A social-personality perspective on humility, religiousness, and spirituality.
Rowatt, C. Wade ; Kang, L. Linda ; Haggard, C. Megan 等
Two studies were conducted about humility and
religiousness-spirituality dimensions of the self. In Study 1, a sample
of adults self-reported their religious affiliation, humility, and
narcissism. We found Protestant and Catholic adults self-reported being
more humble-modest than non-religious adults. In Study 2, college
students self-reported humility-modesty, humility-arrogance, and
religiousness-spirituality and were rated on these same qualities by a
person who knew them well. Positive correlations were found between self
and other-rated humility and between self-reported humility, religious
values/be-liefs, and religious-spiritual coping. Ratings of the
participant as humble (relative to arrogant) were positively correlated
with several facets of religiousness-spirituality. The magnitude of
correlations was relatively unchanged when socially desirable responding
was statistically controlled.
A close reading of sacred texts reveals interesting teachings about
the importance of the psychological quality of humility. In a
translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching one finds sayings like,
"He who brags will have no merit; he who boasts will not endure
(Tzu, 1963, Ch. 24, p. 81)." In the Christian religious tradition,
the New Testament parable of the guest at the feast (Luke 14: 7-11)
illustrates the importance of humility for self-learning, spirituality,
and social order (Barclay, 1970). Other biblical passages emphasize the
importance of humility interpersonally (e.g., Philippians 2:3).
We are not the first to notice these connections between humility
and religiousness-spirituality. Emmons (1999) uses trait humility as an
example of spiritual intelligence. Bollinger and Hill (2012) also traced
roots of humility in Buddhist and Christian faith traditions and
concluded that across Eastern and Western religions, humility is a
virtue marked by, "accurate self-knowledge, an acknowledgement of
one's limitations and weaknesses, and opening oneself to the
greater reality" (Bollinger & Hill, 2012, p. 36).
That humility is established by religions or scholars as a quality
for which to strive does not necessarily make religious-spiritual
persons humble. It could be that religious teachings about humility were
attempts to temper self-righteousness among highly religious persons
striving to be even more religious, spiritual, or holier than others.
Deferring self-interest to the group, for example, may have advantages
(Wilson, 1978). Hubristic pride or arrogance, on the other hand, could
be detrimental to the individual or group.
In the current studies, we investigate potential connections
between humility and religiousness-spirituality and ask "Are
religious persons more humble or arrogant than people who do not
identify with a world religion?" and "How are humility and
religiousness-spirituality correlated?" At face value, both
questions seem fairly easy to test. However, humility has proven to be a
somewhat elusive, mercurial personality trait to define and measure (see
Bollinger & Hill, 2012; Davis, Worthington, & Hook, 2010; Exline
et al., 2004; Ex-line & Hill, 2012; LaBouff, Rowatt, Johnson, Tsang,
& McCullough, 2012; Rowatt et al., 2006; Tangney, 2002).
Religiousness-spirituality is also multi-faceted. As such, possible
connections between humility and religiousness-spirituality will depend,
in part, on how the concepts are operationally defined.
Humility Definitions and Measures
Conceptually, humble persons are down-to-earth, low in self-focus,
and have an accurate view of self. Humble people usually do not brag and
are not arrogant. Humility correlates positively with qualities like
agreeableness and emotional stability, and negatively with narcissism
(Rowatt etal., 2006)--but the absence of arrogance or narcissism would
not necessarily make one humble (Edine et al., 2004). Existing measures
often pair humility with theoretically related constructs like modesty
(Exline et al., 2004), honesty (Lee & Ashton, 2004), and arrogance
(Rowatt et al., 2006). To our knowledge there is not a measure of
general humility distinct or independent from these other conceptually
related qualities.
Religiousness-Spirituality Definition and Measures
Unlike humility, for which there are only a handful of measures,
there are hundreds of different self-report measures of
religiousness-spirituality (cf. Hill & Hood, 1999) ranging from
categorical items (e.g., religious affiliation, theism) to multi-item
scales that assess motivations for religious behaviors, attachment to a
divine agent, how rigidly or flexibly one holds certain religiousness
beliefs (e.g., religious fundamentalism, doctrinal orthodoxy), and
religious coping. Our primary focus will be on general
religiousness-spirituality rather than these other aspects, although
these are potentially important concepts for future comparisons with
humility.
