
People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge - pseudolus
https://opensociet.org/2019/05/26/people-with-greater-intellectual-humility-have-superior-general-knowledge/
======
te_platt
A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off
his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch
that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very
cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed
during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had
been to start easy on some topic and just keep going deeper until they had a
measure of what level the applicant was at. After a certain point they were
just surprised at how far people would carry on into nonsense.

~~~
hombre_fatal
We HNers really love these kinds of submissions since we think we're so smart.

The top comment is literally someone bragging about how they once got a job
with their superior applause-worthy character of saying "idk".

~~~
maxdamantus
I like that we're using the word "we" to make our aggression look more
passive. We wouldn't want to give the wrong impression, would we?

~~~
mikorym
I agree with his point.

> people with greater humility have superior...

It's a contradiction in terms. It makes humility look like a tool. One could
instead just say "try to be humble".

------
Isamu
A questionnaire from the article:

1) I am willing to admit if I don't know something.

2) I like to compliment others on their intellectual strengths.

3) I try to reflect on my weaknesses in order to develop my intelligence.

4) I actively seek feedback on my ideas, even if it is critical.

5) I acknowledge when someone knows more than me about a certain subject.

6) If someone doesn't understand my idea, it's probably because they aren't
smart enough to get it. (reverse)

7) I sometimes marvel at the intellectual abilities of other people.

8) I feel uncomfortable when someone points out one of my intellectual
shortcomings. (reverse)

9) I don't like it when someone points out an intellectual mistake that I
made. (reverse)

Critique: I can see some confounding problems right away. When I was younger I
was pretty painfully shy, so (4) I would not seek feedback, but not out of a
lack of humility. Also (3) I don't get, because while I am extremely motivated
by intellectual curiosity, I have maybe zero motivation to "develop my
intelligence" like it was some kind of fitness thing. Also maybe I'm a wierdo
but I don't think so much in terms of people being "smart", I think it is
something you do. That is, it's hard work.

And with (8) and (9), it takes training to not feel uncomfortable or to not
dislike it when someone points out your mistakes or shortcomings. I don't
think that is really related to humility. In fact if you are super critical of
yourself and judge yourself poorly compared to other people, you still hate it
if anybody else points it out.

~~~
haecceity
> 6) If someone doesn't understand my idea, it's probably because they aren't
> smart enough to get it. (reverse)

One of my high school teachers said something like: if someone doesn't
understand your explanation, then you don't know it as well as you think you
do.

~~~
mjevans
It's also quite possible they lack the domain knowledge to receive a succinct
explanation of the problem and evaluate if a solution actually solves it.

~~~
haecceity
It's a classroom setting so the discussions are between peers with similar
knowledge.

~~~
btilly
It is even more true in the real world when the discussions are between people
with different knowledge. Do people recognize someone from another background
as a peer or not?

~~~
haecceity
If all parties are interested in the discussion they can ask questions to fill
in gaps in the knowledge. Doesn't always happen of course.

------
tsomctl
> The fact is, people who base their self-worth on being right about
> everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack
> the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They
> close themselves off to new and important information.

From The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

~~~
rolltiide
> The fact is, people who base their self-worth on being right about
> everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes.

I've never heard of this happening can you give examples on this site?

~~~
IAmEveryone
It's difficult to think of examples "from this site" because I rarely remember
the posters' names.

I would point to cryptocurrencies as a rich source of extremely wrong takes:
how bitcoin would replace paypal and credit cards, how government conspiracies
would try to fight it, etc. None of those predictions came to pass, to put it
mildly. What I can't offer is specific instances of people pivoting from "it's
a currency! It even has 'coin' in its name!" to "it's not a currency! It's a
store of value". But I'm sure there must be some.

I also remember when here (and, possibly, on slashdot before HN) one overdone
"meme" was criticising CSI-style shows for "enhance!" making low-res images of
license plates readable. "You cannot recover information that isn't there!"
the comment would go, and it was the easiest upvote to get.

Today, there are plenty of AI demos that can, indeed, reconstruct license
plates from low-res. Turns out the information wasn't actually lost.
Unfortunately, I'm denied the gratification of all those people writing
apologies, and I can't prove that they are the ones posting "It's not
intelligence, it's just statistics!" today.

