Are There Consequences of Expressing Intellectual Humility Toward Claims Perceived as Established or Moral Truths? Implications for Judgments of Expresser’s Competence and Warmth

Abstract

Prior research has found that people perceive intellectual humility (IH)—the awareness of one’s intellectual limitations—as a positive characteristic. Here, we investigated if these evaluations are context dependent by examining how perceivers respond to others who express IH toward established versus unfamiliar claims and high versus low moral conviction claims. In three preregistered experiments (N = 1,208), perceivers rated IH as less appropriate when they believed the truth was established (vs. unfamiliar) or felt high (vs. low) moral conviction toward a claim. Whereas participants imbued warmth, competence, and trustworthiness on people who expressed IH about unfamiliar or low moral conviction topics, these benefits were attenuated and often even reversed when claims were seen as established or moral truths.