Themes in the conceptualization of humility as reflected in its measurement

Effective measurement of a concept such as humility requires careful consideration of two separate but intertwined considerations: what the concept is and how it is to be measured.

Owing to the long history of inquiry by philosophers and theologians, psychological scientists began empirical inquiry on humility with access to well-specified conceptual models of the construct (e.g., Richards, 1988; Roberts and Wood, 2003).Thus, the “what” of humility, though not always amenable to measurement or observation, is better specified than most concepts of interest to psychological scientists in the general area of positive human functioning. As context for discussing considerations relevant to the “how” of empirical research on humility, we briefly review conceptual definitions and models that underlie contemporary measures of humility.

Although rigorous and detailed descriptions of humility have been provided by philosophers, there is no widely endorsed definition of humility within the empirical research literature. As a result, extant measures of humility differ from one another on the basis of their underlying conceptualizations. These differences have important implications for inferences related to key research questions about the causes and consequences of humility, as different operational definitions of humility will be associated with different antecedents, cognitions, emotions, and action tendencies (e.g.,Weidman, Cheng and Tracy, 2018).

Despite widespread use of the term and implicit understanding of its meaning in everyday language, humility as an object of empirical inquiry has proven challenging to define. Psychological scientists have observed that humility may be easier to conceptualize by what it is not than by what it is (Peterson and Seligman, 2004).Yet, there is an emerging consensus among researchers that humility is not simply the absence or even the opposite of dispositions such as arrogance and narcissism.

Rather, the core of humility is often conceptualized in terms of what it is. Specifically, it is often described as reflecting one or more of four characteristics related to views of oneself and others: a low view of self; an accurate view of self; the forgetting of self; and a focus on others.

These themes are, to varying degrees, evident in extant measures of humility, though they are often accompanied by idiosyncratic features that reflect the lack of a tight and clear definition of the concept. In the most extensive review of humility measures to date, McElroy-Hetzel et al. (2019) examined items in 22 self-report measures, coding each item according to the feature of humility it reflects.They found that current measures of humility and its subdomains reflect combinations of eight features: openness, or lack of superiority; being other-oriented, or unselfish; admitting to mistakes, or teachability; interpersonal modesty; accurate view of self; global humility; spiritual humility; and regulating need for status. Being other-oriented is assessed by items in the most measures (assessed by 16 out of 22 measures), followed by openness (assessed by 15 out of 22 measures). Although there is evidence of overlapping content across measures, there is also clear evidence of measure-specific content reflecting alternative conceptualizations of the construct. These alternative conceptualizations, in most cases, can be traced to different conceptual treatments, to which we now turn.

A fundamental question about humility is whether it is a favorable or unfavorable quality. Researchers of humility are quick to point out that the root of the word humility is the Latin humilis, meaning “low,” and that dictionary definitions of humility tend to emphasize a low view of oneself. Nevertheless, most assessments of humility developed by psychological scientists are built on a conceptualization of humility as an accurate view of oneself or a positive focus on others, which is somewhat of a departure from the historical understanding of humility.

The pre-Christian Greco-Roman conceptualization of humility was mostly negative, with the subsequent Christian conceptualization of humility as a valued virtue representing a radical, counter-cultural shift (Foulcher, 2015). Later, 18th- and 19th-century philosophers rejected humility as either unnatural or as a hindrance to individual and political advancement. In addition, views of humility as a virtue were amenable to use by those in authority to enforce low positions in the social hierarchy. For this reason, feminists critiqued a conceptualization of humility that facilitated the control of the weak by the strong.

This history may initially make the positive conceptualization of humility within the contemporary empirical literature seem surprising. However, the favorable view of humility is understandable, given that measurement has been motivated primarily out of an interest in assessing and promoting beneficial qualities. In particular, humility research has often fit within the positive psychology field, within which humility has frequently been studied as a virtue. This has left psychologists to grapple with conundrums such as the implications of the current science of humility for the oppressed.A few authors have promoted the idea that humility may function as a virtue under some circumstances, but not others. For example, Owens, Rowatt and Wilkins (2012) differentiated virtuous humility from non-virtuous humility, following the Aristotelian conceptualization of a virtue as a golden mean between extremes. On this basis, they conceptualized virtuous humility as a balance between arrogance and low self-esteem, indicating that humility becomes a virtue when it is accompanied by self-respect and self-worth. Some have emphasized that humility as a virtue practiced at the wrong time can do harm (Davis and Hook, 2014), whereas others have emphasized that an otherwise virtuous trait practiced at the wrong time is not a virtue at ah. SpecificallyWhitcomb, Battaly, Baehr and Howard-Snyder (this volume) define the trait of humility as being attentive to and owning one's limitations.

They argue that, defined as such, humility becomes a virtue when it is paired with phronesis, or a person's ability to judge when, toward whom, and how to properly attend to and own their limitations. Finally, some recent work has focused on the value of measuring humility in both appreciative and self-abasing forms (Weidman et al., 2018).

The question of how best to operationally define humility also involves deciding whether to assess cognitions, emotions, behaviors, or motivations reflective of the construct.The answer to this question is determined in part by whether humility is conceptualized as involving intrapersonal qualities, interpersonal qualities, or both. Almost all researchers attempt to get at some aspect of intrapersonal humility in their assessments. Including interpersonal aspects of humility within assessments is somewhat common but not universal. Specific interpersonal content differs across measures, and may include being oriented toward others, respecting others, and lacking a sense of superiority (Davis and Hook, 2014). Davis et al. (2011) argue that the interpersonal component of humility is crucial because it defines whether the intrapersonal aspects of humility exist for other-oriented motivations, which they consider foundational for defining humility as a virtue. The distinction between intrapersonal and interpersonal features of humility is reflective of the discussion of whether modesty, often defined as an interpersonal behavioral style related to how one presents oneself to others, falls within or outside of the conceptual boundaries of humility. This debate is important to the measurement of humility, given that many widely used measures of humility assess modesty content. Davis, McElroy et al. (2016) offered theoretical and empirical support for considering modesty to be a subdomain of humility, whereas Kruse, Chancellor and Lyubomirsky (2017) emphasized theoretical and empirical differences between these two closely related constructs.

Leary and Banks (in press) offered a novel definition of humility that implies modesty—the belief that one should not be treated as special in recognition of accomplishments outside the domain of the accomplishments. Where one falls on these important questions of what is or is not humility, and what should be emphasized in a measure, will dictate both the content of a measure and, as described below, the approach to measurement.

As this brief and selective review of conceptual treatments suggests, the measurement of humility is not unlike aiming at a moving target. The burgeoning empirical literature has benefited from participation by scholars working from different assumptions about the construct. However, those assumptions are, as we have shown, sometimes contradictory, resulting in a lack of clarity about what exactly constitutes the core of the humility construct. It is not our goal to attempt a resolution to these contradictions or an integration of the different conceptualizations. Yet, we feel it is important to acknowledge the current unfolding state of the literature focused on what humility is before offering a framework for considering how, for a given study, it should be measured. It is to this set of considerations that we now turn.

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Source: Alfano Mark, Lynch Michael P.. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility. Routledge,2020. — 514 p.. 2020

Themes in the conceptualization of humility as reflected in its measurement

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