Nuclear power might be another example on a pretty good multi-decades run of
varying other reactor technologies (pebble bed, fusion, etc) always on the
cusp of breakthrough. This example is especially funny, because the _actual_
scientists working on energy, and even the supposedly stupid politicians, have
now created alternatives that are safe, clean, and close to competing with
even _coal_ in economic terms, let alone the far more expensive nuclear tech.
Yet the wider tech community disregards this economic argument, and insists on
fighting the public on safety. They just can't let go because they feel they
were wronged on that issue in the 80s and 90s. Which is at least plausible,
but it just doesn't really matter any more. There's a strong undercurrent of
cultural grievances here, as if people were forever living in the science
fiction of their youth.

~~~
rolltiide
person you replied to here:

well yes, I was being sarcastic but I'm glad it sparked this high value
comment you wrote. It is easy to see how the 'consensus narrative' changes, as
the accounts are censored and their comments are in fact promoted by the
collective community. But it is impossible to see who was part of that
collective community.

~~~
rolltiide
are *not censored

------
oblib
A good friend once told, after listening to me bitch about someone who loved
to comment on my work, "You can learn something from everyone".

I spent some time trying to dismiss that before considering that if he was
right I'd already missed out on a lot, and that certainly humbled me because
when I started looking for it I found he was right.

The flip side to this is sharing what you know when it contradicts what others
are envisioning as a result can result in those same others responding with
animosity.

~~~
mncharity
Years ago I saw someone doing a community outreach lecture tour, for Next
Generation Science Standards. On behalf of NSF I think. She was getting
hostile questions, many of the too-broken-to-even-be-wrong variety. Ones where
normally I'd just shake my head, perhaps think "nutter", and hope the speaker
was able to move on without getting bogged down.

She addressed the questions with a grace, and insight, and empathy, that was
awesome to watch. I'd not have thought it possible. I wish now I knew who she
was, and had video. If anyone knows of this skill set being taught, I'd love a
pointer.

So I no longer think of the quality of a question, and of a questioner, as
being a worthy bound on the quality of an answer.

~~~
ubershmekel
I learned this lesson from the videos of the Harvard course on justice. The
lecturer got explanations that I thought at the time were laughable, but
somehow in his response he rephrased them to be reasonable and a great
platform to deepen the conversation. It requires a great deal of empathy and
intelligence to do that and I try my darndest to read as much sense as
possible from any question directed my way. Here's an example:

[https://youtu.be/kBdfcR-8hEY?t=2446](https://youtu.be/kBdfcR-8hEY?t=2446)

~~~
hliyan
That lecturer was truly amazing. I thought the trolly car thought experiment
was something that is not worth much more than a few minutes thought, but he
not only proved otherwise, but was patient enough to ask questions and wait
for the class to stumble slowly through the arguments.

------
itsangaris
It's likely the inverse: the more knowledge, the more intellectual humility,
which is just rephrasing Aristotle, “The more you know, the more you know you
don't know.”

~~~
joe_the_user
Not necessarily. At one point, before the rise of Google, most of my answers
to various general knowledge questions would be more or less just a somewhat
selective average of things I'd heard and read from sources. I have an
educated family and background so these answers were probably "about average"
for the educated but still entirely wrong a significant part of the time.

At a certain point in my development, I got in the habit of asking myself "how
do I know that" and Googling if I didn't know. Which is to say I think the
more intellectually humble someone is, the more likely they are actually
verify their ideas through research.

The thing about all this is, it is happening in the era of Google, where if
one has some humility, nothing keeps you from learning more (though having a
basic background is needed to filter out idiocy also). Pre-Internet, the
situation might have been different.

~~~
whymsicalburito
Sounds like you're proving Aristotle correct

------
pseudolus
It's a finding more pithily stated by the poet W.B. Yeats:

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate
intensity" \- The Second Coming (poem).

~~~
yters
Is Yeats saying lack of conviction is a good thing? Or commenting on the fact
that the wrong people have conviction?

~~~
andbberger
Yes he is saying that lack of conviction is a good thing.

~~~
yters
Even though the verse context is listing a bunch of bad things that are
happening?

Bad thing;

Bad thing;

Bad thing,

Bad thing, and

Bad thing;

Good thing, and Good thing!

