Humility Is The New Grit
It’s much harder than it sounds. And we need it more than ever.
Personality traits are not passing fashions. Humans have been grappling with the competing attractions of avarice, pride, anger, patience, kindness, and the like since we began judging our neighbors in the next cave. But personality research follows trends, and writing about such research definitely does.
And so here we are, after seasons where grit and empathy were all the rage, turning to psychology’s latest fascination: humility.
The growing body of research supports a conclusion that has remained remarkably consistent from the Psalms onward: Humility is good, and the more we carry of it, the better off we all are.
Researchers have found that people with high levels of humility have better physical health, mental well-being, and reactions to stress. Humble people tend to be more helpful than their non-humble counterparts. Humble employees are more loyal to their organizations, and humble leaders inspire closer teamwork and better performance. Intellectual humility — the simple acceptance that one does not know everything, and that understanding others is preferable to dominating them — is a key antidote to the kind of virulent tribalism that splits societies and threatens to undermine democracy.
