Hypo-Egoic Nonentitlement as a Feature of Humility

Abstract

Two studies tested the hypothesis that humility is characterized by the belief that, no matter how extraordinary one’s accomplishments or characteristics may be, one is not entitled to be treated special because of them (hypo-egoic nonentitlement). Participants identified either one (Study 1) or five (Study 2) positive accomplishments or characteristics, rated those accomplishments/characteristics, indicated how they believed they should be treated because of them, and completed measures of humility and related constructs. As predicted, humility was inversely associated with the belief that other people should treat one special because of one’s accomplishments and positive characteristics. However, humility was not related to participants’ ratings of the positivity of their accomplishments or characteristics or of themselves. Ancillary analyses examined the relationships between hypo-egoic nonentitlement, humility, and measures of self-esteem, narcissism, self- and other-interest, psychological entitlement, individualism-collectivism, and identification with humanity.

Keywords

humility modesty entitlement hypo-egoic

Psychologists have been interested at least since the 1960s in topics that involve excessive self-preoccupation—such as egocentrism, self-enhancement, and narcissism—but only in the last 15 years have they turned concerted attention to phenomena that are characterized by a low level of egoicism (for reviews, see Brown & Leary, 2016). One such phenomenon, humility, has been of particular interest because it has been shown to be associated with an array of desirable psychological and interpersonal outcomes (Worthington, Davis, & Hook, 2017).

Humility has been conceptualized and measured in a number of ways, often on the basis of lay beliefs about humble people, which may or may not reflect the actual psychological processes involved. These conceptualizations, and their accompanying operationalizations, diverge in important ways (see Hill et al., 2017; McElroy-Heltzel, Davis, DeBlaere, Worthington, & Hook, 2018), so not all research on “humility” necessarily deals with the same phenomenon. As a result, humility has struggled to find its footing with respect to an agreed-upon conceptualization that informs measurement and theory-testing.

Most discussions of humility offer a set of characteristics that are assumed to describe humble people without attempting to distinguish the behavioral characteristics associated with humility from the psychological processes that underlie it (e.g., Exline & Hill, 2012; Farrell et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2017; LaBouff, Rowatt, Johnson, Tsang, & Willerton, 2012; McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2018; Tangney, 2002, 2009; Wang, Edwards, & Hill, 2017; Worthington, 2008). Many such descriptions can be traced to Tangney’s (2000, 2002) list of six central features of humility: an accurate assessment of oneself, acknowledgment of one’s mistakes and limitations, openness to other viewpoints and ideas, keeping one’s accomplishments and abilities in perspective, low self-focus, and appreciating the value of all things, including other people. Such descriptions are probably correct on average, yet simply identifying characteristics that tend to distinguish people who are more or less humble falls short of providing a conceptualization of humility or a theory of the psychological dynamics that underlie it. Even so, most writers have relied on a feature-based description of humility rather than a conceptualization that identifies the psychological processes that cause people to be humble (for critiques, see Church & Barrett, 2017; Hill et al., 2017; Leary & Banker, 2019; Schrader & Tangney, 2017).

Of the many characteristics that have been identified, two attributes have figured prominently in most descriptions of humility. First, many discussions have included the notion that humble people have an accurate view of their strengths and weaknesses (Davis, Hook, McAnnally-Linz, Choe, & Placeres, 2017; Dwiwardani et al., 2014; Farrell et al., 2015; Kruse, Chancellor, Ruberton, & Lyubomirsky, 2014; Tangney, 2000; Van Tongeren, Davis, Hook, Rowatt, & Worthington, 2018; Wang et al., 2017). This criterion is meant to capture the idea that humble people do not have inflated self-views but, by itself, self-accuracy does not appear to be either necessary or sufficient as an indicator of humility. Consider two equally accomplished people, both of whom have accurate views of their abilities and accomplishments. Although these individuals do not differ in either their accomplishments or the accuracy of their self-views, they might certainly differ in humility. One person might display low humility, reveling in his or her achievements and expecting to be glorified and treated special, while the other (humble) person might take the same achievements in stride, being disinterested in attention, recognition, or being treated special because of them. In this example, accuracy of self-views does not distinguish an arrogant person from a humble one.

In another vein, many writers have proposed that humility involves an other-focused or prosocial orientation (Davis et al., 2017; Exline & Hill, 2012; Kruse, Chancellor, & Lyubomirsky, 2017; Nadelhoffer & Wright, 2017; Stellar et al., 2017; Van Tongeren et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2017; Wright, Nadelhoffer, Ross, & Sinnott-Armstrong, 2018), and research confirms that people who are high in humility tend to display stronger prosocial tendencies (or, perhaps, weaker selfish, antisocial tendencies) than people low in humility (Exline & Hill, 2012; Farrell et al., 2015; Kruse et al., 2014; LaBouff et al., 2012). However, these tendencies do not appear to be related to humility strongly enough to regard them as central or defining features, and some theorists have argued against using specific overt behaviors in conceptualizations of humility (Church & Barrett, 2017; Leary & Banker, 2019; Schrader & Tangney, 2017). One possibility is that humility and prosocial, other-focused orientations are co-effects of a broader hypo-egoic perspective or low self-centeredness (Leary, Diebels, Jongman-Sereno, & Hawkins, 2016).

In addition to self-accuracy and other-focus, theorists have proposed that humility is characterized by a lower focus on oneself (Exline & Hill, 2012; Hill & Laney, 2016; Kruse et al., 2014; Stellar et al., 2017; Wright et al., 2018), the absence of superiority, arrogance, or entitlement (Kruse et al., 2017; LaBouff et al., 2012; Sezer, Gino, & Norton, 2018; Tong et al., 2016), behavioral displays of modesty (Davis et al., 2016; Peters, Rowatt, & Johnson, 2011; but see Wright et al., 2017), and open-mindedness (Peters et al., 2011; Tong et al., 2016). As with self-accuracy and other-focus, these descriptors likely differ between people who are low versus high in humility, but whether any of them explain the psychological basis of humility is unclear.¹

Our goal in this project was to go beyond this list of descriptors that distinguish people who are low versus high in humility to examine a specific psychological quality that might underlie humility and account for the cognitive, motivational, and behavioral correlates of humility that have been described previously. Essentially, our question was as follows: What would we want to know about someone, psychologically speaking, that would provide a strong, valid indicator that he or she is responding in a humble fashion (state humility) or is generally a humble person (trait humility)?

Specifically, our central hypothesis was that humility is characterized by the belief that one’s accomplishments and positive characteristics do not entitle one to be treated special as a person by other people. According to this view, humble people recognize that they possess exemplary characteristics or have accomplished noteworthy things, but they do not believe that those characteristics or accomplishments entitle them to be treated differently overall than they otherwise would (Leary & Banker, 2019). So, for example, a renowned actor may know that he is exceptionally skilled, has a highly successful career, and is adored by his fans but not believe that he should be treated special overall, as a person, because of his exceptional ability and accomplishments.

The phrase “as a person” is central here. In certain areas of life, norms dictate that people who perform at a high level or who have exceptionally positive characteristics deserve special attention, deference, respect, rewards, perks, and privileges in the domain in which their accomplishments or characteristics are relevant. For example, the best athletes should be given more playing time than less skilled players, accomplished scientists may deserve more awards and better grant funding, and the best employees are entitled to a higher salary, a better office, or other benefits. Expecting to receive special treatment commensurate with one’s accomplishments when such norms are operating is irrelevant to humility, although declining to be treated special when it is normatively deserved may reflect low humility.

