Unveiling the perception of politicians' intellectual humility

Abstract

Embracing intellectual humility has been touted as a potential key factor in improving relationships among people with different perspectives. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted on how individuals perceive those who express their views with intellectual humility, and no research, to our knowledge, examined perceptions of intellectual humility in political leaders specifically. This study aimed to examine to what extent perceivers value intellectual humility in the face of a polarizing topic (abortion) and when it is expressed by political leaders (hypothetical presidential candidates) sharing or opposing one's view. We predicted that individuals would like the same-view leader more than the opposing-view leader; however, they would also prefer leaders expressing intellectual humility overall. Importantly, we also explored whether individuals would be more tolerant of intellectual arrogance when arrogance came from a leader who shared (vs. opposed) their ideology. A pilot study (N = 94) confirmed all these predictions. A preregistered study with a larger sample (N = 927) replicated these patterns and showed that positive evaluations of leaders' intellectual humility were also contingent on their views and the ways they expressed intellectual humility (openness to alternative views or fallibility of their own view). While perceivers evaluated both the same and opposing-view leaders' openness to alternative views positively, they evaluated the same-view (but not the opposing-view) leaders' expression of fallibility negatively. Our findings shed light on the boundary conditions of valuing intellectual humility while offering insights on when and why people may refrain from expressing humility themselves and knowingly or unknowingly contribute to polarizing discourse.