Overview
Two studies investigated possible connections between humility and
religiousness-spirituality dimensions of the self. In Study 1, adults
self-reported their religious affiliation, humility, and narcissism.
Mean-level humility was compared between Christians and persons who
identified with no religion (i.e., nones). Presumably persons who
internalize religious teachings and values about humility (e.g.,
Christians) will report being more humble than people who do not
internalize religious teachings about humility (Le., irreligious
persons). We also explored associations between humility and some
individual differences (e.g., gender, age, education). In Study 2,
college students self-reported humility-modesty, humility-arrogance,
religiousness-spirituality, and social desirability; then a person who
knew them well rated their humility and religiousness-spirituality. Our
primary hypotheses were that religious persons report being more humble
than non-religious persons (Study 1) and that self and other-reported
humility and religiousness-spirituality correlate positively (Study 2).
Study 1
Participants
A small sample of 120 adults from the United States completed an
online survey that included measures of religious affiliation, humility
and narcissism. Because so few participants identified with some
religions [i.e., Buddhist (n = 2), Hindu (n = 2), Jewish (n = 2),
Baha'i (n = 1), Mormon (n = 1), Wiccan (n = 1), spiritual (n = 1)),
we decided to restrict our analyses to 110 individuals who identified as
Protestant (n = 32), Catholic (n = 29), or None (n = 49). The final
sample was comprised of 68 women and 42 men (Maw = 35 yrs, SDaw= 14 yrs)
and was somewhat diverse with regard to race/ ethnicity (76.4% White,
8.2% Black, 7.3% Asian, 4.5% Hispanic, 3.6% another race/ethnicity) and
socio-economic status (17% lower class, 31% lower middle class, 40%
middle class, 11% upper middle class, 1% upper class). The average years
of education completed was 15 (SD = 2.43).
Measures and Procedure
Participants were recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk and
paid $0.25. Humility-modesty was assessed with the 10-item subscale from
the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson &
Seligman, 2004, a = .83; 1 = very much unlike me, 5 = very much like me;
example item "I rarely call attention to myself.")
Humility-arrogance (Rowan et al., 2006, a = .78) was measured with seven
7-point semantic differential items between the following end-labels:
humble/arrogant, modest/immodest, re-spectful/disrespectful,
egotistical/not self-centered, conceited/not conceited,
intolerant/tolerant, and dosed-minded/open-minded. The first three items
were reverse-scored before summing ratings. Higher scores on this
variable indicate more self-reported humility relative to arrogance.
Narcissism was assessed with the 40-item, forced-choice version of the
Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988; a = .91).
Participants received one point for each narcissistic response. An
example forced-choice pair reads, "I am much like everybody else. I
am an extraordinary person." To assess religious identification
participants were asked, "What is your primary religious
affiliation?" Response options included Protestant, Catholic,
Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, None, and a free response category
"other religion."
Results and Discussion
ANOVAs with Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons were used to compare the
scale scores of Protestants, Catholics, and Nones. As detailed in Table
1, Protestants and Catholics reported being more humble-modest than
Nones, (F(2, 104) = 3.15,p = .047, = .057) and marginally more humble
relative to arrogant than Nones, (F(2, 105) = 2.84,p = .063, = .051). No
differences between Christians and non-religious persons were found with
regard to narcissism scale scores.
TABLE 1 Humility Scale Scores for Christian Religious and
Non-Religious Groups
Protestant Catholic
M SD M SD
Humility-modesty 3.6[4.sub.a] 0.72 3.7[8.sub.a] 0.50
Humility-arrogance 5.6[9.sub.a] 0.69 5.7[5.sub.a] 0.78
Narcissism 10.9[0.sub.a] 6.78 11.7[0.sub.a] 7.49
No Religion
M SD
Humility-modesty 3.[4.sub.d] 0.67
Humility-arrogance 5.3[4.sub.] 0.90
Narcissism 11.7[9.sub.a] 8.30
Note. Each row represents a separate AN OVA. Row means
with different subscripts arc statistically different
(Tukcv HSD tests; p < .05).
Men and women did not differ in self-reported humility or
narcissism. Age was negatively correlated with narcissism (r =--.28, p =
.004) and essentially uncorrelated with humility-modesty (r = .06) and
humility-arrogance (r =--.02). Years of education completed was
negatively correlated with humility-modesty (r =--.21, p = .029) and
humility-arrogance (r =--.27,p = .004), but not with narcissism (r =
.10). It could be that as people become more educated, they gain more
knowledge, or believe they know it all. Longitudinal data are needed to
better test whether or how humility and narcissism change as people age
or become more educated. A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies
indicates little change in agreeableness with age (Roberts, Walton,
& Viechtbauer, , 2006). Narcissism scale scores, however, appear to
be on the rise among college students (Twenge, Konrath., Foster,
Campbell, & Bushman, 2008).