Although norms often permit or require that people be treated special within the domains of their accomplishments, norms do not generally dictate that exemplary people should be accorded special treatment outside of those domains. The best athletes, scientists, and employees are not generally entitled to be treated differently in contexts in which sports, science, or their jobs are not involved. Of course, other people may sometimes treat notable individuals in special ways for their own self-serving reasons, but how one happens to be treated by other people is not relevant to the person’s humility.

Yet, people sometimes believe that they should be treated differently because of who they are or what they have done in contexts in which their accomplishments are not relevant. These individuals display egoic entitlement—the belief that other people should treat them differently as a person because of their accomplishments or positive characteristics. In contrast, other people do not expect to be treated special as a person no matter how outstanding their accomplishments or personal characteristics may be, such as the successful actor described earlier. We refer to this reaction as hypo-egoic nonentitlement to highlight that the person’s low level of entitlement is the result of low self-preoccupation and self-importance (i.e., hypo-egoicism) rather than due to a failure to recognize the quality of his or her accomplishments or characteristics, or to having unrealistically negative self-views. People who display hypo-egoic nonentitlement recognize, and may even acknowledge, that their accomplishments or characteristics are exceptional in some respect, yet they do not think that they are entitled to special treatment as a person.

Other writers have hinted at this hypothesized connection between low entitlement and humility. For example, some have suggested that humility involves keeping one’s accomplishments, characteristics, and abilities in perspective rather than exaggerating or calling attention to them (Richards, 1988; Snow, 1995; Tong et al., 2016). Furthermore, research shows that humility is inversely related to psychological entitlement which, although different from egoic entitlement (to be explained below), demonstrates a link between humility and feeling entitled to get what one wants (Kruse et al., 2017). However, no theory has suggested that this may be a central, perhaps unifying feature of humility, and no research has directly explored the link between humility and the degree to which people believe that they are entitled to be treated special.

Study 1

Study 1 was designed as an initial test of the hypothesis that humility is characterized by hypo-egoic nonentitlement. The secondary goal was to test the hypothesis that perceived entitlement to special treatment is a stronger predictor of low humility than how positively people evaluate their accomplishments or characteristics. In addition, Study 1 examined the relationship between hypo-egoic nonentitlement and self-esteem and narcissism, two variables that are often linked conceptually with humility.

Participants described an accomplishment or characteristic that they viewed positively, and then rated how they believed it compared with those of other people and how others should treat them because of it. In addition, participants completed measures of humility, self-esteem, and narcissism.

Method

Participants

Study 1 involved 213 participants (54% male, M_age = 34, range = 18-72) recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. A sample size of 200 was targeted to allow detection of correlations as small as .20, the minimum size that we regarded as necessary to identify the central features of a construct, at an alpha-level of .01. Nine percent of participants had earned their GED or completed high school, 29% attended college but did not receive a Bachelor’s degree, 13% had an Associate’s degree, 38% earned a Bachelor’s degree, and 11% held an advanced degree. Participants were compensated US$2.00 for their time, approximately 10 to 15 min.

Procedure

After giving informed consent, participants read the following instructions:

. . . think of the personal characteristic or personal accomplishment that you feel most proud of. This could be a trait, skill, ability, or other personal characteristic, or it could be a particular accomplishment or success. In either case, think of a personal characteristic or accomplishment that you feel particularly good about—a characteristic that you are particularly proud that you possess or an accomplishment of which you are particularly proud.

After describing a characteristic or accomplishment in a phrase, participants rated how positively they viewed it on a 6-point scale (1 = neutral, 2 = slightly positive, 3 = somewhat positive, 4 = moderately positive, 5 = very positive, 6 = extremely positive) and how positively they thought other people would view it using the same response format. They also rated how they believed that their characteristic or accomplishment compared with those of other people of a similar age (1 = about the same, 2 = slightly better, 3 = somewhat better, 4 = moderately better, 5 = very much better, 6 = extremely better).

Participants then rated how much they agreed with five statements that assessed aspects of egoic entitlement (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree): (a) This characteristic or accomplishment makes me a more special person than I would be if I did not have it; (b) People should treat me differently because I have this characteristic or accomplishment; (c) People should like me more because I have this characteristic or accomplishment; (d) People should respect me more because I have this characteristic or accomplishment; and (e) People should give me special treatment because I have this characteristic or accomplishment.

Participants then completed measures of humility, narcissism, and self-esteem, in random order. The Brief Humility Scale (BHS; Kruse et al., 2017) is a reliable, well-validated scale on which participants indicated their agreement (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) with statements such as “To be completely honest, I feel that I am better than most people” (reverse-scored) and “I feel that I do not have very many weaknesses” (reverse-scored). Although originally developed as a measure of state humility, the BHS has been used successfully as a measure of trait humility.

Participants answered 13 items from Raskin and Hall’s (1979) Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). These questions focused on grandiosity (e.g., “I am an extraordinary person,” “I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so”) and vanity (e.g., “I like to be the center of attention,” “I like to be complimented”). Ratings were made on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all characteristic or true of me, 5 = extremely characteristic or true of me).

Participants completed the 7-item self-regard subscale of Fleming and Courtney’s (1984) Self-Esteem Scale. Participants rated how often they have thoughts and feelings associated with low and high self-esteem (1 = never, 7 = always). Sample items include “How often do you have the feeling that there is nothing you can do well?” and “How often do you feel inferior to most of the people you know?” Finally, participants indicated their gender, highest level of education, and age.

Results

The characteristics and accomplishments that participants reported most frequently involved characteristics and accomplishments related to academics (e.g., graduating from high school or college), career (e.g., being promoted at work), desirable personality characteristics (e.g., being exceptionally kind or helpful), and relational characteristics (e.g., being a good parent or friend). On average, participants rated their accomplishments between “very” and “extremely” positive (on a 6-point scale; M = 5.33, SD = 0.85) and indicated that other people would view them between “moderately” and “very” positive (M = 4.69, SD = 1.23). Descriptive statistics for all measures are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics (Study 1, N = 212).

	M	SD
Brief Humility Scale	32.29	6.67
Self-esteem	36.58	9.08
Narcissism	28.45	10.20
Own view of accomplishment or characteristic	5.33	0.85
Others’ view of accomplishment or characteristic	4.69	1.23
Comparative rating	4.43	1.36
Special person	5.01	1.71
Treat differently	2.76	1.70
Like me more	3.33	1.78
Respect me more	3.78	1.73
Treat special	2.33	1.59

Humility and egoic entitlement

The first goal of Study 1 was to examine whether humility is inversely related to people’s beliefs that their accomplishments and positive characteristics entitle them to special treatment. Because of the large number of statistical tests, alpha was set at .01.

As seen in Table 2, all four items that assessed how participants thought they should be treated because of their accomplishment or characteristic correlated negatively with humility. Participants higher in humility were less likely to agree that other people should treat them differently (r = −.49), like them more (r = −.41), respect them more (r = −.36), and give them special treatment (r = −.55) than participants low in humility (all ps < .001). Yet, humility was not related to participants’ own ratings of the characteristic or accomplishment (r = .09, p = .219), their ratings of how other people view the characteristic or accomplishment (r = .11, p = .125), or the degree to which the characteristic or accomplishment makes them a more special person (r = −.10, p = .156). However, humility correlated weakly with ratings of how much better the characteristic or accomplishment was compared with those of other people (r = −.27, p < .001).

