‘Too humble and sad’: The effect of humility and emotional display when a politician talks about a moral issue

Abstract

French

Humble leadership can be defined as a positive psychological feature that allows for admitting one’s own limitations, being open to new ideas and giving a voice to, and recognizing the merits of, others. Humility has been associated with positive emotions, like gratitude and elevation, however it has been neglected in the political domain, seen on the contrary as the management of power. The present experimental study was aimed at exploring the possible persuasive effect of a humble politician by considering the role played by emotional display (joy, calm, sadness and anger) when the politician discusses an ethical issue (such as hosting immigration). Contrary to our expectations, humble communication elicited negative emotions and evaluations of the politician, especially when the politician exhibited a sad facial display; further, it induced in voters a state of personal distress towards immigrants, and thus a negative association with a hosting orientation.

Keywords

emotions humility political humility prosocial orientation

Introduction: Defining humility

The concept of humility, so widely promoted in religious literature, has rarely been approached and coherently described in scientific research on political persuasion, which favours the opposite notion of ‘dominance’, for instance, as a common expression of one’s power (Poggi & D’Errico, 2010a; 2010b). Accordingly, humility is read in general as a lack of dominance, as a submissive and therefore negative feature (Weidman et al., 2018). Regarding political persuasion, a politician who has the goal of convincing an audience to vote for him/her should demonstrate competence, trustworthiness and the ability or power to deliver on those promises. Recently, this latter feature has been represented in multimodal political communication, where a politician striving to be persuasive and get elected should exhibit that he/she has more power than an opponent by interrupting and discrediting the opponent and raising his/her voice during conversation (D’Errico, Poggi & Vincze, 2012; Poggi & D’Errico, 2010a).

These considerations led scholars of political persuasion to overlook the notion of humility, which can be defined as a stance, seen as a multimodal public act performed interactively through verbal and non-verbal forms of communication, by which one positions oneself with respect to the object of the communicative interaction (the epistemic side; Biber & Finegan, 1989; Vincze et al., 2012) and/or expresses his/her relationship to the interlocutor through affective communication (the interpersonal side; Goodwin et al., 2012).

Recently, this sociolinguistic notion has been applied in educational contexts, where the pedagogical stance corresponds to a communicative interaction where a teacher employs words and physical cues, direct or indirectly, to convey his/her evaluation of a pupil (D’Errico, Leone & Poggi, 2012; Poggi, D’Errico & Vincze, 2011). More generally, humility has been defined as a positive feature that can be associated with intrapersonal benefits, as in the cases of gratitude promotion (Kruse et al., 2014) and self-control (Tong et al., 2016), and interpersonal benefits, as in the cases of fostering forgiveness (Davis et al., 2013), promoting prosocial behaviour (Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff et al., 2012) and buffering against stress (Krause et al., 2016). Humility is generally also considered to be a tendency to express ‘positive other-oriented emotions’ (e.g. empathy, compassion, sympathy and love) or an ability to regulate self-oriented emotions in socially acceptable ways (e.g. pride or excitement about one’s accomplishments) (Davis et al., 2013).

The nature of humility, however, can be understood from two different perspectives. First, in contrast to dominance, there is ‘self-abasing humility’, which is likely to follow personal failures (similar to modesty); it is associated with feelings of submissiveness, unimportance and worthlessness, and traits like low self-esteem and introversion, and it motivates a behavioural orientation towards hiding from others (Weidman et al., 2018: 4). The second perspective is ‘appreciative humility’, which is based on the most representative feelings and thoughts of humility; this typically follows personal success and is associated with compassion, grace and understanding, and traits like high self-esteem, status and agreeableness, and it motivates a behavioural orientation towards celebrating others (Weidman et al., 2018). This second type of humility closely resembles the psychological notion of humility as a state/disposition to ‘forget the self’ (Tangney, 2000, 2009), whereas the common sense understanding of humility refers to the highest level of self-awareness, where the humble person is acutely aware of his/her strengths and limitations.

In this sense, several studies in the field of organisational psychology, primarily taking into account appreciative humility, have identified an association between humble leadership and a leader who (1) acknowledges personal faults, mistakes and limits; (2) is open to new and even contradictory ideas; and (3) has the tendency to give a voice and merits to ‘employees’ (Liu, 2016). In the same vein, more recent studies in work contexts have demonstrated that a humble leader can promote a positive collective orientation including aspects like collective humility and ‘psychological capital’ (PsyCap), which includes self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism (Rego et al., 2017), and some functional organisational behaviours, like voice behaviours, which include proactive and constructive suggestions (Liu, 2016). In that context, there is a positive evaluation of the leader, and a decrease in turnover intention, such as dismissal (Li, Liang & Zhang, 2016).

