Intellectual humility

SOMETIMES, unknowingly, we miss an opportunity that would have helped us to be successful in our career or of acquiring something we have been longing to have or travel to a place off-shores we would be excited to visit. We were unaware that these lost opportunities were caused by conversations we had with people who would have shared information about or made possible what we were hoping for. Except that they were turned off by a remark we made. Perhaps our upper lip curled slightly in a faint scowl to a remark from the person or group we were conversing with. Bottom line, we made an impression of being so much beyond how we are regarded — someone whose social status or education is much above those we relate to. Comparing ourselves to them, we believe our skills and abilities are par excellence.

Intellectual humility. A May 23, 2024 write-up informs that researchers define intellectual humility, most simply, as "the degree to which people recognize that their beliefs might be wrong." An intellectually humble person knows that his "knowledge is only partial" and that his "beliefs and opinions are fallible" because of his "psychological biases and because the evidence supporting them could be limited or flawed." Researcher Mark Leary writes that it is natural that "we rarely feel like our beliefs are wrong, and we must usually behave as if our beliefs are true or else we'll be paralyzed by uncertainty." "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."