Table 2.

Correlations (Study 1).

	Humility	Self-esteem	Narcissism	Own view	Others’ view	Comparative rating	Special person	Treat differently	Like me more	Respect me more
Humility	1
Self-esteem	−.06	1
Self-esteem	.365
Narcissism	−.61	.15	1
Narcissism	<.001	.034
Own view	.09	.35	.11	1
Own view	.219	<.001	.110
Others’ view	.11	.33	.07	.60	1
Others’ view	.125	<.001	.287	<.001
Comparative rating	−.27	.30	.31	.29	.36	1
Comparative rating	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001
Special person	−.10	.20	.17	.13	.16	.22	1
Special person	.156	.004	.013	.061	.022	.001
Treat differently	−.49	.08	.43	.00	.07	.30	.32	1
Treat differently	<.001	.240	<.001	.994	.33	<.001	<.001
Like me more	−.41	.06	.45	.01	.09	.29	.41	.61	1
Like me more	<.001	.352	<.001	.929	.180	<.001	<.001	<.001
Respect me more	−.36	.12	.36	.06	.14	.27	.32	.55	.66	1
Respect me more	<.001	.072	<.001	.40	.05	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001
Treat special	−.55	.03	.524	−.04	.01	.40	.27	.70	.63	.55
Treat special	<.001	.672	<.001	.550	.850	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001

Note. Significance tests are two-tailed (df = 210).

Because many of these ratings correlated with one another, we conducted a simultaneous multiple regression analysis in which all eight ratings were entered as predictors of BHS humility scores. When all eight ratings were entered, only the item “People should give me special treatment because I have this characteristic or accomplishment” was related to humility at an alpha-level of .01, B = −1.35, 95% CI = [–2.08, –0.63], t(210) = 3.69, p < .001.

Although no other predictors were significant with all eight variables in the model, the possibility exists that one or more predictors might account for additional variance beyond the item referring to special treatment. To test this possibility, a stepwise multiple regression was conducted in which all eight ratings were entered. Of course, the item referring to receiving special treatment entered the model in the first step, B = −2.39, 95% CI = [–2.86, –1.92], t(210) = 10.01, p < .001. No other predictor entered the model, although the item “People should treat me differently because I have this characteristic or accomplishment” came quite close, B = −0.78, 95% CI = [–1.37, –0.18], t(209) = 2.54, p = .012. Thus, all items that assessed special treatment—in terms of being liked, respected, treated differently, or treated special—correlated with humility, but the regression analyses showed that entitlement to “special treatment because I have this characteristic or accomplishment” seemed to be key.

Humility, narcissism, and self-esteem

Scores on the BHS correlated significantly with narcissism, r(210) = −.61, p < .001, but not with self-esteem, r(210) = −.06, p = .365. To confirm that egoic entitlement is not isomorphic with narcissism, a multiple regression analysis was conducted in which narcissism and self-esteem were entered in Step 1. Narcissism predicted humility, B = −0.395, 95% CI = [–0.47, –0.32], t(210) = −10.83, p < .001, but self-esteem did not, B = 0.02, 95% CI = [–0.060, 0.102], t(210) = .52, p = .604.

Then, with variance associated with narcissism and self-esteem removed in Step 1, participants’ eight ratings of their accomplishment or characteristic were entered in stepwise fashion. Ratings of the degree to which people “should give me special treatment” because of the characteristic or accomplishment entered the equation in Step 2, B = −1.45, 95% CI = [–1.96, –0.94], t(209) = −5.618, p < .001. Ratings of how positively other people view the characteristic or accomplishment entered in Step 3, B = 0.85, 95% CI = [0.27, 1.43], t(208) = 2.91, p = .004, followed in Step 4 by agreement that people should treat the participant differently, although it did not meet our alpha-level of .01, B = 0.64, 95% CI = [–1.188, –0.089], t(207) = −2.29, p = .023. These results indicate that, although humility and narcissism were negatively correlated, replicating previous research (Kruse et al., 2017), low egoic entitlement predicted humility beyond narcissism.

Discussion

Study 1 confirmed the hypothesis that humility involves a low sense of entitlement to being treated special because of one’s accomplishments or positive characteristics. As predicted, hypo-egoic nonentitlement—assessed directly as the degree to which participants thought they should be treated special because of their positive characteristic or accomplishment—predicted humility, whereas ratings of the positivity of the accomplishment or characteristic did not. In fact, ratings of the degree to which the accomplishment or characteristic made the participant a “special person” also did not correlate with humility, suggesting that humility may be about being treated special rather than seeing oneself as special. Similarly, the fact that humility and self-esteem were uncorrelated also argues against the role of self-evaluations in humility. Humility is related more strongly to how people expect others to treat them than to how positively people evaluate themselves or their accomplishments.

As expected, humility correlated negatively with narcissism (Kruse et al., 2017). However, with narcissism controlled, humility predicted ratings of the degree to which participants believed that they should be treated special.

Study 2

Study 2 was designed to replicate Study 1 using a more extensive set of measures. Although hypo-egoic nonentitlement with respect to a single accomplishment or characteristic was associated with humility in Study 1 as predicted, using additional ratings would help to ensure that the findings are not confined to particularly salient accomplishments and characteristics and also increase the reliability of the index of egoic entitlement. Thus, participants in Study 2 identified five accomplishments or characteristics. Furthermore, to maximize the degree to which participants considered a broad range of accomplishments and characteristics in making their selections, we provided them with a list of 12 categories identified from the data collected in Study 1.

In addition, to see whether the findings replicate using other measures of humility, participants completed the BHS as in Study 1 (Kruse et al., 2017), as well as the Honesty-Humility Scale of the HEXACO Personality Inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2018) and the Dual-Dimension Humility Scale (DDHS; Wright et al., 2018). Of the four subscales of the Honesty-Humility Scale, the modesty subscale was of greatest interest. The items on the modesty subscale reflect humble versus arrogant beliefs about one’s superiority, specialness, importance, and entitlement to respect (Lee & Ashton, 2004).

The DDHS (Wright et al., 2018) was designed to measure humility by assessing the degree to which people are self-focused and other-focused in responding to their social and physical environments. As explained below, the scale provides scores for five domains or manifestations of humility—religious humility, cosmic humility, environmental humility, other-focus, and valuing humility.

To explore the relationship between hypo-egoic nonentitlement, humility, and related constructs, participants again completed measures of self-esteem and narcissism, as well as measures of psychological entitlement, self- and other-interest, identification with humanity, and vertical and horizontal individualism/collectivism. Psychological entitlement involves the degree to which people believe that they deserve to have more than others (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004). Although related, psychological entitlement differs from egoic entitlement in that, whereas people feel egoically entitled because of their accomplishments or characteristics, they may feel psychologically entitled for a variety of other reasons as well. For example, people can feel entitled to certain outcomes because they believe that they are deprived or disadvantaged, come from a distinguished family, or simply deserve to get whatever they want. Even so, because much psychological entitlement springs from egoic motives, we expected psychological entitlement to be related to egoic entitlement and, thus, inversely related to humility.