Humble leadership and emotions

In the persuasion process, politicians’ emotional displays have been studied in terms of multimodal communication and in terms of their emotional and behavioural effects. In a recent study, it was observed that the expression of emotions of political leaders (Bucy & Bradley, 2004; Salmela & Von Scheve, 2017) differ in relation to their ‘political status’ (D’Errico & Poggi, submitted) because when they manage to display power, they exhibit positive and proactive emotions, like pride and enthusiasm; on the contrary, when they try to pass from opposition to government, they tend to increasingly make appeals to threats and display negative emotions with a prevalence of anger and disgust. Emerging political leaders tend to be worried and serious when they discuss problems while simultaneously trying to regulate their emotions to project an image of high competence and emotional balance and control (Bass & Avolio, 1990; D’Errico & Poggi, submitted).

The relationship between humility and emotions in politicians was recently observed (D’Errico & Poggi, 2019), and the conclusion was that a ‘humble’ politician generally has a high level of attention (directed at the other person) and a medium level of engagement (index of body activation), but he/she frequently expresses negative emotions, like sadness or anger (as detected from Action Units such as AU7 in Ekman et al., 2002) when expressing seriousness and worry about the topic at hand (D’Errico & Poggi, 2019). Politicians express these negative emotions to stress the importance of the issues about which they are talking to their social group or to humankind in general. On the contrary, they infrequently express positive emotions, such as joy and surprise, but they sometimes express slight embarrassment (e.g. eyes slightly averted form the interlocutor) when they are praised during an interaction, modesty (coyness AU6, 7, 12, 25, 26, slight smile, head slightly turned down in Keltner & Cordaro, 2015) and also a state of being touched or moved, as in the case of Obama, who has shown a tendency to express emotions as if he were with his family or in an intimate moment, fashioning himself as a politician in all his humanness.

As for the effect of political emotions, in the persuasion process, several studies in the fields of organisational psychology and political psychology have revealed that they can have a crucial role in inspiring and promoting motivation in others (Mininni, 2004), but they can also have counterproductive consequences (Bass & Avolio, 1990). In particular, Damen et al. (2008) found that a leader’s display of positive moods was positively related to followers’ ratings of his/her charisma; however, this can also affect group performance when the leader delivers feedback to work group members that expresses failure (Gaddis et al., 2004). In particular, the leader’s negative emotions were perceived less favourably when groups were focused on promotion goals, whereas the leader’s negative emotions were perceived more favourably in groups with prevention goals. As acknowledged by Gooty et al. (2010) as well, negative emotions seem to play a crucial role when one faces challenging situations. In the political domain, Brader (2005) demonstrated in two experiments during elections that expressing enthusiasm motivates participation, while fear stimulates vigilance and increases reliance on concurrent evaluations. These results have been confirmed generally in several studies (Lewis, 2000), but Van Kleef and colleagues (2010) more specifically pointed out how the effectiveness of positive emotions can depend on individual and contextual factors, as in the case of moods or personal traits.

The relationship between humility and emotions has been explored by several scholars of positive psychology, who have pointed out that humility promotes positive and moral affectivity, empathy and gratitude (Weidman, Cheng & Tracy, 2018; Wright et al., 2017). In other applicative contexts, like in the organisational context (Liu, 2016), the positive emotions elicited in employees by a humble leader, together with trust in leadership, had an indirect effect on collaborative behaviours.

In political psychology, the emotional and evaluative side elicited by humble politicians can be read according to individual differences. An experimental study (D’Errico, forthcoming) has revealed that while self-esteem and moral sensitivity are the best predictors of positive emotions and positive evaluations of a humble politician, social dominance orientation is a good predictor of negative emotions and evaluations elicited by a humble politician. In relation to a high social dominance orientation, the humble politician is even seen as a hypocrite, thus showing that humility can be linked to the self-abasing evaluation of the politician and produce counterproductive effects. In the same vein, Sezer et al. (2018) in interpersonal contexts studied the ‘false humility’ effect, referred to as ‘humble bragging’. They observed across several studies that humble bragging, when used as a promotional and self-presentational strategy, can be seen as false and hypocritical, and since it is negatively evaluated, produce counterproductive behaviours.

The question, then, is when can a humble politician be perceived positively? Furthermore, when can he/she induce in the audience positive emotions and behavioural intentions, like prosocial ones? Can an emotional display be a possible factor that can synchronically contribute to the achievement of the group’s goals? From the social psychology literature, we can infer that positive emotions can promote prosocial behaviours (Hoffman, 2008), while hostile ones are associated with harmful behaviours (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Thus, it is plausible that a positive relationship exists between humility, positive emotions and prosocial intentions. Several scholars in the field of positive psychology have demonstrated this relationship (Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff et al., 2012; Weidman et al., 2018), but the psycho-political literature is lacking studies on the effects of politicians’ humility on potential citizens (Morris et al., 2005).

