Intellectual humility is an interesting but underexplored disposition. The claim “I am (intellectually) humble” seems paradoxical in that someone who has the disposition in question would not typically volunteer it. There is an explanatory gap between the meaning of the sentence and the meaning the speaker expresses by uttering it. We therefore suggest analyzing intellectual humility semantically, using a psycholexical approach that focuses on both synonyms and antonyms of 'intellectual humility'. We present a thesaurus-based method to map the semantic space of intellectual humility as a heuristic to support philosophical and psychological analysis of this disposition. We find three semantic clusters that compose intellectual humility: the sensible self, the discreet self, and the inquisitive self; likewise, we find three clusters that compose its contraries: the overrated self, the underrated other, and the underrated self.
The study of personality and conceptions of personality has been pursued by psychologists and other researchers in various ways, including among others observations in laboratory settings and field experiments, correlational studies of survey responses, and psycholexical analyses. The present research embodies the latter methodology, and is informed by both philosophical theory and mathematical modeling tools developed in physical science.
Psycholexical analysis dates back to Francis Galton’s Measurement of
Character [
Psychologists in the psycholexical tradition don’t stop there, though. They
also typically argue that the semantic structure of a language reflects to some
extent the perceived structure of the phenomena described by the language. In
personality psychology, this insight was used by Allport and Odbert [
The Big Six includes an H factor that represents facets of personality related
to honesty and humility. Intellectual humility seems to involve a consciousness
of the limits of one’s knowledge, including sensitivity to circumstances in which
one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively [
Additionally, our investigation is motivated by Aristotle’s [
Our analysis is based on the assumption that the practice of language is precipitated in dictionaries, lexicons, and other wordbooks. Of particular interest is the thesaurus – a language reference book or database organized to help its users find words related to a concept but having slightly different shades of meaning or connotation. Thesauruses reflect what people in their daily use of language – in particular when writing text – consider semantically similar to a given term. In other words, a thesaurus lists synonyms in a broad sense. Modern thesauruses also list antonyms, which are then again related to a set of their own synonyms.
The present research explores the semantic space of intellectual humility by first identifying the most common synonyms and antonyms of ‘intellectual humility’. Next, by referring to the thesaurus.com database (the largest online thesaurus for American English), we associate each identified term with a wordbag, which is the set of synonyms listed for that term. The semantic constellation of a term t is thus an ordered pair (t; T ), whose first element is t itself and whose second element is t’s word-bag T = ft; tsyn1; tsyn2; tsyn3; : : : ; tsynng, i.e., the set of synonyms of t (including t itself). By comparing semantic constellations of two terms t1 and t2, we then create a similarity metric S by calculating the relative overlap of each pair of word-bags as follows:
S(t1; t2) =
jT 1 \ T 2j minfjT 1j; jT 2jg
The similarities calculated in this way are then used in a novel clustering and visualization tool that generates a semantic map of the terms involved. More specifically: 1. We identified potential synonyms and antonyms for ‘intellectual humility’ in three ways: a) We searched philosophy and psychology journals for articles that discuss intellectual humility; we found 24 papers or related texts (such as calls for proposals or abstracts). b) We performed an Internet search for entries on ‘intellectual humility’ and found 20 entries that dealt in a significant way with the concept. c) We identified scales that are used in psychology for constructs that have some similarity to intellectual humility (e.g., the H factor of the Big Six personality inventory).
In all these texts, we identified terms that are used to represent the meaning of ‘intellectual humility’ or its relevant vices. 2. Four raters that have experience with the philosophical topic of intellectual humility assessed all terms collected in step 1 to determine whether they (1) could be used to express the concept of intellectual humility or a related vice. A term was kept on the list if three out of four raters agreed to do so. In this way, we identified 52 synonyms and 69 antonyms for ‘intellectual humility’. Each term was represented at least in noun form and usually in adjective form also, for example: tolerance, tolerant. 3. We identified all entries for each term generated in step 2 in the thesaurus.com database to generate word-bags for each synonym and antonym. For example, the word-bag for ‘tolerance’ included all entries on thesaurus.com for the term set tolerance, tolerant. 4. Next, we calculated the similarity in overlap between every pairwise combination of word-bags. For example, the word-bag of ‘tolerance’ contains 55 terms and the word-bag of ‘broadmindedness’ contains 40 terms. 12 terms are contained in both word-bags. Hence, the similarity between ‘tolerance’ and ‘broadmindedness’ is 12/40 = 0.3. In this way, the similarity measures are always between 0 (no similarity) and 1 (one word-bag is completely contained in the other word-bag). 5. We checked for highly similar terms (S > 0:5).4 We collapsed the wordbags of these terms into a single word-bag to reduce the number of synonyms/antonyms. Conceptually, it’s unclear whether terms that share more than half of their semantic constellations represent genuinely distinct constructs. In this way, we reduced the number of synonyms from 52 to 39 and the number of antonyms from 69 to 46. When two terms were collapsed, our raters kept the term that in their estimation was better known. A new wordbag was created combining those of the two collapsed terms (and eliminating redundancies). In cases where the word-bag of a term t overlapped with two or more other terms by > 0.5 whose mutual overlap was, however, below the cutoff-value, the raters determined collapsing based on the highest mutual overlaps. This occurred 2 times for the synonyms and 8 times for of the antonyms. For all condensed word-bags, the similarities were re-calculated.