Study 1 has a few notable limits. For example, we assessed
religiousness categorically instead of dimensionally and relied solely
on self-report. People who identify as Christian, for example, likely
vary in degree of religiousness. Also, a person could easily self-report
being more humble or religious, or less arrogant or narcissistic than
they are or than others perceive. In a college student sample, for
example, highly religious students displayed more self-other bias than
less religious students (Rowatt, Ottenbreit, Nesselroade, &
Cunningham, 2002). To investigate further how humility and
religiousness-spirituality correlate, we conducted a second study using
both self and other report methods and dimensional measures.
Study 2
Previous research shows self-reported humility correlated
positively with the importance of religion-spirituality across three
studies (r's = .34 to .55; aline & Hill, 2012). However, one
challenge about studying relationships between humility and
religiousness-spirituality is that both constructs are desirable,
positive qualities to many people (Ddine & Geyer, 2004; Se-dikides
& Gebauer, 2010). In most Western samples, consistently more than
half rate themselves to be above average on desirable, positive
qualities (Brown, 1986; Myers, 1995). On self-report measures, people
could easily report being more religious, spiritual, or humble than they
are in attempts to appear desirable or virtuous. To scientists and
practitioners interested in studying or cultivating humility, that a
person might not accurately report humility is problematic.
Can We Accurately Measure Humility?
Personality researchers, ourselves included, typically trust
participant self-report. Tangney (2002, p. 415) however, suxested that
"humility may represent a rare personality construct that is simply
unamenable to direct self-report methods." In light of this
possibility, we opted to gather both self and other-ratings of humility
and religiousness-spirituality, and self-reported socially desirable
responding. We do not contend that self or other-reported humility is
the accurate or true measure, but do think an estimate from an outside
source will provide an important point of comparison.
It was not entirely clear at the outset how self or other ratings
of humility would correlate. Two existing findings were mixed with
regard to self-other agreement about humility. Rowatt et al. (2006)
found positive correlations between self and other-rated humility among
people who knew each other, using a variety of measures of humility.
Davis etal. (2012) found a negative correlation (r =--.3 1 ) between
self and other-rated humility in a social relations model study.
Although we are not sure why directionally opposite relationships were
found, it could be that when humility is challenged or strained in a
social situation among relative strangers during the course of three
hours (see Davis et al., 2012) different social dynamics (e.g.,
competitiveness, self-presentation concerns) produce less humble
behaviors that lead to eventual disagreement between self and other
about a target's humility. Another possibility is that people may
become fatigued and find it difficult to self-regulate humility, in
which case a person could think the self is humble most of the time, but
not behave in a humble way when humility is strained in a group task.
When self and other-ratings are collected at different times (which will
be done in Study 2), respondents may think about how the target usually
behaves. We predict measures of humility and religiousness-spirituality
correlate positively (when self and other-report are collected at
different times) even when socially desirable responding is
statistically controlled.
Method
Participants
Sixty-three college students (51 women; M = 19 yrs, SD a= 1.2 yrs)
completed a paper survey individually in a quiet psychology research
lab. The sample was somewhat diverse ethnically (67% White, 14%
Hispanic, 8% Black, 7% Asian, 2% Native American, 2% selected other as
their race/ethnicity). Participants were predominantly Protestant (60%)
or Catholic (24%; 5% no religion, 5% other religion, 3% Buddhist, 1.5%
Jewish, 1.5% Muslim).
Self-Report Measures
Participants completed the same self-report measures of
humility-modesty ([alpha] = .82) and humility-arrogance ([alpha] = .77)
described in Study 1. In an attempt to capture more breadth with regard
to personal religiousness-spirituality (than the categorical religious
affiliation item used in Study 1) participants completed the Fetzer
(1999) Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality and
some single items about general religiousness and spirituality (i.e.,
"To what extent do you consider yourself a religious person?"
and "To what extent do you consider yourself a spiritual
person?" 1 = not at all, 4 = very much). The Fetzer (1999) measure
of religiousness-spirituality includes multi-item subscales that tap
daily spiritual experience ([alpha] = .89), forgiveness ([alpha] = .65),
private religious practices ([alpha] = .77), religious-spiritual coping
([alpha] = .70), religious social support ([alpha] = .61), and religious
meaning ([alpha] = .69). Two items assess religious values/beliefs
([alpha] = .42; inter-item r = .27).
