Could I be wrong? Exploring research on cognitive bias, curiosity, intellectual humility, and lifelong learning

A few years ago, I asked a sam­ple of adults to think about all of the dis­agree­ments that they have with oth­er peo­ple, from minor dis­agree­ments about rel­a­tive­ly unim­por­tant issues to major dis­agree­ments about impor­tant mat­ters. Then, I asked them to esti­mate the per­cent­age of dis­agree­ments they have with oth­er peo­ple in which they are the one who is correct.

Only 4% of the respon­dents indi­cat­ed they were right less than half of the time, and only 14% said they were right half of the time. The vast majority—a whop­ping 82%—reported that, when they dis­agreed with oth­er peo­ple, they were usu­al­ly the one who was right! (Pause a moment to ask your­self the same ques­tion: In what per­cent­age of the dis­agree­ments that you have with oth­er peo­ple are you the one who’s right?)

Research on the over­con­fi­dence bias shows that peo­ple reg­u­lar­ly over­es­ti­mate their abil­i­ties, knowl­edge, and beliefs. For exam­ple, when researchers ask peo­ple how cer­tain they are that their answers to ques­tions of fact are cor­rect, people’s con­fi­dence con­sis­tent­ly exceeds the actu­al accu­ra­cy of their answers. Psy­chol­o­gist Scott Plous has not­ed that over­con­fi­dence is not only the most per­va­sive bias that plagues human think­ing and deci­sion-mak­ing, but it’s also the most “cat­a­stroph­ic” in that it leads to bad deci­sions and oth­er neg­a­tive outcomes.

The first step in deal­ing with over­con­fi­dence is for peo­ple to real­ize that much of what they believe to be true might, in fact, be incor­rect. Psy­chol­o­gists call this aware­ness of one’s fal­li­bil­i­ty “intel­lec­tu­al humility.”

Peo­ple who are intel­lec­tu­al­ly hum­ble know that their beliefs, opin­ions, and view­points are fal­li­ble because they real­ize that the evi­dence on which their beliefs are based could be lim­it­ed or flawed or that they may not have the exper­tise or abil­i­ty to under­stand and eval­u­ate the evi­dence. Intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty involves under­stand­ing that we can’t ful­ly trust our beliefs and opin­ions because we might be rely­ing on faulty or incom­plete infor­ma­tion or are inca­pable of under­stand­ing the details.

Of course, it rarely feels like our beliefs are wrong, and we must usu­al­ly behave as if our beliefs are true or else we’ll be par­a­lyzed by uncer­tain­ty and inde­ci­sion. But peo­ple who are high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty keep in mind that what­ev­er they believe to be true could be wrong and, thus, they might need to revise their views at any time.

Features of intellectual humility

One of our stud­ies showed that peo­ple high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty were more atten­tive to the qual­i­ty of the evi­dence in an arti­cle about the val­ue of den­tal floss­ing, more clear­ly dis­tin­guish­ing good from bad rea­sons to floss. Because they real­ize that their beliefs might be wrong, intel­lec­tu­al­ly hum­ble peo­ple pay more atten­tion to the qual­i­ty of the evi­dence on which their beliefs are based.

In anoth­er study in which par­tic­i­pants read sen­tences about con­tro­ver­sial top­ics, intel­lec­tu­al­ly hum­ble par­tic­i­pants spent more time read­ing sen­tences that expressed view­points counter to their own opin­ions than par­tic­i­pants low in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty, sug­gest­ing that they were think­ing more deeply about ideas with which they dis­agreed. (Low and high intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants didn’t dif­fer in the time they spent read­ing sen­tences con­sis­tent with their atti­tudes.) Along the same lines, a study by Tenelle Porter and Kari­na Schu­mann found that peo­ple high­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty were more inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing the rea­sons that peo­ple dis­agree with them.

These and oth­er find­ings sug­gest that peo­ple high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty pay greater atten­tion to the evi­dence for and against their beliefs and spend more time think­ing about beliefs with which oth­ers dis­agree. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, peo­ple who are aware that their views might be wrong are more inclined to think about the accu­ra­cy of their beliefs than peo­ple who assume that they’re right about most things.

Intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty is also asso­ci­at­ed with the desire to learn new infor­ma­tion. Peo­ple who are high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty score high­er in epis­temic curios­i­ty, which is the moti­va­tion to pur­sue new knowl­edge and ideas. Their high­er curios­i­ty seems to be moti­vat­ed both by the fact they enjoy learn­ing new infor­ma­tion and by the dis­tress they feel when they lack infor­ma­tion or do not under­stand some­thing. High intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty is also asso­ci­at­ed with the degree to which peo­ple enjoy think­ing, mulling over issues, and solv­ing intel­lec­tu­al prob­lems. Peo­ple high­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty like to think more than peo­ple low in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty do.

The trouble with too much confidence

Intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty is fun­da­men­tal­ly a meta-cog­ni­tive construct—that is, it involves people’s thoughts about their thoughts—but it often man­i­fests in people’s emo­tions and behavior.

Most notably, in dis­agree­ments with oth­er peo­ple, peo­ple high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty are more open to oth­er people’s views and less dog­mat­ic regard­ing their beliefs and opin­ions. Peo­ple who rec­og­nize that their beliefs are fal­li­ble take oth­er people’s per­spec­tives more seri­ous­ly and rec­og­nize the val­ue of diver­gent opinions.