Step 5 was not iterated.
6. The similarity measures obtained in this way were then used as inputs in
a visualization algorithm called superparamagnetic agent mapping, which
employs self-organizing agents governed by the dynamics of a clustering
algorithm inspired by spin physics to generate denoised low-dimensional
representations for which the characteristics of nonlinear data structures are
preserved or even emphasized. To conceptualize this mapping, imagine each
term as a particle that naturally repels all other particles. However, as
overlap between two terms increases, they become more attracted to each other.
Thus, superparamagnetic agent mapping typically produces clumping, where
several particles clump together (connoting similarity) while collectively
repelling a different cluster (connoting collective difference between the two
clusters). It has been shown [
Step 7 generates the maps below that are then used to inform our reasoning about intellectual humility. 3
We produced three maps to convey our results. Figure 1 is the synonym map, showing the degree of overlap among intellectual humility’s 39 synonyms. The terms predominantly cluster into three groups. The first group (displayed in green) we have labeled the Sensible Self and is exemplified by terms such as ‘comprehension,’ ‘responsiveness’, and ‘mindfulness’. We take this cluster to be representative of the notion that an intellectually humble person will be open and responsive to new ideas and information. Interestingly, ‘sympathy’ is also in this cluster, indicating that there at least can be an emotional component to this sort of intellectual humility. The second (pink) cluster we call the Inquisitive Self ; it is illustrated by terms such as ‘curiosity’, ‘exploration’, and ‘learning’. The difference between the Sensible Self and the Inquisitive Self indicates that there is some difference between seeking new information or ideas and being open to them when they are presented. Third, we have named the blue cluster the Discreet Self, which is typified by ‘humility’, ‘decency’, and ‘unpretentiousness’. It is worth noting that the discreet cluster is further removed from the other two than the sensible and inquisitive clusters are from each other and that this part of the map most accurately displays the original topology of the high dimensional space. This would seem to indicate that intuitiveness and sensibility are more closely conceptually related to each other than either is to discreetness. Finally, some terms (shown in black) have intermediate positions among these groups (e.g., ‘flexibility’ and ‘tolerance’) and do not fit neatly within any cluster.
Figure 2 shows the results of the antonym map, displaying the degree of
overlap between intellectual humility’s 46 antonyms. The first result to notice is
5 This map aberration index, defined as ∑i ∑j j maxdjofrdiogr:i(gx:i(;xxij;)xj)g maxdjmfdamp(axpi(;xxij;)xj)g j,
also serves as quality measure when comparing different types of visualizations like
MDA or PCA; see [
circumspection earnest clarity openmindedness impartiality
unpretentiousness integrity decency humility demureness humbleness - 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.0
comprehension sensitiveness sympathy judgment sensitivity interest benevolence understanding awareness intelligence insight discernment respaottnesnaivtgierveneeenmsessesnt mindfulwneissdsom that almost all the terms are aligned along one dimension and cluster at each endpoint. We take this to represent the distinction between underrating and overrating. The larger, red cluster can be thought of as the Overrated Self, and includes terms such as ‘vanity, ‘pride’, and ‘arrogance’. This cluster suggests that one way not to be intellectually humble is to be overly focused on one’s own high status. Overrating oneself is not, however, the only way to fail to be intellectually humble. The opposite endpoint has two closely related clusters that indicate two other ways. There is the Underrated Other in purple (typified by terms such as ‘bias’, ‘prejudice’, and ‘unfairness’) and the Underrated Self cluster in orange, which is similar in that it involves underrating, but the object of underrating is oneself. This cluster is characterized by terms such as ‘diffidence’, ‘timidity’, and ‘acquiescence’. This cluster suggests that there is such a thing as being too humble, such that one’s lack of pride ceases to have any positive value. It is worth noting how close the two (orange and purple) underrated clusters are relative to the (red) overrated cluster. This indicates that there is a higher degree of similarity based on the nature of the rating (over or under) than on submissiveness timidity spinelessness servility
di dence acquiescence unfairness
prejudice narrowmindedness obstinacy bias chauvinism bigotry stubbornness dogmatism in!exibility animosity Underrated
Other obtuseness aloofness imperiousness overbearance contemptuousness airs
chutzpah hubris overcon"dence - 0.5 grandiosity prepteonpmtripeotouessnintsyeiossn arrcoogcakninceess
ovsbatreainngggtaliontigroyn swaggeprreersumption Overrated egocbeenogtavorsaitstniimsnimtgy prisdmebusoegaln"setmfsusplnoertsasnce Self selfcenteredness- 1.0 - 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 who is being evaluated (self or other). Note also that there is no overrated other cluster – which may either indicate that this disposition is conceptually unrelated to intellectual humility, or simply that our methodology didn’t uncover terms related to this disposition. Finally, we again see several terms (such as ‘hubris’, ‘chutzpah’, and ‘aloofness’) in white circles in the middle, indicating that these terms do not fit within any cluster.
