Intellectual Humility Confusion

An article published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin reported on investigations of what the researchers labelled Cognitive and Interpersonal Features of Intellectual Humility. There is some confusion about what is healthy and desirable in terms of Intellectual Humility. In part, this is because the concept of humility has been perceived by some as representing unassertiveness, servility, lack of appropriate personal pride, submissiveness, a healthy level of self-esteem, and so on. Especially in developed countries, these words rarely are seen as representing desirable characteristics. Rather they describe a persona that, as one individual put it, “everything that I do not want to be.” Recent studies have helped reduce this confusion, because that is what it represents in my brain’s opinion: confusion. People can suffer due to confusion.