Sev­er­al stud­ies also show that they are less inclined to dis­par­age peo­ple who have dif­fer­ent view­points than they do. In con­trast, peo­ple who are low­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty have stronger emo­tion­al reac­tions when peo­ple dis­agree with them and dis­re­gard or dis­par­age peo­ple who hold dif­fer­ent views.

Giv­en they are more open to oth­er people’s ideas and less con­tentious when oth­ers dis­agree with them, peo­ple high­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty are liked bet­ter than those low­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty. Even after only 30 min­utes of inter­ac­tion, peo­ple rate those who are high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty more pos­i­tive­ly than those who are low. Iron­i­cal­ly, know-it-alls often don’t seem to know that oth­er peo­ple don’t like know-it-alls.

This doesn’t mean that peo­ple high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty don’t mind being wrong. They do, but for rea­sons that are dif­fer­ent from low intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty peo­ple. Peo­ple high in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty some­times find their igno­rance and intel­lec­tu­al lim­i­ta­tions troubling—not because they lose dis­agree­ments with oth­er peo­ple but because they want to under­stand the world.

Peo­ple who are intol­er­ant of views that dif­fer from theirs can also sti­fle open and hon­est dis­cus­sions. For exam­ple, lead­ers who are not open to diver­gent ideas inhib­it group mem­bers from offer­ing their views, poten­tial­ly short-cir­cuit­ing cre­ative and valu­able ideas. In con­trast, intel­lec­tu­al­ly hum­ble lead­ers who are open to alter­na­tive views may moti­vate oth­ers to con­tribute more ideas to discussions.

What influences intellectual humility?

First, giv­en that vir­tu­al­ly every per­son­al char­ac­ter­is­tic has at least a weak genet­ic basis, it would be sur­pris­ing if intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty was not part­ly her­i­ta­ble. Indi­rect sup­port for this idea comes from the fact that intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty cor­re­lates with both over­con­fi­dence and open­ness, both of which show evi­dence of genet­ic influences.

Learn­ing also plays a role in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty as chil­dren observe how par­ents, teach­ers, and oth­ers express cer­tain­ty and uncer­tain­ty about their beliefs, man­age dis­agree­ments with oth­er peo­ple, and change—or do not change—their minds when evi­dence war­rants. Some par­ents may also encour­age their chil­dren to explain and jus­ti­fy their beliefs, atti­tudes, and deci­sions, there­by teach­ing the impor­tance of bas­ing one’s views on evi­dence and rea­son. Par­ents also dif­fer in the degree to which they encour­age their chil­dren to be open to new ideas and expe­ri­ences, which may con­tribute to intel­lec­tu­al humility.

Edu­ca­tion, espe­cial­ly high­er edu­ca­tion, may also affect intel­lec­tu­al humility—but in two oppos­ing ways.

On one hand, the more peo­ple learn, the more they see how much they do not know and come to real­ize that knowl­edge is excep­tion­al­ly com­pli­cat­ed, nuanced, and end­less. On the oth­er hand, the more peo­ple learn, the more jus­ti­fi­ably con­fi­dent they become the areas in which they devel­op exper­tise. An expert should obvi­ous­ly be more con­fi­dent of their beliefs in that domain than a non-expert. Although no direct evi­dence exists, edu­ca­tion may increase intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty over­all, while (jus­ti­fi­ably) increas­ing certainty—and low­er­ing intel­lec­tu­al humility—in areas in which a per­son is an expert.

Across a num­ber of beliefs, intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty is curvi­lin­ear­ly relat­ed to the extrem­i­ty of people’s beliefs, such that peo­ple with mod­er­ate beliefs tend to be high­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty than peo­ple who hold extreme beliefs. To say it dif­fer­ent­ly, peo­ple with more extreme views—for exam­ple, peo­ple whose polit­i­cal views are far­ther toward the left or right—tend to be low­er in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty and, thus, less will­ing to con­sid­er that their view­points might be incor­rect than peo­ple who have mod­er­ate beliefs. This pat­tern may occur because mod­er­ate views often acknowl­edge the com­plex­i­ty and equiv­o­cal nature of com­pli­cat­ed issues.

How can we become more intellectually humble?

In an ide­al world, people’s judg­ments about the accu­ra­cy of their beliefs, opin­ions, and view­points would be per­fect­ly cal­i­brat­ed to their actu­al valid­i­ty. Peo­ple make the best deci­sions about what to believe and what to do when judg­ments of their cor­rect­ness are accurate.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most of us over­es­ti­mate the accu­ra­cy of our beliefs and opin­ions, often bad­ly, with lit­tle con­sid­er­a­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty that we might be wrong. For­tu­nate­ly, peo­ple can increase in intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty both through a per­son­al deci­sion to be more intel­lec­tu­al­ly hum­ble and through inter­ven­tions that help peo­ple con­front their intel­lec­tu­al over­con­fi­dence and take steps to reduce it.

None of us thinks that our beliefs and atti­tudes are incor­rect; if we did, we obvi­ous­ly wouldn’t hold those beliefs and atti­tudes. Yet, despite our sense that we are usu­al­ly cor­rect, we must accept that our views may some­times turn out to be wrong. This kind of humil­i­ty isn’t sim­ply virtuous—the research sug­gests that it results in bet­ter deci­sions, rela­tion­ships, and out­comes. So, the next time you feel cer­tain about some­thing, you might stop and ask your­self: Could I be wrong?

Mark Leary, Ph.D., is Garonzik Fam­i­ly Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety for Per­son­al­i­ty and Social Psy­chol­o­gy. Copy­right Greater Good. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altruism.

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