Finally, in Figure 3, we mapped all synonyms and antonyms together. We preserved the colors from the two previous maps. The resulting map retains many of the structural features of the previous maps, but with a few significant changes. First, it reveals that for the antonyms the linear structure along the poles of the Overrated Self and the Underrated Other is mainly preserved, whereas the terms on the Underrated Self (orange) are in the same region as the terms for the Discreet Self (blue) from the synonym set. Additionally, the distinction between the terms for the Sensible Self (green) and Inquisitive Self (pink) is no longer discernible. This second merger merely indicates that the difference between the Inquisitive Self and the Sensible Self is large enough to be significant
servility adjustability spinelessness di!dence timidity decency humility demurenhesusmobbletunseesnsess acquiescence unpinrteetgernittiyousness
clarity exibility impartiality submissiveness
acceptance agreement openmindedness 1 unfairness narrocwhamubivniiogdnbboeisistdamtrsniyneascspyrejudsitcuebbornness dogm0atism in exibainliitmyosity overbearance
chutzpah contem- 2ptuousness hubris aloofness imperiousness overcon"dence
presumption cockiness arrogance airs swaggerer preteponrsettitpeoeonunmtssaniopteinoosssnitysmugnepssbrviodaaiensgtsefleguolol"rnycmeespnsotrritsamnce grandiosity vanity egotism brabgogainstgingselfcenteredness 0 1 2 when compared to the Discreet Self, but small enough not to be significant when compared to intellectual humility’s antonyms. 4
From these results, there are three points we wish to draw out for discussion. First, there is the matter of what the clusters represent. In the antonyms map, we take each cluster to represent a distinct vice, i.e., a different way one can fail to be intellectually humble. For the synonyms, however, two possibilities exist. It might be that each cluster represents a distinct trait, all three of which go by the same name of ‘intellectual humility’. Opposing this semantic diversity thesis is the alternate interpretation that sees each cluster representing a different facet of the single trait of intellectual humility.
Second, consider the merging of the synonym-based Discreet Self and
antonymbased Underrated Self in the combined map. We see two possible interpretations.
It might be that the discreet aspect of intellectual humility is essentially akin
to underrating oneself. Snow [
The third point relates back to the Big Six personality inventory [
Finally, we remind three shortcoming of our study. First, the nature of the data does not allow to decide, whether the similarities found only reflet purely pragmatic use of words within (American) English, or whether they actually represent relations between mental concepts. This requires additional empirical research that is currently in preparation. Second, the similarity measure used may misguide the analysis as we do not take into account differences in usage frequency of terms. For example, two pairs of terms may share an overlapping set of the same relative size – but in one case the overlap may consist of terms that are very frequently used as synonyms for the terms under investigation, whereas in the other case, the word bags share synonyms that are only very rarely used. It would be plausible to treat these two cases different – however, this would again need additional empirical data on how frequent certain terms are used as synonyms. To diminish this problem, services like Google Ngram (https://books.google.com/ngrams) could be used for obtaining proxy data regarding term frequency in synonymy relations. Third, our current methodology requires manual coding for term collapsing, as there is no biunique way of merging word bags. Although manual coding was feasible in our case, for larger term sets this approach may reach its limits. However, in our case, manual coding was mainly used to decrease the number of synonyms/antonyms and to allow for visualizations that are easier to understand. One may skip this part to the cost that the resulting maps are harder to interpret. In ongoing research where we aim for inter-lingual comparison (English and German), we skipped manual coding and found, that the qualitative results remained but that a richer structure was visible, which helps to better understand differences across languages. Acknowledgments. We thank Daniel Lapsley, ACE Collegiate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology of the University of Notre Dame, and Paul C. Stey, Department of Psychology of the University of Notre Dame, for their input to this research. This work was made possible through a grant from the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary.