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The humble estimate: Humility predicts higher self-assessment accuracy
Nigel Q X Teo1, Travis Lim1, Eddie M W Tong1
1National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore.
The British Journal of Social Psychology
|May 6, 2022
Summary
Humility is linked to more accurate self-assessments, reducing overestimation bias. This effect holds true regardless of an individual's actual ability, but does not alter the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Humility is theorized to correlate with enhanced self-assessment accuracy.
- Empirical evidence supporting this link remains limited and requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To empirically test the association between humility and self-assessment accuracy.
- To investigate whether humility mitigates overestimation bias and influences the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Main Methods:
- Two studies were conducted with participants (N=258 and N=214) completing cognitive tasks (logical reasoning, English fluency).
- Participants estimated their performance, which was compared against their actual performance.
- Humility levels were assessed and correlated with estimation accuracy and bias.
Main Results:
- Both studies demonstrated an overestimation bias, where estimated performance exceeded actual performance.
- Higher levels of humility were significantly associated with reduced overestimation bias.
- The Dunning-Kruger effect was replicated, with lower performers overestimating their abilities most severely.
Conclusions:
- Humility is demonstrably linked to more accurate self-assessment, specifically by reducing overestimation bias.
- This relationship between humility and accurate self-assessment is independent of an individual's actual skill level.
- Humility does not appear to moderate the well-established Dunning-Kruger effect.
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