The present study was aimed at observing the persuasive effect of a humble politician displaying different emotions while talking about a moral issue (the hosting of immigrants), and exhibiting a prosocial nature, which relates to the moral domain of care (Graham et al., 2011). With the above research questions in mind, we will first outline two preliminary studies aimed at testing first of all 1) the humble message and potential effects and 2) the emotional display of a humble politician, and then describe an experimental study on humble versus non-humble messages in support of hosting immigrants, differentiating the humble variable by emotional displays of calmness, joy, sadness and anger.

Preliminary studies on political humility and on emotional displays

The main experimental study will be supported by two pilot studies on 1) the political ‘humility’ and its emotional and evaluative effects and on 2) the emotions elicited by the four different facial displays.

Pilot study on ‘political humility’

The first pilot study is based on a quasi-experimental study involving 44 participants – mainly Italian adults (mean age, M: 25.6; DS: 9.23), balanced for gender (56% women).

Participants were exposed to one experimental condition resulting from unique independent variables: a humble message (present or not present) on ‘health care reform’ inspired from the real discourse of Obama via a message on immigration.

The dependent variables are the following:

Evaluation of a politician: humble (manipulation check), charismatic, cold, incorrect, generous, dishonest, hypocrite, competent, intelligent, tolerant, strong, benevolent, convincing (question: ‘After the reading of the message, how much . . . do you evaluate the politician?)

Emotions towards the politician experienced during the message: attentive, upset, irritated, relieved, amused, embarrassed, anxious, stressed, bored, I felt contempt, I felt guilt, disgusted, admiration, embittered, annoyed, enthusiastic (question: ‘During the reading of the message, how much did you feel . . . towards the politician?)

We choose as politician Barack Obama, to avoid a bias associated with participants’ affiliation with a politician belonging to their national contexts, since they were all Italians. In the following, we report the ‘humble’ reformulation of a real speech given by Barack Obama the 9th September 2009, by marking linguistic markers (the linguistic act of thanking, sentences where the politician shares his emotions, mistakes and limits, uses the second person ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, the ‘discussing and democratic style’ (‘we must do something together’ instead of the ‘decisional style’).

Humble Message: ‘Dear fellow citizens, I thank you all for the warmth with which you welcomed me. I am very impressed and excited. My fellow citizens, with you I would like to address a delicate issue, the health care reform.

Today, we are the only wealthy nation that allows so much hardship to millions of people, there are more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get medical coverage and every day hundreds of citizens lose or are afraid of losing their coverage, because unfortunately they can lose their jobs, or because the costs are too high.

We must do something together to help people who have less chance of sustaining such a high economic cost, which instead represents a basic right and need, the one of health.

Until now we have not been able to face and solve this situation because we haven’t figured out yet the right way to do this without causing economic damage to our nation and to citizens with higher incomes. But now it is time to provide health care to people in need, and to sew a pact of solidarity between the social classes, the most wealthy and the most poor. I would like to listen to your opinion and propose you to discuss together, taking into account the potential risks of the change but also the difficulties of those who in a critical situation cannot sustain their right to health.

Results

The table below (Table 1) showed how the ‘humble’ message affected the evaluation of the politician. First of all, the politician was perceived significantly more ‘humble’ than in the control condition (absence of humble linguistic markers) [F(1.44) = 4.083; p < 0.05]. The ‘democratic’ style of the humble message elicited the benevolent dimension of the politician’s evaluation, perceived as more benevolent [F(1.44) = 13.27; p < 0.001], tolerant [F(1.44) = 3.95; p < 0.05] but less competent [F(1.44) = 4.083; p < 0.05] and even in a lesser extent hypocrite [F(1.44) = 4.18; p < 0.05].

Table 1.

Evaluation of the politician.

	Humble		Not humble
	M	DS	M	DS
Competent	3.41	1.46	4.24	0.83
Humble	3.82	0.81	3.24	0.75
Hypocrite	2.00	0.94	1.59	0.71
Tolerant	3.82	0.81	3.06	1.48
Beneficent	4.35	0.86	3.18	1.01

Differently from the literature on humility in organizational contexts, where humility leads to positive emotions, our results pointed out how the humble message elicited mainly negative ones, in particular guilt [F(1.44) = 4.18; p < 0.05], anxiety [F(1.44) = 4.29; p < 0.04] and annoyance [F(1.44) = 3.89; p < 0.05]. In the control condition (non humble message) enthusiasm [F(1.44) = 4.25; p < 0.05] and admiration [F(1.44) = 9.92; p < 0.05] are significantly higher (Table 2).