------
DanielBMarkham
Politics is interesting from a meta standpoint because if there are millions
of people taking a political standpoint different from yours, the odds are
quite strong that there are people who are well-informed with good intentions
who have thought through their position in-depth and have reached a different
conclusion than you have. It's also obviously a place where humans act the
most like herd animals. So when you find a really smart person who has a
different opinion yet wants to know more, it's an opportunity for both of you
to test out your own reasoning skills.

This can be quite fascinating and intellectually humbling. Instead of viewing
politics as something for dumb people who want to clan (which it can be for
many), you get a personal feel for how much each of us relies on definitions
and language that prevents us from doing much introspection. And if it's true
in the political arena, it's certainly true in all of the other parts of our
lives.

But that's just the first step of the journey. It leads naturally to questions
like "How do we 'know' things?" which is a great adventure on its own.
Eventually you lead to questions like "How do people of vastly different
cultures and background communicate on anything? If I were dropped in the
middle of a neanderthal tribe 40k years ago, could each of us learn the
other's language and culture? If so, how?"

You end up with a profound sense of ignorance, but that's okay because most
stuff works most of the time and we don't have to go around poking at the
foundations of knowledge simply to drive to the grocery store. But then you
see one of us tech folks make some dramatic and overly-confident statement
like "C++ is obviously better than Java" and you think across the panopolpy of
human experience you're able to have a good conversation without feeling
personally threatened.

Intellectual humility is not only learnable, it's the first step on a grand
adventure of realizing where we all fit into the universe.

~~~
dillonmckay
There was a study sometime ago, about using a PET scan, to gauge responses
about various topics, and the majority of the folks used the same part of
their brain for both politics and sports teams.

Using their ‘gut’, not logical reasoning.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
There has been a lot of research that points to the brain acting first, then
justifying whatever actions it took.

I believe this to be the natural state of affairs. I think the brain is as
maximally lazy as it can be. This translates to clanning with a large-ish
group of people, then trusting that group to make a good collective decision.
Act immediately on social observation and emotion and then if absolutely
necessary come back and revisit the action to figure out "why" you did it.

If this is the way it works, then the default viewpoint regarding anything we
do or say should be highly suspicious from a rational standpoint. It also
means that we tech folks have spent a lot of time and effort trying to create
artificial intelligence that reasons from logic to action, the complete
opposite of the way real intelligence works.

------
astazangasta
I'll say this gets causality backwards. Intellectual humility is a luxury of
the obviously skilled. In a room of smart people where everyone is competing
for influence and attention, admitting your lack of knowledge can be a real
handicap. When I was younger rather than admit anything I just kept my mouth
shut. Now when I am in a room, no one questions I know what I am talking
about, and I can usually establish my expertise with a few choice
observations. This gives me a lot of lattitude to ask questions and admit what
I (or what we all) don't know, because I have the social standing to get away
with it.

I'm not sure this is necessarily a mark of my humility.

~~~
kjsbfkjbf
You're also getting at why it's difficult for those underrepresented in
industry to make headway or gain knowledge. It's not as easy as "we have a
diverse team". :)

~~~
barberousse
Which brings us to an even more important facet of humility, being aware
enough to know you're uncomfortable with certain people _because you're
unfamiliar_. Most people are not nearly as cosmopolitan as they imagine
themselves to be.

------
1024core
There's a saying in some Indian languages, which I'll paraphrase: _the tree
which bears a lot of fruit is always bent over_. In other words, the person
(tree) with lots of knowledge (fruit) is humble (bent over).

~~~
neilv
And it's knowledge itself that humbles them? I think this is a great saying.

~~~
1024core
Yes, since fruit is heavy, and the more fruit-laden a tree is, the more it
bends.

------
dkarl
I think this article overlooks a crucial factor, which is ego insecurity.
People with an exaggerated sense of overconfidence often learn and achieve
more, because their overconfidence serves as a buffer against insecurity, and
their inflated self-importance gives them motivation to work hard.

A certain amount of overconfidence is an integral part of being a healthy,
thriving human being. People who are depressed have more accurate self-
assessments than healthy people. Humility exposes a person to a lot of
unpleasant, aversive feelings that can convince them that their energy is not
being well spent, making it hard to continue investing at a high enough level
to achieve much.

I think it's good to learn the _ideas_ and _skills_ of humility. I think it's
important to recognize that it's unpleasant to find out that we're wrong, and
we have a natural tendency to avoid unpleasant things, so we have to
consciously and actively compensate for our tendency to preserve our own
mistaken assumptions. However, I wonder if it's really healthy to internalize
humility, to give up a subconscious way of thinking associated with high
functioning and adopt a subconscious way of thinking that is associated with
depression.

Ideally we'd all have such unassailable emotional security that we wouldn't be
bothered by an accurate degree of humility. In reality, I think we have to
fake it, and I think a lot of the people preaching this gospel of "you
shouldn't feel bad when you find out you're wrong" are faking it too. But
that's okay. Our full being is a combination of our messy human psyche that
isn't designed for the things we try to use it for and the conscious ideas by
which we interact with it. Sometimes these parts are compare to an elephant
and a rider — the tiny rider on top is the part of our mind that we
consciously control. I think it's okay if that's the only part that really
practices humility.

