Intellectual humility in romantic relationships: Implications for relationship satisfaction, argument frequency, and conflict behaviors

Abstract

People who recognize that their viewpoints might be wrong – that is, people higher in intellectual humility (IH) – should fare better in conflicts with relationship partners than people lower in IH. Both members of 74 heterosexual couples (M_age = 32.2 years) completed measures of IH, relationship quality, how well they get along, self and partner behaviors during arguments, and perceptions of their partner’s motives. Couples in which partners were higher in IH fared better on some indices than couples in which partners were lower in IH. Men’s IH was related to their own as well as their partners’ relationship perceptions, whereas women’s IH was related only to their own perceptions. The results have implications for managing conflicts in romantic relationships.