B. P.

Johnson

M. D.

Mitchell

T. R.

(2013). Expressed humility in organizations: Implications for performance, teams, and leadership. Organization Science, 24(5), 1517–1538. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0795

54.

Porter

Baldwin

C. R.

Warren

M. T.

Murray

E. D.

Cotton Bronk

Forgeard

M. J.

Snow

N. E.

Jayawickreme

(2022). Clarifying the content of intellectual humility: A systematic review and integrative framework. Journal of Personality Assessment, 104(5), 573–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1975725

55.

Porter

Elnakouri

Meyers

E. A.

Shibayama

Jayawickreme

Grossmann

(2022). Predictors and consequences of intellectual humility. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(9), 524–536. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00081-9

56.

Priebe

Van Tongeren

D. R.

(2021). Women pay a steeper price for arrogance: Examining presentation style, gender, and humility. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(1), 121–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1991451

57.

Qin

Chen

Yam

K. C.

Huang

(2020). The double-edged sword of leader humility: Investigating when and why leader humility promotes versus inhibits subordinate deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(7), 693–712. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000456

58.

Ratchford

J. L.

Pawl

Jeffrey

Schnitker

S. A.

(2024). What is virtue? Using philosophy to refine psychological definition and operationalization. Philosophical Psychology, 37(8), 2597–2622. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2203157

59.

Reid

C. A.

Worthington

E. L.

Garthe

R. C.

Davis

D. E.

Hook

J. N.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Griffin

B. J.

(2016). Actor-partner interdependence of humility and relationship quality among couples transitioning to parenthood. Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(2), 122–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1233349

60.

Ripley

J. S.

Garthe

R. C.

Perkins

Worthington

E. L.

Jr. Davis

D. E.

Hook

J. N.

Reid

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Dwiwardani

Ord

Fennell

Eaves

(2016). Perceived partner humility predicts subjective stress during transition to parenthood. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 5(3), 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1037/cfp0000063

61.

Rodriguez

Hook

J. N.

Farrell

J. E.

Mosher

D. K.

Zhang

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Davis

D. E.

Aten

J. D.

Hill

P. C.

(2017). Religious intellectual humility, attitude change, and closeness following religious disagreement. Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(2), 133–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1388429

62.

Satherley

Milojev

Greaves

L. M.

Huang

Osborne

Bulbulia

Sibley

C. G.

(2015). Demographic and psychological predictors of panel attrition: Evidence from the New Zealand attitudes and values study. PLoS One, 10(3), e0121950. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0121950

63.

Schneider

T. J.

Goffin

R. D.

(2012). Perceived ability to deceive and incremental prediction in pre-employment personality testing. Personality and Individual Differences, 52(7), 806–811. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.015

64.

Shaw

K.-H.

Mao

(2023). Leader-follower congruence in humility and follower voice: The mediating role of affective attachment. Current Psychology, 42(1), 486–495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01475-3

65.

Tangney

J. P.

(2000). Humility: Theoretical perspectives, empirical findings and directions for future research. Journal of Social Clinical Psychology, 19(1), 70–82. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2000.19.1.70

66.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Davis

D. E.

Hook

J. N.

Witvliet

C. V

. (2019). Humility. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(5), 463-468. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419850153

67.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Hickman

Tay

. (2023a). Behavioral measures of humility: Part 1. Theoretical and methodological review. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(5), 711–721. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2109202

68.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Hickman

Tay

. (2023b). Behavioral measures of humility: Part 2. Conceptual mapping and charting ways forward. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 18(5), 722–732. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2109201

69.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Severino

Kojima

Miskowski

Blank

. (2023). Is there a dark side to humility? Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence for existential costs of humility. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 33(2), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2022.2143662

70.

Van Tongeren

D. R.

Teahan

Davis

E. B.

Aten

J. D.

Wang

D. C.

Hall

M. E. L.

Shannonhouse

Severino

. (2024). The trust signaling hypothesis of humility: how humble leaders elicit greater monetary contributions. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(2), 257–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2222373

71.

Vazire

(2010). Who knows what about a person? The self-other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281–300. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017908

72.

Wang

Dunlop

P. D.

Parker

S. K.

Griffin

M. A.

Gachunga

(2021). The moderating role of honesty-humility in the association of agreeableness with interpersonal competency: A study of managers in two countries. Applied Psychology, 71(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12318

73.

Whitcomb

Battaly

Baehr

Howard-Snyder

(2017). Intellectual humility. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94(3), 509–539. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12228

74.

Wolterstorff

(2019). Religion in the university. Yale University Press.

75.

Zettler

Lang

J. W.

Hulsheger

U. R.

Hilbig

B. E.

(2016). Dissociating indifferent, directional, and extreme responding in personality data: Applying the three-process model to self- and observer reports. Journal of Personality, 84(4), 461–472. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12172

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.14 MB