Because humility and religiousness-spirituality were theorized to
be positive qualities, we also included the 20-item impression
management subscale of the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding
(Paulhus & Reid, 1991; [alpha] = .63). Items were rated on a 7-point
rating scale (1 = not true; 7 = very true). Participants received
one-point for each 6 or 7 and 0 for each response [less than or equal
to] 5.
Other-Report by Friend/Acquaintance
To gather other-report ratings, participants delivered a brief
paper survey and stamped envelope to a friend (63%), roommate (16%),
romantic partner (7%), or other person of their choosing. The other
person completed and returned the survey by mail to a research
assistant. The other-report survey included the same measures of
humility-modesty (a = .80), humility-arrogance (a = .90), and
single-items to assess the traits religious and spiritual. Scale items
were slightly reworded (e.g., "I" was changed to "s/he).
"Others" were also asked how long they had known the
participant, their perceived closeness (1 = not at all; 7 = very close),
liking (1 = do not like at all; 7= like very much), similarity to the
participant (1 = not at all similar; 7 = very similar), and how easy or
difficult it was to rate the participant's humility-arrogance (1 =
easy; 7 = difficult). These relational characteristics were assessed
because people who are liked typically receive more positive personality
trait ratings from others (Srivastava & Beer, 2005). Time known,
perceived closeness, and perceived similarity could also increase a
rater's knowledge about the participant.
Results
Given the small number of religious "Nones" in this
college student sample (n = 5), we opted not to compute mean-level
comparisons similar to Study 1. Rather, correlations were computed (see
Table 2).
TABLE 2 Correlations Between Self-Reported Humility and Self-Reported
Religiousness-Spirituality
Measures 1 2 3 4
1. MA --
humility-modesty
2. .38** --
Humility-arrogance
3. Religious .16 -.12 --
(single-item)
4. Spiritual .10 .00 .72" --
(single-item)
5. Daily spiritual .30* .10 .63" .59**
experiences
6. Values/beliefs .29" .30* .07 .12
7. Fotgiveness .21 AT** .03 .18
8. Private religious .26+ .05 .63** .50**
practices
9. Religious & .31 .34* ,44** .50**
spiritual coping
10. Religious social .12 .09 .44** .26+
support
11. Religious .34* .19 .47** .53**
meaning
12. Impression .28+ .32* .12 .06
management
Note. To save space, we opted not to include the entire triangular
correlation matrix.
**p < .01.*p< .05. +p< .10.
Correlations between Self-Report Measures
Self-reported humility-modesty and humility-arrogance correlated
positively (r = .38). Humility-modesty correlated about .30 with daily
spiritual experiences, private religious practices, values/beliefs,
religious-spiritual coping, and meaning. Humility-arrogance correlated
positively with religious-spiritual coping, values/beliefs, and
impression management. Neither humility dimension was significantly
correlated with perceived religious social support.
The magnitude of correlations remained largely unchanged when
impression-management (IM) was statistically controlled, with a few
exceptions. The partial correlation between humility-modesty and
humility-arrogance was a bit lower (pr = .31); humility-modesty was no
longer significantly correlated with daily spiritual experience (pr =
.22), or religious-spiritual coping (pr = .23). These partial
correlations should be interpreted with some caution because of the
somewhat low internal consistency estimate of the 1M subscale in this
study ([alpha] = .63). In most other studies the IM scale has acceptable
internal consistency (i.e., [alpha] > .70).
Correlations between Self-Reported and Other- Reported Humility and
Religiousness-Spirituality
The other-report sample was demographically similar to the
participant sample (M = 19 yrs, SDagc = 4.19 yrs, 53% female).
"Others" rated knowing the participant for an average of three
years (SD = 4.44 yrs). On 7-point scales, "others" reported
being quite close to the participant (M = 5.18, SD = 1.41), liking the
participant (M= 6.35, SD = 1.06), and being similar (M = 4.78, SD =
1.44). "Others" perceived it to be fairly easy to rate the
participant's humility-arrogance (M= 2.48, SD = 1.39).