~~~
velp
I think this is an interesting point, but responding to the last part ("...a
lot of the people preaching this gospel of "you shouldn't feel bad when you
find out you're wrong" are faking it too. But that's okay.")

I think there are different levels of "feeling bad". When I'm wrong about
something, it certainly doesn't feel good, and in some cases it really sucks,
but I don't then generalize that feeling to represent something intrinsic to
myself. I think the crux is separating the bad feeling of the instance from an
overall bad feeling. Ie - I got this one wrong, but that doesn't mean I'm
stupid.

------
danielbigham
One of the ways I think about humility is that it is the ability of a person
to successfully integrate information that requires some non-trivial
refactoring of one's internal model of the world.

Refactoring can be a costly operation, so it makes sense that the mind
shouldn't take on that task too often, especially if one's mind is more likely
to suffer net harm from an unsuccessful or partial refactoring.

However, if a person is gifted at learning in the broadest sense, then it
would make a lot of sense that their mind would undertake this process much
more gladly, and as a result, form a very strong model of the world.

~~~
naringas
why would a partial refactor be bad for the mind?

(I don't consider the mind to be digital, and the brain even less so)

how can you know when you have completed a refactor?

~~~
stcredzero
You know that scene from _Animal House_ where the 60's college kids are
sitting around smoking a joint, and someone proposes the idea that every
electron is a universe, and their minds are all blown? That's a parody, but it
also really is what a human mental model refactor looks and feels like. (Both
from the outside and the inside. Yes, I'm speaking from personal experience.)

 _how can you know when you have completed a refactor?_

Before you've completed it, other people might think you're annoying because
you want to talk about one particular thing a whole lot, and they're waiting
for you to get over it. Most likely, you'll roll back some of the changes and
make some bug fixes, and you'll stop feeling "whoa" and euphoric, and people
will start treating you normally again.

The above answers:

 _why would a partial refactor be bad for the mind?_

Probably good for your mind, but an interruption for your social progress.

------
Pimpus
It's funny, I always considered myself one of the most humble people i know.
Guess this explains why I am so knowledgeable about so many topics.

~~~
commandlinefan
I'm not humble, but I've learned to fake it pretty well.

The trouble is most people believe me when I say I'm not that smart.

~~~
asdf21
100% this.

And so was born the pervasive humble brag.

------
threezero
The article title is clickbait nonsense:

“The findings in relation to knowledge acquisition were mixed. While an online
study involving 604 adults (and using the more comprehensive measure of
intellectual humility) found the aforementioned link between greater
intellectual humility and superior general knowledge, another involving
college students (and the briefer intellectual humility questionnaire) found
that those higher in intellectual humility achieved poorer grades.”

~~~
nolemurs
Thanks for this. I read the title, and my thought process was:

"I agree".

Then:

"There's no way the study backing the article is good enough to draw
meaningful conclusions. This is clickbait."

Then:

"I guess if i'm going to be intellectually humble I should still read the
article."

I think based on your comment I can safely skip the read, and save myself some
time. Intellectual humility is one thing, but I can go read something with a
higher probability of being informative instead.

~~~
dgacmu
There's more to it than the excerpted quote. It's worth a read. The article
does not breathlessly treat any of the studies it discusses as the word of the
flying spaghetti monster, and it does a good job of presenting a broader
perspective on the question.

~~~
username90
One study showing the opposite result likely means that all of their results
comes from confounding variables.

------
stcredzero
Then sometimes, you meet someone with the attitude, "I must be very
intellectually humble, because I already know just about everything!" This
sounds like a cheap joke, but I'm serious about this observation. It's easy to
fall into this for someone who has been inculcated with the academy's values
with regard to knowledge. This not only includes academics, but disciplines
with some degree of intellectual rigor, like programming and software
development.

Here's a good rule: Don't get so pumped up, that someone else wants to poke
you to deflate you.

------
vmurthy
Isn’t there a chance it’s the other way round. People might start off arrogant
but once they acquire enough superior general knowledge they figure they know
jack and forces them to be humble ? It’s a common enough fallacy to get cause
and effect backwards.

~~~
danans
> People might start off arrogant but once they acquire enough superior
> general knowledge they figure they know jack and forces them to be humble ?

There are too many other variables at play - i.e. inherent psychological
disposition, environmental and social factors, institutional incentives - to
know how cause and effect work in the development of intellectual humility.

But sometimes arrogance in general (and perhaps intellectual arrogance too) is
itself just a thin defense against a dominating unexamined _insecurity_ about
oneself.

If acquiring more general knowledge helps make you more comfortable with
yourself, it might make you more intellectually humble, but it could also do
nothing, or even the opposite.

------
sudosteph
I know that there isn't a lot of scientific support for Myers-Briggs vs the
Big 5 personality test - but I always found the "judging" vs "perceiving"
aspect of Myers-Briggs to be sonewhat meaningful in understanding people's
mindsets. I think this article clarified for me that the factor I was actually
looking for boiled down to intellectual humility. It would be interesting if
they did do myers-Briggs and other personality inventories alongside these
studies just to see if it really does match up.

------
jccalhoun
I'm reminded of something Jesse James said on Monster Garage (I'm sure he
wasn't the first to say it and he is not the best role model himself but...)
If a guy says he knows everything he probably doesn't but the real experts are
the ones that are more humble about their skills.

------
m0zg
TBH I doubt this very much. In fact I doubt, in general, that such broad
assertions can even be made. Anecdotally, I have worked at 2 research labs by
now (one of them was MS Research, another relatively unknown), and of the few
truly genius-grade people I met there none really had much "humility" on
display. They know a staggering array of stuff really well, and they know they
know it. If you don't know something, they'll let you know without much
consideration for your self-esteem.

~~~
svachalek
Is it possible there were people in those labs that knew more than these
geniuses, but you never noticed because they presented themselves modestly?

~~~
m0zg
Unlikely. My bar for a "genius" is pretty high. It's actually pretty obvious
when you're in a room with one - it almost feels like they're different
species. Stuff that's insurmountable to you is easy as a pie to them, and they
can explain it in simple terms. They couldn't care less about the fact that
you weren't able to understand it on your own.

And some of them present very modestly most of the time, but if you're wrong
about their stuff, they won't mince words. Nor would they be humble about
things to get along with you, or doubt their knowledge just because it's
trendy to do so. They don't necessarily shove themselves into everyone's face.

------
throwawaymath
The article points out that there are conflicting studies. Personally I don't
believe there is a strong correlation (one way or the other) between
intellectual humility, intelligence or breadth of knowledge. But my opinion on
that matter is entirely unqualified; all I have to go on is basic anecdata
I've observed along with my own interiority.

While reading through the article I found this interesting:

 _> In terms of insight, higher scorers in intellectual humility were less
likely to claim knowledge they didn’t have (the researchers tested this by
assessing participants’ willingness to claim familiarity with entirely
fictitious facts that they couldn’t possibly know), and they also tended to
underestimate their performance on a cognitive ability test._

I can appreciate the reasoning behind asking that question, but the fact that
it's so useful for judging intellectual humility saddens me. Why would a
person spontaneously respond, "Yes" when asked if they're familiar with a
thing they know they aren't? What does that say about us as a species, that
this behavior is so prevalent?

~~~
amypellegrini
We have a long history of education based on punishment, reward, and PR.

Myself I've felt compelled to pretend to know-it-all out of fear of being
excluded. Being excluded is not a naive thing, it could mean not getting any
job, and falling in disgrace and being hated by a majority of people. It
happened to me for saying the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time
to the wrong people.

There is also the problem of PR, the post-modern fallacy, people who think
they can convince anyone of anything just to get what they want, because truth
is relative, and it doesn't really matter if you are good or competent as long
as you get a seat at the big table.

Modern western society has a low tolerance for ignorance, which is sad given
that many people is ignorant not out of their will, they were just dealt a bad
hand. Also, it is very difficult for ignorant people to get out of their
ignorance if nobody helps them, there are unknown unknowns which they cannot
see without external help.

------
JakeStone
Actually had an option to make something like this a teaching moment to my
kids yesterday. I'd been reading articles about the bridge between Abell 0399
and Abell 0401. There was a Forbes article that said this provided supporting
evidence for dark matter.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/06/06/scie...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/06/06/scientists-
discover-spaces-largest-intergalactic-bridge-solving-a-huge-dark-matter-
puzzle/#39d70b2c546b)

Dark matter bothers my sense of cosmic aesthetics. I'm not a physicist, I just
like reading about how the universe works, so please don't attack my
ignorance; there's only so much I can read. I'm painting with very broad
strokes here.

Going back to the Forbes article, it provided some good arguments that this
was supporting evidence. I had to concede that the blocks making up the
argument seemed sound, so I started rearranging mental furniture.

Then there was the correction at the end of the article, and I'm at the
position where I can understand how you can provide a situation that can at
least provide supporting evidence to support dark matter.

\---

 _However_ , that's not the main point, it's just the foundation for where I'm
going.

I used it to show my kids that you can understand/believe something that seems
right or is "known" to be true. But when you come across evidence that shows
you're wrong, or presents valid evidence to support a differing point of view,
then you _have_ to consider it outside of what you desire to be true. Mind,
after examining it, poke at holes that exist and shred it if it's garbage, but
if it's not susceptible to that, you need to change your world view.

~~~
Retra
I believe this is largely the reason Galileo is often considered the first
scientist. When Copernicus argued for a heliocentric world-view, he was
largely doing so on the basis of aesthetic value: it simplified the
mathematics. But it was always theoretically possible for another mathematical
model to make the geocentric perspective more appealing, so anybody who was
attached to it could simply cast his model off as a mathematical trick.

But Galileo built a telescope that anybody with a pair of eyes could use, no
matter your aesthetic preferences, and he was compelled to transform his
world-view on the basis of the facts he observed in it. He didn't really have
to make any mathematical argument at all; he just had to explain what he
observed, and it directly contradicted the Aristotelian model of reality.

------
maypeacepreva1l
Sometimes people can be acting passive aggressive in the name of humility.
It's hard to understand yourself to find out if you truly are willing to find
out or just trying to prove another person wrong. I think I have lived in both
spectrum in different phase of my life so I can vaguely relate.

------
coconut_crab
> A final study showed that participants who read a popular magazine article
> about the malleability of intelligence (designed to foster a “growth
> mindset”) subsequently scored higher on intellectual humility than another
> group who read an article about intelligence being fixed. > What’s more,
> those in the growth mindset condition went on to display a more positive
> approach when imagining dealing with someone with opposing views, and this
> seemed to be driven by their increased intellectual humility.

I find this part interesting as it might explain why some communities are so
toxic and other... nicer: the niceness can spread between members. So the
first few members are very important in setting up the community's culture.

------
yters
My understanding of the great geniuses is they tend to not be very humble...is
this concept empirically supported, or does it just sound nice?

In my experience, the really knowledgeable people tend to be quite
opinionated, while also being willing to question their own ideas and receive
critical feedback. So, it seems they have both great humility and arrogance,
not one or the other.

~~~
svachalek
The canonical genius has to be Albert Einstein, who was known for humility. As
to some others, people make history as geniuses for (1) doing genius things
and (2) making sure everyone knows they're the genius that did it, so you have
to consider the effect of (2) when you try making a list.

~~~
yters
If they manage to do #2, they are still a genius, which contradicts the notion
that geniuses must be humble.

Personally, I prefer a bit of arrogance so that people clearly state what they
believe and why, even if it is a bit blunt. The clarity of this approach seems
to lead to better ideas, since my personal observation is that great ideas
also tend to be fairly simple and can be stated in a straightforward manner.

Plus, when an idea is clearly stated, it is easier to know if the idea is
right or wrong, which is necessary for the humility bit of self questioning.

------
BeetleB
Scanning the comments, I don't really see anyone discussing the value of
"superior general knowledge".