According to the hypo-egoic nonentitlement hypothesis, humility should be inversely related to variables that reflect the degree to which people think they are special (as opposed to “ordinary” people like everyone else) and, thus, emphasize their personal interests over those of other people. Therefore, we expected that the degree to which people identify with humanity at large (McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012) would be associated with hypo-egoic nonentitlement and humility. Identification with humanity is associated with greater concern for human rights, valuing ingroup and outgroup members more similarly, and humanitarian concerns (McFarland, Brown, & Webb, 2013).

Similarly, horizontal and vertical individualism/collectivism (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998) were of interest because hypo-egoic nonentitlement, and thus humility, should be more strongly related to horizontal and collectivist orientations than to vertical and individualist orientations. People who value a horizontal orientation emphasize equality in their dealings with others, whereas people who value a vertical orientation emphasize social hierarchies and status. Furthermore, collectivism is associated with interdependence, communal relationships, and group goals, whereas individualism emphasizes independence, exchange relationships, and personal goals (Triandis, 2001). People who display hypo-egoic nonentitlement should be more likely to exhibit horizontal and collectivist orientations.

People differ in the degree to which they place their own interests over those of others, and humility should relate to these differences. Gerbasi and Prentice (2013) described four orientations that reflect this balance of self- versus other-interest: prosocial (maximizing the benefits that everyone receives), self-comparative (getting more than other people), self-prioritizing (attending to other people’s interests only after one’s needs are met), and self-maximizing (focusing only on one’s own outcomes with no concern for other people). Because egoic entitlement involves expecting to be treated special, humility should be inversely related to orientations that accord greater benefit to oneself (the self-comparative, self-prioritizing, and self-maximizing orientations) and positively related to the prosocial orientation.

Finally, because of recurring questions regarding the impact of social desirability biases on the measurement of humility (Davis, Worthington, & Hook, 2010; McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2018), we administered a measure of social desirability bias (Reynolds, 1982).

Method

Participants

A minimum sample size of 200 was targeted to allow detection of correlations as small as .20 at an alpha-level of .01. The final sample contained 206 participants (49.5% male, M_age = 35, range = 18-66) who were recruited from Mechanical Turk. Nine percent had completed high school or received a GED, 28% attended college but did not receive a degree, 16% earned an Associate’s degree, 36% received a Bachelor’s degree, and 10% earned an advanced degree. Participants received US$4.00 for their time, approximately 30 min.

Procedure

A content analysis of the characteristics and accomplishments that participants identified in Study 1 resulted in 12 categories that were used in Study 2 to encourage participants to think broadly about their characteristics and accomplishments: academic ability or accomplishment; artistic ability or accomplishment; athletic ability or accomplishment; specialized knowledge, expertise, or wisdom; career-related ability or accomplishment; cultural or travel-related experience or accomplishment; financial status or accomplishment; personality characteristic; physical characteristic or trait (including appearance); social characteristic, connection, or relationship; award or recognition; and other skill, ability, characteristic, or accomplishment.

After providing informed consent, participants were asked to identify five characteristics or accomplishments from this list. The instructions stated,

. . . we want you to identify some positive characteristics and accomplishments that you feel good about. The characteristics and accomplishments that people feel good about may involve a variety of traits, skills, abilities, or accomplishments in many different areas of life. Look at the categories of characteristics and accomplishments and think of a positive personal characteristic, skill, trait, ability, or accomplishment that falls in five of these categories.

After describing each of these characteristics or accomplishments in a phrase, participants were asked how difficult it was “to think of five positive characteristics or accomplishments” and how difficult it was “to limit yourself to listing only five characteristics or accomplishments” (1 = not at all, 2 = slightly, 3 = moderately, 4 = very, 5 = extremely).

Participants answered two questions about each of the accomplishments or characteristics they identified. The first question asked “How would this characteristic or accomplishment compare to those of other people?” which was answered on an 11-point scale with six labels (1 = about the same, 3 = slightly better, 5 = somewhat better, 7 = moderately better, 9 = much better, 11 = vastly better). The second question involved ratings of egoic entitlement. The instructions said,

When people learn about our positive characteristics or accomplishments, they may act differently towards us than had they not been aware of these characteristics or accomplishments. When others learn of your characteristic or accomplishments, how differently do you believe people should treat you or behave towards you, in general, compared to if they did not know about this characteristic or accomplishment?

Participants then rated how “they should treat me” on an 11-point scale with the same six scale labels. They then completed the following measures in a random order and indicated their age, gender, and education level.

Materials

BHS

The BHS (Kruse et al., 2017), described in Study 1, assessed general humility.

Honesty-Humility Scale

The Honesty-Humility Scale (Lee & Ashton, 2018) from the HEXACO-100 Inventory includes 16 items that assess four facets of honesty-humility—sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, and modesty—rated on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Of these, the modesty subscale (hereafter referred to as HH-modesty) is most relevant to humility. Items include “I am an ordinary person who is no better than others” and “I want people to know that I am an important person of high status” (reverse-scored).

DDHS

The DDHS (Wright et al., 2018) consists of 25 questions designed to assess five domains or manifestations of humility: religious humility (e.g., “I often feel humble when I think of a Higher Power”), cosmic humility (e.g., “I often find myself pondering my smallness in the face of the vastness of the universe”), environmental humility (e.g., “I often feel in touch with Mother Nature”), other-focus (e.g., “I often place the interests of others over my own interests”), and valuing humility (e.g., “I find humble people to be very admirable”). Questions are answered on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

Prosocial, self-comparative, self-maximizing, and self-prioritizing subscales from the Self- and Other-Interest Scale

Participants answered 12 items relating to the trade-off between the motivations to act in one’s own interest versus in others’ interests. The scale (Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013) provides four subscale scores that reflect four self-other orientations: prosocial relations (e.g., “It is the total amount of benefit that everyone receives that matters most”), self-comparative relations (e.g., “I make sure that what I am getting is better than what other people are getting”), self-maximizing relations (e.g., “I look out for my own outcomes and don’t concern myself with what happens to other people”), and self-prioritizing relations (“I am happy to help others as long as I know that I am doing okay first”). These were measured on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

Self-esteem

Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item measure was used to assess self-esteem (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

Narcissism

As in Study 1, 13 items from the NPI assessed grandiosity and vanity (1 = not at all characteristic or true of me, 5 = extremely characteristic or true of me) (Raskin & Hall, 1979).

Psychological entitlement

The 9-item Psychological Entitlement Scale (Campbell et al., 2004) assesses people’s beliefs that they are entitled to have what they want or for things go their way. Sample items include the following: “Things should go my way,” “I feel entitled to more of everything,” and “I demand the best because I’m worth it” (reverse-scored). Items are rated on a 7-point scale of agreement.

Identification With All Humanity

As designed, the Identification With all Humanity (IWAH) scale (McFarland et al., 2012) consists of nine items that ask how much respondents identify with, feel empathy for, wish to help, and otherwise feel connected to people in their community, Americans, and all human beings on 5-point scales. Because the full IWAH scale requires of 27 ratings, we asked participants to answer the nine items only for “all humans everywhere.”

Vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism

Participants answered 16 questions that reflected vertical individualism, vertical collectivism, horizontal individualism, and horizontal collectivism (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). Responses were rated on a 9-point scale with three scale labels (1 = never or definitely no, 5 = equally yes or no, 9 = always or definitely yes).

Brief Social Desirability Scale

The Brief Social Desirability Scale (Reynolds, 1982) consists of 13 items from Marlowe and Crowne’s 33-item scale. Participants indicated whether each of the 13 statements (e.g., “No matter who I’m talking to, I’m always a good listener”) was true or false.²

Results

Mean ratings of how difficult participants found it to think of five positive characteristics or accomplishments fell between “slightly” and “moderately” on a 5-point scale (M = 2.34, SD = 1.06), and ratings of how difficult it was to choose only five characteristics or accomplishments was between “not at all” and “slightly” (M = 1.53, SD = 0.86). On average, participants indicated that they would have listed 8.38 things (SD = 6.32) if we had asked them to list all of their major positive characteristics or accomplishments. Although no measure of humility correlated with the difficulty in thinking of five items, ratings of the difficulty of choosing only five items correlated negatively with BHS (r = −.32) and HH-modesty (r = −.26), but no other subscales from the HH scale or DDHS.

Table 3 presents means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for all multi-item measures. All measures demonstrated adequate internal consistency. Because of the large number of correlations tested, alpha was set at .01 (df = 204 for all tests).

Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics (Study 2).

Measure	M	SD	Cronbach’s α
Rating of accomplishment/characteristic	6.64	2.00	.80
Egoic entitlement	3.10	2.35	.91
Brief Humility Scale	5.51	1.12	.82
Honesty-Humility: Sincerity	3.48	0.91	.72
Honesty-Humility: Fairness	3.68	1.04	.82
Honesty-Humility: Greed Avoidance	3.24	1.07	.86
Honesty-Humility: Modesty	3.91	0.82	.74
Honesty-Humility: Total score	3.58	0.69	.85
Dual-Dimension Humility: Religious	3.94	2.11	.96
Dual-Dimension Humility: Cosmic	5.37	1.38	.90
Dual-Dimension Humility: Environmental	5.68	1.09	.85
Dual-Dimension Humility: Other Focused	4.73	1.40	.93
Dual-Dimension Humility: Valuing Humility	5.89	1.00	.89
Self-esteem	3.84	0.84	.92
Narcissism	2.09	0.79	.90
Entitlement	3.07	1.30	.91
Self-comparative relations	3.91	1.29	.68
Prosocial relations	5.06	1.15	.71
Self-prioritizing relations	4.41	1.38	.79
Self-maximizing relations	3.43	1.26	.69
Vertical individualism	4.53	1.68	.78
Vertical collectivism	6.26	1.68	.79
Horizontal individualism	6.74	1.33	.72
Horizontal collectivism	6.36	1.58	.79
Social desirability	1.49	0.23	.73

Correlations with humility

Scores on the social desirability scale were not correlated with the BHS (r = .07, p = .297) or HH-modesty (r = .15, p = .032). For the DDHS subscales, the correlations with social desirability scores were small, but sometimes statistically significant: religious (r = .16, p = .025), cosmic (r = −.04, p = .584), environmental (r = .12, p = .009), other-focus (r = .19, p = .007), and valuing humility (r = .16, p = .019). The measure of egoic entitlement was not correlated with social desirability scores (r = −.11, p = .14).

Table 4 shows the correlations between participants’ ratings of their accomplishments and characteristics and the measures of humility. The BHS and HH-modesty subscale correlated .74, indicating good convergent validity. However, the DDHS total score correlated only .27 with the BHS and .22 with the HH-modesty subscale, suggesting that it measures something other than the two humility measures. Four of the subscales of the DDHS also correlated only weakly with the other measures of humility (.02 < rs < .26); the valuing humility subscale correlated .36 with the BHS and .31 with the HH-modesty subscale. Assuming that the BHS and HH-modesty are reasonably valid measures of humility, these findings raise questions about the construct validity of the DDHS as a measure of humility.

Table 4.

Correlations Between Egoic Entitlement and Measures of Humility (Study 2).

	Egoic entitlement	Comparative rating	BHS	HH: Total	HH: Sincerity	HH: Fairness	HH: Greed Avoidance	HH: Modesty	DDHS: Total	DDHS: Religious	DDHS: Cosmic	DDHS: Environmental	DDHS: Other-Focus
Egoic entitlement	1
Accomplishment rating	.35	1
Accomplishment rating	<.001
BHS	−.55	−.18	1
BHS	<.001	.004
HH: Total	−.41	−.10	.56	1
HH: Total	<.001	.074	<.001
HH: Sincerity	−.19	.01	.27	.68	1
HH: Sincerity	.003	.435	<.001	<.001
HH: Fairness	−.20	−.06	.33	.70	.35	1
HH: Fairness	.002	.198	<.001	<.001	<.001
HH: Greed Avoidance	−.28	−.06	.32	.73	.27	.27	1
HH: Greed Avoidance	<.001	.179	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001
HH: Modesty	−.52	−.19	.74	.76	.40	.35	.51	1
HH: Modesty	<.001	.003	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001
DDHS: Total	.10	.15	.27	.22	.14	.28	.04	.19	1
DDHS: Total	.077	.017	<.001	.001	.022	<.001	.281	.003
DDHS: Religious	.20	.21	.00	.05	−.06	.18	−.01	.01	.70	1
DDHS: Religious	.002	.001	.499	.241	.199	.004	.440	.447	<.001
DDHS: Cosmic	.02	.10	.23	.13	.08	.13	.04	.14	.69	.23	1
DDHS: Cosmic	.385	.079	.001	.030	.135	.036	.274	.022	<.001	<.001
DDHS: Environmental	−.04	.024	.26	.24	.29	.15	.07	.18	.59	.06	.50	1
DDHS: Environmental	.308	.368	<.001	<.001	<.001	.014	.144	.006	<.001	.212	<.001
DDHS: Other-Focus	.08	.07	.25	.21	.17	.26	.04	.15	.75	.39	.36	.38	1
DDHS: Other-Focus	.119	.146	<.001	.001	.008	<.001	.273	.018	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001
DDHS: Valuing Humility	−.05	.01	.36	.23	.13	.24	.02	.31	.68	.30	.39	.38	.48
DDHS: Valuing Humility	.232	.459	<.001	<.001	.028	<.001	.396	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001

Note. BHS = Brief Humility Scale; HH = Honesty-Humility Scale; DDHS = Dual-Dimension Humility Scale.

Not surprisingly, participants’ ratings of how they would rate their characteristics or accomplishments in comparison with those of other people correlated with how much better they thought they should be treated because of those characteristics (r = .35, p < .001). People who view their accomplishments or characteristics as superior may naturally assume that they are worthy of special treatment or consideration.

Participants’ ratings of their accomplishments and characteristics correlated only weakly with the BHS (r = −.18, p < .01) and HH-modesty (r = −.19, p < .01). However, egoic entitlement correlated highly with both the BHS (r = −.55) and the HH-modesty subscale (r = −.52), ps < .001, though not with the DDHS score (r = .10, p = .077). Indeed, the religious humility subscale was the only subscale of the DDHS that correlated with egoic entitlement, but the correlation was unexpectedly positive (r = .20, p < .001). The other four DDHS subscales were not associated with egoic entitlement (–.05 < rs < .08).

When participants’ ratings of both their accomplishments and characteristics and of egoic entitlement were entered into a simultaneous multiple regression analysis, egoic entitlement ratings predicted scores on the BHS, B = −0.26, 95% CI = [–0.31, –0.20], t(202) = 8.76, p < .001, sr = −.52, while ratings of their characteristics and accomplishments did not, B = 0.00, 95% CI = [–0.07, 0.07], t(202) = 0.12, p = .96, sr = .00. Likewise, ratings of egoic entitlement predicted scores on the HH-modesty subscale, B = −0.18, 95% CI = [–0.22, –0.13], t(202) = 8.07, p < .001, sr = −.48, while ratings of the characteristics and accomplishments did not predict HH-modesty, B = −0.01, 95% CI = [–0.06, 0.04], t(202) = −0.39, p = .70, sr = .02. (One outlier was deleted from these analyses, but the results remained unchanged.) As in Study 1, humility was more strongly associated with how participants believed they should be treated rather than by how positively they evaluated their accomplishments and characteristics.

Correlations with associated constructs

Table 5 shows the correlations between egoic entitlement, participants’ ratings of their accomplishments and characteristics, the humility scales, and the measures of other constructs.

Table 5.

Correlations Between Egoic Entitlement, Humility, and Other Variables (Study 2).

	Self-esteem	Narcissism	Entitlement	Self-comparative relations	Prosocial relations	Self-prioritizing relations	Self-maximizing relations	Identification with humanity	Vertical individualism	Vertical collectivism	Horizontal individualism	Horizontal collectivism
Egoic entitlement	.03	.52	.51	.44	−.03	.19	.36	.10	.46	.16	−.04	.10
Egoic entitlement	.663	<.001	<.001	<.001	.719	.007	<.001	.170	<.001	.026	.583	.169
Accomplishment rating	.27	.27	.22	.17	.06	.03	.16	.00	.21	.17	.13	.13
Accomplishment rating	<.001	<.001	.002	.017	.365	.666	.027	.975	.002	.017	.060	.069
BHS	−.07	−.64	−.67	−.42	.29	−.28	−.61	.10	−.40	.08	−.08	.14
BHS	.332	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	.151	<.001	.240	.261	.052
HH: Total	.17	−.59	−.48	−.53	.25	−.21	−.46	.20	−.54	.09	.02	.16
HH: Total	.013	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	.002	<.001	.004	<.001	.211	.790	.019
HH: Sincerity	.07	−.32	−.20	−.40	.23	−.09	−.30	.26	−.40	.00	.20	.10
HH: Sincerity	.300	<.001	.004	<.001	.001	.184	<.001	<.001	<.001	.949	.004	.149
HH: Fairness	.32	−.29	−.20	−.17	.20	−.14	−.34	.23	−.26	.25	−.07	.31
HH: Fairness	<.001	<.001	.003	.014	.004	.042	<.001	.001	<.001	<.001	.317	<.001
HH: Greed Avoidance	.06	−.47	−.40	−.49	.05	−.18	−.24	.01	−.42	−.04	−.03	−.06
HH: Greed Avoidance	.376	<.001	<.001	<.001	.472	.008	<.001	.887	<.001	.614	.624	.419
HH: Modesty	.01	−.65	−.63	−.47	.26	−.19	−.47	.08	−.47	.02	−.03	.12
HH: Modesty	.838	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	.006	<.001	.233	<.001	.758	.711	.088
DDHS: Total	.14	−.07	−.01	.14	.57	−.13	−.29	.52	.01	.60	−.10	.59
DDHS: Total	.047	.308	.942	.042	<.001	.074	<.001	<.001	.866	.000	.137	<.001
DDHS: Religious	.19	.11	.18	.20	.24	−.11	−.01	.27	.14	.53	−.22	.45
DDHS: Religious	.007	.124	.009	.005	.001	.107	.896	<.001	.041	<.001	.001	<.001
DDHS: Cosmic	−.08	−.07	−.06	.10	.31	.02	−.16	.29	.01	.20	.04	.20
DDHS: Cosmic	.239	.301	.358	.144	<.001	.741	.020	<.001	.922	.004	.583	.003
DDHS: Environmental	.04	−.16	−.07	−.08	.41	.02	−.27	.49	−.14	.23	.12	.27
DDHS: Environmental	.622	.020	.348	.250	<.001	.761	<.001	<.001	.043	.001	.100	<.001
DDHS: Other-Focus	.14	−.05	.00	.08	.63	−.26	−.39	.45	−.07	.55	−.16	.59
DDHS: Other-Focus	.047	.483	.957	.246	<.001	<.001	<.001	<.001	.300	<.001	.020	<.001
DDHS: Valuing Humility	.15	−.22	−.24	.10	.48	−.05	−.30	.33	.00	.46	.01	.44
DDHS: Valuing Humility	.030	.001	<.001	.162	<.001	.485	<.001	<.001	.978	<.001	.851	<.001

Note. BHS = Brief Humility Scale; HH = Honesty-Humility Scale; DDHS = Dual-Dimension Humility Scale.

Self-esteem, narcissism, and entitlement

Neither egoic entitlement, the BHS, nor HH-modesty correlated significantly with self-esteem (ps > .33). However, self-esteem did correlate with ratings of the accomplishment or characteristic (r = .27, p < .001), the fairness subscale of the Honesty-Humility Scale (r = .32, p < .001), and the religious humility subscale of the DDHS (r = .19, p = .007).

In contrast, narcissism correlated with egoic entitlement (r = .52, p < .001), ratings of the accomplishments/characteristics (r = .27, p < .001), the BHS (r = −.64, p < .001), all subscales of the Honesty-Humility Scale (especially HH-modesty: r = −.65, p < .001), and the DDHS valuing humility subscale (r = −.22, p = .001).

Psychological entitlement also correlated with egoic entitlement (r = .51, p < .001), ratings of the accomplishment or characteristic (r = .22, p = .002), BHS scores (r = −.67, p < .001), all four subscales of the Honesty-Humility Scale (–.20 < rs < –.63), the DDHS religious humility subscale (r =.18, p = .009), and the DDHS valuing humility subscale (r = −.24, p < .001).

Self- and Other-Interest

Of the four subscales from the Self- and Other-Interest Scale, hypo-egoic entitlement, the BHS, and HH-modesty correlated most strongly with self-comparative relations (e.g., making sure that one is getting more and better outcomes than other people) and self-maximizing (e.g., looking out for one’s own outcomes and not concerning oneself with other people). Egoic entitlement, the BHS, and HH-modesty were also related significantly—but less strongly—to self-prioritizing (e.g., helping others so long as one is doing okay first).

Egoic entitlement was not related to prosocial relations (“It is the total amount of benefit that everyone receives that matters most”), but BHS, HH-modesty, and all DDHS subscales were significantly related to prosocial relations.

IWAH

Scores on the IWAH scale showed an unusual pattern of relationships with other measures. The IWAH scale did not correlate with egoic entitlement, BHS, or HH-modesty (all rs < .11), but it did correlate significantly with the sincerity and fairness subscales of the Honesty-Humility Scale (rs = .26 and .23 for sincerity and fairness, respectively) and with all subscales of the DDHS (.27 < rs < .49, ps < .001).

Vertical/horizontal individualism/collectivism

As expected, participants who were less humble appeared to be more invested in their own interests and preferred social stratification more than humble participants did. Vertical individualism, in which people view the social world in a hierarchical manner and focus on themselves as individuals, correlated with the degree to which participants thought they should be treated special (r = .46, p < .001), the BHS (r = −40), and HH-modesty (r = −.47), ps < .001, but not with any of the subscales of the DDHS. None of the other three worldviews (vertical collectivism, horizontal individualism, or horizontal collectivism) correlated with egoic entitlement, BHS, or HH-modesty. However, both vertical collectivism and horizontal collectivism correlated significantly with all five subscales of the DDHS, demonstrating a strong link with collectivism.

Factor analysis

A principal axis factor analysis of all measures and subscales (except for social desirability) was conducted to examine how hypo-egoic nonentitlement related to the set of conceptually related variables. Based on a scree plot of the eigenvalues, six factors were retained. (Eigenvalues for the first six factors were 6.11, 4.36, 1.67, 1.55, 1.30, and 1.03, and the next largest was .90.) The factor matrix was rotated to an oblique (direct oblimin) solution. As seen in Table 6, Factor 1 had high positive loadings for the BHS, HH-modesty subscale, and DDHS valuing humility subscale and high negative loadings for the egoic entitlement measure, narcissism, psychological entitlement, and self-maximizing relations. This factor, which is defined most strongly by the primary humility measures, clearly reflects the degree to which people believe they should be treated special and are motivated to maximize their outcomes relative to those of other people. Other than the valuing humility subscale, the factor loadings for the other four subscales of the DDHS were negligible (<.12).

Table 6.

Factor Pattern Matrix (Study 2).

	Factor
	1	2	3	4	5	6
Egoic entitlement	–.63	.10	−.05	−.08	−.05	.24
Accomplishment/characteristic rating	−.29	.01	.09	.06	.15	.31
Brief Humility Scale	.83	.13	−.05	−.03	−.04	.03
Honesty-Humility: Sincerity	.11	.32	.23	.41	.24	−.06
Honesty-Humility: Fairness	.28	.07	.00	.10	.43	.08
Honesty-Humility: Greed Avoidance	.33	−.11	−.04	.47	.07	.24
Honesty-Humility: Modesty	.79	.00	.07	.14	.12	.10
Dual-Dimension Humility: Religious	−.07	.04	−.31	−.11	.18	.54
Dual-Dimension Humility: Cosmic	.11	.51	.12	−.02	−.30	.35
Dual-Dimension Humility: Environmental	.02	.77	.24	.12	−.13	.07
Dual-Dimension Humility: Other-Focus	.02	.56	−.27	−.12	.13	.18
Dual-Dimension Humility: Valuing Humility	.43	.38	.08	−.35	.12	.19
Self-esteem	−.09	−.05	.08	.04	.63	.05
Narcissism	–.73	.05	.03	−.19	.01	−.01
Entitlement	–.76	.06	.13	−.07	.12	.05
Self-comparative relations	−.22	.01	.15	–.71	.02	.06
Prosocial relations	.11	.62	−.10	−.15	.18	−.05
Self-prioritizing relations	−.08	−.09	.51	−.26	.04	.00
Self-maximizing relations	−.38	−.39	.31	−.12	−.07	.20
Identification with humanity	−.21	.71	−.18	.08	.13	−.06
Vertical individualism	−.19	−.17	.15	–.58	−.14	.22
Vertical collectivism	.08	.18	−.18	−.36	.32	.35
Horizontal individualism	.01	.05	.61	.03	.04	−.04
Horizontal collectivism	.03	.40	−.26	−.29	.43	.08

Note. Factor loadings > .40 are bolded.

Factor 2 was defined by cosmic humility, environmental humility, other-focus, prosocial relations, identification with humanity, and horizontal collectivism. This factor seems to reflect the degree to which people are oriented toward the “big picture”—their place in the universe, their relationship to the environment, and their connections with other people and nature. This factor correlated only .25 with Factor 1, indicating that the relationship between humility and focusing on other people, while positive, is not strong.

Factor 3 showed high loadings for self-prioritizing relations and horizontal individualism, both of which reflect an approach to life in which people attend to the needs of other people while also emphasizing their own interests. This factor correlated with the humility factor (Factor 1) only –.17.

Neither Factor 4 nor 5 had much to do with humility. Factor 4 seemed to reflect the degree to which people are motivated to pursue their own interests even when they selfishly disadvantage others. Factor 5—with high loadings for fairness, self-esteem, and horizontal collectivism—is more difficult to interpret, but it might involve an egalitarian approach to relationships that is associated with social acceptance and, thus, self-esteem.

The religious humility subscale of the DDHS loaded by itself on Factor 6. Given that high scores on the items of this subscale require believing in God and the subscale does not correlate notably with the other factors, including Factor 1, the religious humility subscale may reflect having a certain perception of God and have little to do with general humility.

Humility and types of characteristics/accomplishments

Although not one of our research goals, we wondered whether humble participants identified different kinds of accomplishments and characteristics than less humble participants did. To answer this question, we classified the accomplishments and characteristics that participants identified into one of the 12 categories described earlier. To examine inter-rater reliability, two coders independently classified 20% of the responses, revealing 91.7% agreement.

We then determined whether each participant reported each of the 12 categories at least once among their five responses. The percent of participants who used each of the categories at least once were as follows: personality characteristic (62.9% of participants); academic ability or accomplishment (52.2%); career-related ability or accomplishment (44.9%); artistic ability or accomplishment (34.6%); financial status or accomplishment (32.7%); specialized knowledge, expertise, or wisdom (30.2%); social characteristic, connection, or relationship (29.8%); other skill, ability, or other characteristic (that did not fit into another category, 27.8%); physical characteristic or trait, including appearance (25.4%), athletic ability, or accomplishment (24.9%); cultural or travel-related experience or accomplishment (22.0%); and award or recognition (10.2%).

A total of 12 binary logistic regression analyses were conducted—one for each category—using scores on the BHS and the HH-modesty subscale as predictors and whether the category was used as the outcome (0 = category not reported, 1 = category reported). Using an alpha-level of .05 for these exploratory analyses revealed a significant effect only for “athletic ability or accomplishment,” χ²(2) = 8.63, p =.013, Nagelkerke’s R² = .061. Participants who scored higher in humility were less likely than those who scored lower to report an athletic ability or accomplishment as one of their five positive characteristics or accomplishments. With both BHS and HH-modesty in the equation, only BHS was a significant predictor, B = −0.649, SE_B = 0.231, Wald(1) = 7.860, p = .005, Exp(B) = 0.523, 95% CI = [0.332, 0.823].

Discussion

People’s beliefs about the degree to which their accomplishments and positive characteristics should lead other people to treat them special were strongly and consistently related to humility as well as to variables with which humility correlates. These other variables—including subscales of the Self- and Other-Interest Inventory (Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013), identification with humanity (McFarland et al., 2012), and vertical/horizontal individualism/collectivism (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998)—show that people who are less humble tend to prioritize their personal interests over those of other people more than humble people do, reflecting greater egoicism and entitlement. People who believe they deserve preferential or special consideration appear more likely to place their needs ahead of those of others.

Although the subscales from the DDHS did not systematically correlate with either egoic entitlement or the other measures of humility, all of the DDHS subscales did correlate with prosocial relations and identification with humanity (McFarland et al., 2012). Although one may question whether the DDHS measures humility per se, its focus on religious, existential, environmental, and other benefiting tendencies clearly taps into an orientation to look beyond oneself.

The factor analysis showed that egoic entitlement loaded on a factor that included humility and associated constructs, including entitlement, narcissism, and self-maximizing relations, all of which can be viewed as a preoccupation with maximizing one’s outcomes. However, egoic entitlement and humility loaded onto a different factor than self-esteem and participants’ ratings of their accomplishments and characteristics, showing again that humility was related more closely to beliefs about how one should be treated than to self-evaluations.

Finally, with the exception of athletic characteristics and accomplishments, humility was not related to the kinds of personal attributes that our participants reported. Why people who claim athletic characteristics and accomplishments are generally less humble is not clear.

General Discussion

Both studies supported the hypothesized negative relationship between hypo-egoic nonentitlement and humility. People who are less inclined to believe that their accomplishments or characteristics entitle them to special treatment tend to score higher in humility. In contrast, humility was not related to participants’ evaluations of their accomplishments/characteristics or themselves. Furthermore, although hypo-egoic nonentitlement and humility were related to indices of connections with and concerns about other people, the patterns of correlations and factor analysis suggest that, although a prosocial orientation may accompany humility, it does not appear to be a central component of it.

In addition to supporting the hypothesis that hypo-egoic nonentitlement is a feature of humility, these results provide a framework for understanding the characteristics on which people who are low and high in humility differ more generally. The descriptions of humility that appear in the literature—such as having a more accurate self-view, being less focused on oneself, modestly not touting one accomplishments, and treating other people better—may characterize humble people either because they contribute to people’s belief that they are not entitled to special treatment or are cognitive or behavioral consequences of that belief.

For example, people who view themselves reasonably accurately, with minimum self-enhancement, may be less inclined to think that they should be treated special as a person than people with inaccurate, inflated self-views because people who evaluate themselves more highly are, on average, more likely to see grounds for being treated special. Even so, people who have an inaccurate, overly positive self-view—as most people do (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2004)—would nonetheless be high in humility if they do not expect others to treat them special as a person.

These findings may also have implications for how humility could be measured. The correlations among the measures of humility in Study 2 show that measures that purport to assess humility do not all measure the same construct. Although the BHS (Kruse et al., 2017) and the HH-modesty subscale (Lee & Ashton, 2018) correlated highly enough to suggest that they assess a common latent variable, the subscales of the DDHS (Wright et al., 2018) correlated weakly, if at all, with these measures, and the total DDHS score correlated only .27 with the BHS and .19 with HH-modesty. Furthermore, with the exception of the valuing humility subscale, the DDHS subscales loaded on different factors than the other measures of humility.

Of course, one might argue that the DDHS is the superior measure of humility and that the BHS and HH-modesty subscale assess something else entirely. Yet, these correlations aside, most of the items on the DDHS do not appear to assess humility per se. Given that not all measures that were designed to measure humility assess the same construct, researchers should be careful to determine whether a particular measure meets their needs.

Although this research was not intended to develop a new measure, the general approach used here to assess hypo-egoic nonentitlement—asking participants whether other people should treat them better because of their positive characteristics and accomplishments—may offer an alternative approach to measuring humility. Many researchers have questioned whether humility can be accurately assessed through self-report because people who are humble might be disinclined to rate themselves high in humility (McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2018; Tangney, 2000; Wright et al., 2018), and, as Davis et al. (2010) observed, “self-reports of high levels of humility may ironically indicate a lack of humility” (p. 246). Yet, respondents might easily and honestly report on the degree to which they think other people should treat them special by virtue of their accomplishments and positive characteristics. The measure of egoic entitlement used in Study 2 showed high reliability (indicating that participants rated the five items similarly) and correlated highly with both the BHS and the HH-modesty subscale. It also showed similar patterns of correlations with other variables as the BHS and HH-modesty subscale.

Two issues should be acknowledged in interpreting these results. First, a couple of items on both the BHS and the HH-modesty subscale could be interpreted as reflecting hypo-egoic nonentitlement. For example, one item on the BHS states “I feel that I do not deserve more respect than other people” and an HH-modesty item says “I wouldn’t want people to treat me as though I were superior to them.” Although such items are in the minority on both scales, they raise the possibility that our measure of hypo-egoic nonentitlement predicted humility because items on the BHS and HH-modesty subscale measure nonentitlement.

However, we do not see this as problem. If, as we hypothesize, humility is essentially hypo-egoic nonentitlement, then we should not be surprised that overtones of egoic nonentitlement appear on self-report measures of humility; indeed, it would strange if they did not. Furthermore, the BHS and HH-modesty subscale were developed independently by investigators who clearly regarded a low level of entitlement as one feature of the construct they were attempting to measure and, thus, included relevant items in their scales, alongside items assessing other features (Kruse et al., 2017; Lee & Ashton, 2018). Given that these two measures were developed and validated based on other conceptualizations of humility renders them particularly useful for our purposes.

The second issue is the fact that egoic entitlement correlated less strongly with the BHS and HH-modesty subscale than these humility measures did with each other, which might suggest that it should not be used to assess humility. In considering this question, researchers should keep three things in mind. First, the BHS and HH-modesty subscale share more method variance with each other than they do with the egoic entitlement items. Whereas the egoic entitlement items asked respondents to indicate how they think others should treat them, the two humility scales asked participants to rate self-relevant statements that are relevant to humility. Furthermore, some of the items on the two humility scales are quite similar, possibly creating a spurious correlation between them (e.g., BHS: “I feel that I deserve more respect than everyone else”; HH-modesty: “I think that I am entitled to more respect than the average person is”). In addition, the BHS and HH-modesty measures include items that refer both to self-evaluations and to beliefs about being entitled to special treatment, whereas the egoic entitlement measure assessed only expectations about how one should be treated. As noted, humility was more strongly related to hypo-egoic nonentitlement than to self-evaluations.

Having multiple measures of a construct is beneficial because it ensures that research findings are not specific to a particular measure. Even so, an essential next step is to compare existing measures of humility psychometrically to determine which of the measures that exist (Hill et al., 2017; McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2018) are adequately reliable and valid for continued use.

Possible limitations of both studies should be considered. First, participants were recruited from Mechanical Turk, which raises questions about whether MTurk participants might differ from other samples in ways that are relevant to the nature of humility. Only replications using other samples can answer this question.

Although trait humility and state humility are obviously correlated (Kruse et al., 2017), the present findings regarding trait humility should not be blindly applied to the understanding of state humility (Chancellor & Lyubomirsky, 2013). Our view is that a useful psychological conceptualization of humility should apply to both trait-level and state-level analyses of humility. However, many existing conceptualizations do not apply easily to state humility because they involve global self-views, behaviors, and reactions that span across many situations and domains. In our view, hypo-egoic nonentitlement should relate to both state- and trait-level analyses of humility: state humility is characterized by the belief that one is not entitled to be treated special as a person in a particular context, whereas trait humility is characterized by the general tendency to believe that one is not entitled to be treated special as a person overall. However, research on this question is needed.

In conclusion, these studies provided support for the hypothesis that humility involves hypo-egoic nonentitlement. Although we believe that hypo-egoic nonentitlement may be a central feature of humility—perhaps its defining characteristic—tests of this broader speculation await future research.

Supplemental Material

Leary_OnlineAppendix – Supplemental material for Hypo-Egoic Nonentitlement as a Feature of Humility

Supplemental material, Leary_OnlineAppendix for Hypo-Egoic Nonentitlement as a Feature of Humility by Chloe C. Banker and Mark R. Leary in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Mark R. Leary

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available online with this article.

Notes

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