As shown in Table 3, self and other-reported humility-modesty and
humility-arrogance correlated positively (r 1. .40). Self and
other-reported religiousness-spirituality also correlated positively (rs
.46 to .58). We also computed intraclass correlations (ICC) between the
self and other ratings of each measure completed by both participants
and other-raters using fully unconditional hierarchical linear modeling
(HLM). The ICCs were as follows: VIA humility-modesty ICC = .35;
humility-arrogance semantic differentials ICC = .38; single-item
religiousness ICC = .56; and single-item spirituality ICC = .46. This is
further evidence for moderate to high consistency between self and
other-reported humility and religiousness spirituality in this sample.
TABLE 3 Bivariate and (Partial) Correlations Between Sef and Other
Rated Humility, Religiousness, and Spirituality
Humility-modesty Humility-arrogance
Participant r Pr r
Self-Report
VIA-IS .40* (-35*) .32*
humility-modesty
(10-itcms)
Humility-arrogance .41* (-36*) .38"
semantic
differential
(7-items)
Religiousness .27+ (-25) .21
(single-item)
Spirituality .24 (.23) .45**
(single-item)
Ratings
by a
Close
Other
Religious Spiritual
Participant Pr r pr r
Self-Report
VIA-IS (-31*) .19 (.11) .21
humility-modesty
(10-itcms)
Humility-arrogance (-36*) .10 (.00) .09
semantic
differential
(7-items)
Religiousness (.20) .58** (.57**) .52***
(single-item)
Spirituality (.44**) .46** (-47**) .46**
(single-item)
Participant Pr
Self-Report
VIA-IS (.12)
humility-modesty
(10-itcms)
Humility-arrogance (-.03)
semantic
differential
(7-items)
Religiousness (.51**)
(single-item)
Spirituality (.47**)
(single-item)
Note. Partial correlations (pr) in parenthesis statistically
controlled for impression management. VIA-I5 - Values in
Action Inventors' of Strengths. Intraclass correlations arc
reported in the text.
**p < .01. * p < .05. + p < .10.
We also noticed self-reported religiousness and spirituality were
positively correlated with other-reported humility but that
self-reported humility only wealdy correlated with other-reported
religiousness-spirituality. Perhaps religious-spiritual persons are
perceived to be humble, but humble persons are not necessarily perceived
to be religious-spiritual.
As shown in Table 4, we found some notable correlations between
other-reported humility and participant religiousness-spirituality when
multi-item measures of religiousness-spirituality were examined. For
example, other rated humility-arrogance (column 2) correlated positively
with every component of participants' self-reported
religiousness-spirituality except religious social support. Other rated
humility-modesty (column 1) correlated positively with the
participants' self-reported religious values/beliefs and religious
meaning. The strength of these statistical relationships remained
largely unchanged when self-reported impression management was included
as a covariate.
TABLE 4 Correlations Between Other-Reported
Humility and Self-Reported Religiousness-
Spirituality
Measures 1 2 3 4
Other-Reported Humility and
RS
1. 0_V!AhujTiiliry-modescy --
2. 0_Humility-arrogance .68** --
3. 0_Religious .58** .50** --
(single-item)
4. 0_Spiritua! .60** .54** .90** --
(single-item)
Self-Reported
Religiousness-Spirituality
5. Daily spiritual .25 .42* .57** .40**
experiences
6. Values/beliefs .31* .59** .22 .18
7. Forgiveness .02 .34* .13 .16
8. Private religious .25 .41** .66** .55***
practices
9. Religious & spiritual .23 .4r* .44" .26+
coping
10. Religious social .21 .23 .44** .43**
support
11. Religious meaning .37* .45** .47** .31*
Note. 0 - other-reported; RS = religiousness-
spirituality. To save space, we opted not to
include the entire triangular correlation matrix.