I like knowledge, so I find value in attaining it. However, depending on your
goals, intellectual humility will set you back a great deal. Most people use
confidence and certainty as a signal, and suppressing these means they'll pick
someone over you (for a promotion, for a relationship, for a contract, for
your _knowledge /expertise_ (even though you likely have more of it than the
other guy)).

The people who are ahead are rarely the ones who are the most knowledgeable
(with the possible exception of academia).

I've been told: "Be humble and tentative on the inside, but self-promoting and
confident on the outside".

~~~
FrightHorse
One can very much be humble _and_ confident.

Especially in an interview or promotion situation, I'm proud of and speak to
my accomplishments and the skills and knowledge I've been able to obtain, but
I can also speak with real honesty about the mistakes I've made, tend to make,
and my own shortcomings. I talk about both without hesitation.

Though I know it's entirely anecdotal, I've found most of the time those
traits were taken quite well in an interview context, and _certainly_ I've
appreciated people that display those traits when I'm interviewing them.

The key I've always found was the tone in which both your humility and
confidence are displayed. After all, confidence is a totally different animal
than cockiness.

~~~
BeetleB
Yes, I did not mean to say that the two are necessarily exclusive. You can be
confident about things you know exceptionally well, or about things from your
past (accomplishments). But if you show humility for other things, and start
using qualifiers like "most likely", "I suspect", "generally", the majority of
folks are likely to pick the guy who doesn't use them.

>Especially in an interview or promotion situation, I'm proud of and speak to
my accomplishments and the skills and knowledge I've been able to obtain, but
I can also speak with real honesty about the mistakes I've made, tend to make,
and my own shortcomings. I talk about both without hesitation.

These are things for which there is no uncertainty: You know your
accomplishments, and you know your failures. And it is in a very confined
scenario (interview/promotion). What I've found is that demonstrating
uncertainty in day-to-day matters can greatly impact whether you'll be
considered at all for a promotion/job. My first manager always wanted
certainty. If you said "I'll see what I can do" or "I'll do my best", that was
perceived negatively. And it would be more negative if a conversation followed
where you outlined the reasons for lack of certainty (various risks,
dependencies, etc). If you said "I'll get it done", he'd be happy. Over time I
noticed _it was irrelevant whether you actually get it done_. If you said
"I'll get it done", and failed, and explained why you failed, things were
good. If you said "I'll do my best" and failed, and explained why you failed,
his belief was "He didn't try hard enough".

Granted, not all managers are like this (thankfully!). But I've found most
_people_ in the general public are like him. Both online and in my personal
life, when I've expressed any doubts/risks in an endeavor I'm pursuing, I've
been told that I'm setting myself up for failure. And when it comes to non-
solo pursuits, they're usually right, but not for the reasons they believe.
The key was this:

 _People who express doubt are less likely to receive help from others._

 _People who express unrealistic confidence are much more likely to get help
from others._

So once again: Hide the humility and fake confidence on the outside.

------
pythonwutang
I’m curious where the term “Superior General Knowledge” in the headline came
from. It’s not explicitly defined in the article and ironically is not an
intellectually humble way to describe the article’s conclusions.

------
chungleong
Makes sense. Well educated people have educational credentials that protect
their self-esteem. They can afford to be intellectually humble. Admitting to
mistakes or ignorance doesn't hurt as much.

~~~
beenBoutIT
Some of them are just intelligent enough to understand that they don't know
everything.

~~~
chungleong
Intelligence can't transform the unknown unknowns into known unknowns.
Awareness of one's own ignorance has to be taught.

------
chiefalchemist
I hate to nitpick but "superior general knowledge" should probably be "more
depth and breadth in general knowledge." Superior is subjective and in this
context sounds elitist.

------
rconti
Using "aperçus" in an article about intellectual humility? Ironic, I'm pretty
sure. Unless I'm just unfamiliar with inexplicable pluralization being
appropriate.

~~~
BWStearns
I took it as a tongue in cheek thing, but if you look here
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=US&q=aper%C3%A7us)
you might find the results amusing. Apparently a decent amount of people
reading an article about intellectual humility are the type to google a word
they don't know.