**p < .01 *p < .o5. +p < .10.
Next, we explored associations between different aspects of the
personal relationship between the participants, other-raters, and
humility. Participants' self-reported humility-modesty,
humility-arrogance, religiousness, and spirituality were not
significantly correlated with the other-raters estimates of years known,
closeness, liking, similarity, or difficulty of rating humility. The
degree of liking (reported by "others") correlated positively
with other-reported humility-modesty (r = .34, p = .031) and
humility-arrogance (r = .44, p < .001). Reported difficulty of rating
the participants' humility was negatively correlated with
other-rated humility-arrogance (r = -.29, p = .022) and perceived liking
(r = -.34,p = .006), but not as strongly with other rated
humility-modesty (r = -.19), perceived closeness (r = -.24,p = .057),
perceived similarity (r = -.16) or years known (r = -.09). Moderate
positive relationships between self and other-rated humility-modesty
([beta] = .395, p = .012 ), humility-arrogance ([beta] = .31, p = .044),
religiousness ([beta] = .58,p < .001), and spirituality ([beta] =
.40, p = .001) remained when years known, perceived doseness, perceived
similarity, and ease/difficulty of rating humility (as reported
"others") were statistically controlled in a regression
analyses.
Discussion
Study 2 reveals some positive relationships between measures of
humility and religiousness-spirituality. Increases in self-reported
humility are associated with small, positive increases in self-reported
religiousness-spirituality and vice-versa. For example, self-perceived
humility correlates positively with overt religious practices, more
philosophical qualities like religious values/ beliefs and religious
meaning in life, and the degree to which people turn to religion or God
in times of need (i.e., religious-spiritual coping).
Increases in self-reported religiousness-spirituality were also
associated with small, positive increases in other-reported humility
(relative to arrogance). That is, people who rated themselves as more
religious-spiritual on several dimensions (e.g., religious
values/beliefs, religious meaning, daily religious practices) were
perceived to be more humble (less arrogant) by a close friend. This is
preliminary evidence that religious-spiritual people are perceived by
others to be humble.
Similar to Rowatt et al. (2006), we found self and other-reported
humility correlate positively and remained positively correlated when
desirable responding was statistically controlled. A previous finding
that self and other-reported humility correlated negatively (Davis et
al., 2012) could be due to a lack of closeness or liking between the
participant and other-raters. It could also be that behaving in a humble
or modest way requires self-control. When psychological resources are
depleted, impression-management becomes difficult and deteriorates
(Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciaracco, 2005). Even a humble person, when
depleted, stressed, or fatigued could find it difficult to self-regulate
(e.g., take turns talking, refrain from boasting, or inhibit egotistical
acts). Perhaps assessing humility in more sterile or separated
personality testing conditions among acquaintances (cf. Rowatt et al.,
2006) produces conditions for self-other agreement about a target's
trait humility but straining humility among strangers in a longer
session (3 hours; Davis et al., 2012) creates conditions for self-other
disagreement.
We also find that other-reported humility relative to arrogance and
multiple dimensions of religiousness-spirituality correlate positively,
which provides further evidence of the connection between the two
constructs. Some overlap between the constructs could be due to
common-method variance or other-raters' attempts to create a
desirable impression of the participant rated (Schlenker & Britt,
1999).
Finally, we find evidence that people perceived to be humble are
liked by others, which fits with previous findings that being liked
leads to more favorable ratings from others (Srivastava & Beer,
2005), that perceived humility correlates positively with degree of
acceptance and status in a group (Davis et al., 2012), and that college
students generally perceive humility to be a positive quality (Exline
& Geyer, 2004).
Limits and Future Directions
A few limits and future directions merit discussion. Study 2
included a relatively small, non-representative sample of college
students. Future research should include participants across the
life-span. Humility could be a personal quality that increases with age.
A longitudinal study would be of great use to test this idea and we
encourage personality researchers to include a brief measure of humility
in future longitudinal studies.
Another limit of the current article is the conceptualization of
religion-spirituality from a Western perspective. An. important future
direction is to explore connections between humility and
religiousness-spirituality from Eastern philosophical or religious
perspectives (e.g., Buddhist, Taoist, etc.) and other religious and
cultural traditions (cf. Bollinger & Hill, 2012).
We also suKest that researchers not rely solely on self-report
methods to assess participant humility. In a sample of Cistercian nuns
and monks, only 5% said that they were very successful at, "always
exhibiting humility in one's heart and anywhere else" (Smith,
2006). Admitting being humble could be a sign of conceit inconsistent
with a deeply spiritual sense of self. Lewis (1952/2001, p. 128)
thought, "if you think you are not conceited, it means you are very
conceited indeed." Spiritually wise persons may realize the paradox
of self-reporting humility and under-report their own humility. This
could create a pattern in which older religious or spiritual persons
report being less humble, which could be corroborated with other-report
data.
In an attempt to circumvent some limits of self-reporting humility,
Davis, Hook and their colleagues (2010, 2011) developed relational
humility and spiritual humility scales that involve rating the humility
of another person (i.e., he/she is a humble person). The relational
method is producing important findings.
The social relations model is another promising method (cf. Davis
et al., 2012; Kenny, 1994). Typically researchers bring small groups of
four together to interact for a brief time; then to collect round-robin
ratings of self and others' on traits of interest. Using this
method, Meagher and Kenny (2013) found self-other agreement with regard
to religious commitment of participants. Davis et al. (2012) did not
find self-other agreement with regard to the relational humility of
participants. With three other-raters consensus estimates can be
computed. Consensus estimates among long-term acquaintances for
personality qualities like extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, emotional stability, and culture/openness ranged from
.26 to .29 (Kenny, Albright, Malloy, & Kashy, 1994). However,
consensus between judges of personality is typically higher for
observable traits like extraversion and lower for less observable traits
like agreeableness (Kenny et al., 1994; Vazire, 2010). With a trait like
humility we wonder whether long-term acquaintances are better than
zero-acquaintance judges. We speculate consensus about whether a person
is humble is lower at zero-acquaintance but emerges after knowing the
person for an extended time.
QCiasi-experimental methodologies could also yield important
discoveries as well. For example, experiments that prime religion or
spirituality or that increase religious salience could help tease apart
a potentially causal relationship between religiousness-spirituality and
humility. It could be the case that religious people behave in
humble-modest ways when religiousness-spirituality is made salient, but
less so when this aspect of identity is not active.
General Discussion
These two studies point to mean-level differences in
humility-modesty between religious and non-religious persons as well as
positive associations between measures of humility and
religiousness-spirituality. That is, Christians reported being more
humble-modest than people who do not identify with a religion. Among
college students, self-reported humility and religiousness-spirituality
correlated positively. Likewise, other-reported humility and
religiousness-spirituality correlated positively, which provides some
corroboration of the participants' self-reports.
Given the observed connections between humility and
religiousness-spirituality, we wonder how one might cultivate personal
humility. According to Lewis (1952/2001), the first step is to realize
one is proud. By this we interpret Lewis meant that it is important to
be aware of one's egocentrism or arrogance. Other forms of
perspective-taking could be important. Kross and Grossman (2012) found
that cuing people to think from a distanced perspective (vs. immersed)
increased intellectual humility. Perhaps something about taking a more
distanced perspective of the self, others, relationships, and situations
would also increase humility in other domains.
Religions and sacred texts appear to hold some keys for cultivating
humility, as well. Some religious-spiritual behaviors (e.g., meditative
prayer, being in a sacred space) involve quieting the mind or ego which
could create conditions in which one becomes more aware of personal
finitude or a feeling of spiritual transcendence. Finally, one could
strive to follow the advice of religious-spiritual sages and not brag,
boast, take a seat of importance, or count the self to be better than
others. Over time, being more reflective or simply behaving in a humble
way could lead to habits that increase humility.
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Author Information
ROWATT, WADE C. PhD. Address: Department of Psychology and
Neuroscience, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97334, Waco, TX
76798-7334. Email: Wade_Rowatt@Baylor.edu. Title: Professor of
Psychology. Degrees: BA--William Jewell College; MA & PhD
(Experimental Psychology) University of Louisville. Specializations:
social-personality psychology, implicit social cognition, priming,
positive psychology.
KANG, LINDA L. Address: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience,
Baylor University, One Bear Place #97334, Waco, TX 76798-7334. Title:
PhD student. Degrees: BA--Bucknell University; MS (Psychology) Saint
Joseph's University. Specializations: morality and
religion/spirituality.
HAGGARD, MEGAN C. Address: Baylor University, One Bear Place
#97334, Waco, TX, 76798. Title: PhD student. Degrees: BS--Furman
University; MA (Psychology) Baylor University. Specializations: sexism,
prejudice, and religion/spirituality.
LABOUFF, JORDAN P. Phd. Address: 301 Little Hall, University of
Maine, Orono, ME. 04469. Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology and
Honors. Degrees: BA, MA, 13c PhD (Psychology/Neurosci-ence) Baylor
University. Specializations: social psychology of religiousness and
intergroup bias, humility.
Address correspondence to: Wade C. Rowatt, Ph.D., Department of
Psychology & Neuroscience, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97334,
Waco, TX 76798-7334; phone 254-710-2961; fa:c 254710-3033; email:
wade_rowatt@baylor.edu