~~~
rconti
Good for them! I looked it up, too, to see if there was a common usage I'm
unfamiliar with. I am a non-native French speaker, and the pluralization
didn't make sense to me, but I thought maybe this was a case where I was
unaware of a word being re-appropriated and used differently in English. It
does seem to show up as plural, but without the accent. I still don't really
know, though.

~~~
WiseWeasel
The pluralization does exist, as “those who have perceived” or “those which
have been perceived”, but it is indeed a grammatical error in the article's
usage. The ç is always correct, but accents are a common casualty of
transliteration and informal writing.

------
irrartional
As an artist i must say that this is actually the opposite of what you want to
be when making inovative art. You have to push your world view so hard that it
becomes real.

Ignorance creates art[1], stubborn ignorance guided by personality.

Ps. This might explain why so many artists are narcissistic

[1] [https://youtu.be/25kmuPSt60w](https://youtu.be/25kmuPSt60w) around 2:48
guy makes a good point about this

------
torbjorn
Or do people with "superior general knowledge" recognize it is socially
advantageous to present as humble?

------
Relys
"When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease to be
mistaken or cease to be honest."

------
nydel
i try to remember: "i like liking thing."

this seems to help me avoid intellectual-ier-than-thou attitudes and
behaviours. it's simple in its elegance to me:

1) i like to like

2) in order to like something, a manner of understanding is always involved
(in maths it's empirical, in watching a magic stage show that fools you it's
in a less direct understanding such as 'i understand there's a person
attempting to create a sense of awe and wonder even though i do not understand
the methodology of the trick')

3) so intention to like -> (as leads to) liking

4) and intellectual humility -> understanding

5) so intellectual humility -> understanding -> liking things

inversely,

intellectual arrogance -> ignorance -> not liking things

i don't want to do that thing. the ignorance and hate thing. it is - at least
figuratively and perhaps moving toward literally - the only thing i actively
do not like.

------
bryanrasmussen
So as the levels of intellectual humility increase there comes a point where a
person's superior general knowledge on a subject can actually be greater than
a domain expert's specific knowledge.

At this point maintaining the intellectual humility so as not to descend into
idiocy becomes a real challenge.

------
lostmsu
Guess what? They confirm in the article, that different studies had opposite
results, yet we got this title.

------
pellucide
There is an Indian saying... A tree full of fruits is closer to the ground
than the one without.

------
malandrew
Curious if cause and effect could be reversed here. Perhaps it's "People with
superior general knowledge have greater intellectual humility"? Perhaps it's a
feedback loop where they both impact one another.

------
jhedwards
知者不言，言者不知

"The one who knows doesn't speak, the one who speaks doesn't know"

\- Dao De Jing

------
vlunkr
Those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know.

------
oarabbus_
Ah yes. Always knew my superior general knowledge was due to my absolutely
incredible intellectual humility.

~~~
lovemenot
Me too. I always seem to know a little or even a lot more on any subject than
others do. I realise now, it's down to my outstanding intellectual humility.

------
nafizh
Noam Chomsky comes to mind immediately. I have seen very few people who are as
humble.

------
diyseguy
The bigger the attitude, the smaller the talent. I have always noticed

------
stelliosk
The Socrates paradox goes "I know that I know nothing".

------
stelliosk
The Socrates paradox: "I know that I know nothing"

------
teawrecks
The corralary being: a shallow brook babbles the loudest

------
diehunde
Socrates got it right more than 2 thousand years ago.

------
sesteel
This is a description of the Dunning-Kruger effect. While Dunning-Kruger is a
popular topic around tech circles, I'm not so sure about the general
population. I wish people weren't so ignorant about their own ignorance.

Edit: Adding clarity

People who have superior general knowledge have greater intellectual humility
because they are more aware of their own ignorance and the complexities of the
subject matter. Those who do not have superior knowledge are subject to the
Dunning-Kruger effect.

~~~
sova
Ignorance of what? Your reality or their own?

~~~
popularrecluse
Reality isn't subjective. People are just imperfect antennae with varying
receptions and demodulators.

~~~
sova
Isn't it subjective when we consider the reality of the fish versus the
reality of the human? Even among two humans the cornerstones of your psychic
landscape can be vastly different. Are you talking about elemental reality?
Any "elemental reality" that leaves out the vital elements of psyche,
behavior, habit, preference, and perception would clearly omit a lot of vital
information in coming to know Reality with a capital R.

------
samirillian
as a person with great intellectual humility and superior general knowledge, i
can say there's no way this study can deliver on whatever it purports to