Table 2.

Emotions toward politician.

	Humble		Not humble
	M	DS	M	DS
Enthusiasm	2.71	1.36	3.41	0.94
Admiration	2.88	1.69	3.82	1.19
Guilt	1.88	1.11	1.35	0.61
Anxiety	2.00	1.27	1.29	0.59
Annoyance	2.06	1.39	1.47	0.94

Pilot study on ‘emotional facial displays’

A previous study (D’Errico & Poggi, 2019) identified former U.S. President Barack Obama as the most ‘humble’ politician. Therefore, he was chosen as the stimulus to test the role played by emotional facial expressions. We selected four of Obama’s emotional facial expressions, differentiated according to level of arousal (low versus high) and valence (positive versus negative), thus obtaining four photos showing calmness, joy, sadness and anger, respectively. We developed a between-subjects study based on an online survey with 50 participants (balanced for gender: 53% women and mean age of 24.5 years), who answered questions aimed at provoking the perceptions of specific emotions (calmness, joy, sadness and anger; Fig.1a-d) and at assessing the emotional effects in the participants.

Figure 1.

Barack Obama’s emotional facial displays (calmness, sadness, anger and joy).

Results

As shown in the table below (Table 3-4), ANOVA repeated measures showed that Barack Obama’s facial displays were significantly perceived coherently with the four emotions of calmness [F(3.50) = 112.05; p < 0.022], sadness [F(3.50) = 352.18; p < 0.001], anger [F(3.50) = 314.18; p < 0.001] and joy [F(3.50) = 388.12; p < 0.001]. These differences were also subjected to a significant confirmation post hoc Bonferroni test (p < 0.05). The four emotions provoked coherent emotions in the participants.

Table 3.

Perception of emotions.

	Emotional facial display
	Calmness		Joy		Sadness		Anger
	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS
Calmness	4.15	0.80	3.85	0.80	2.62	0.96	1.54	0.52
Joy	1.69	1.11	4.15	1.07	1.31	0.75	1.15	0.38
Sadness	2.23	1.01	1.54	1.05	4.15	1.14	1.62	0.65
Anger	1.69	1.11	1.00	0.00	2.08	1.26	3.08	1.04

Table 4.

Felt emotions.

	Emotional facial display
	Calmness		Joy		Sadness		Anger
	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS
Calmness	3.31	1.49	2.92	1.19	1.85	0.90	1.54	0.52
Joy	1.23	0.44	2.77	1.30	1.08	0.28	1.17	0.39
Sadness	2.08	1.19	1.54	1.13	3.23	1.24	1.92	1.08
Anger	1.92	1.26	1.31	1.11	2.17	1.27	2.17	1.27

The participants’ emotions were also coherent with Obama’s emotional displays, as determined by a repeated measures ANOVA testing whether his facial expressions in the case of calmness elicited mainly calm [F(3.50) = 149.34; p < 0.001; post hoc results significantly different from joy, anger and sadness, p < 0.05)], in the case of joy mainly joy and calmness [F(3.50) = 275.84; p < 0.001; post hoc results significantly different from anger and sadness, p < 0.05)], in the case of sadness mainly sadness [F(3.50) = 134.91; p < 0.001; post hoc results significantly different from anger, joy and calmness, p < 0.05)], in the case of anger mainly anger [F(3.50) = 115.10; p < 0.001; post hoc results significantly different mainly from sadness and calmness, p < 0.05)].

Experimental study

To study the persuasive effect of a humble politician who can display different emotions relating to a particular moral issue – namely, the hosting of immigrants – we designed an experimental study including humble versus non-humble messages in support of hosting immigrants, differentiating the humble variable according to emotional displays of calmness, joy, sadness and anger.

Hypotheses: since previous literature on humble politicians stated that humility is associated with prosocial behaviours (Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff et al., 2012) and positive affect (Liu, 2016; Weidman et al., 2018), we hypothesize that humble politician would elicit positive emotions and a positive evaluation, and therefore also a higher level of prosocial orientation towards immigrants.

We also expected positive emotions – in our case, joy and calm emotional displays – to foster positive emotions and a positive evaluation of the politician (Lewis, 2000; Van Kleef et al., 2009) and prosocial orientation towards hosting immigrants, since the politician by means of a positive emotional contagion can promote in his turn a prosocial orientation (Hoffmann, 2008).

Method: Participants and experimental design

To address these issues, we designed a quasi-experimental study involving 118 participants – mainly Italian adults (mean age, M: 33.8; DS: 15.53; min: 15, max: 74), balanced for gender (50% women) and the majority with a secondary school education (46%) or a university degree (40%). Their politicial orientation was mainly moderate, with 41% being centre-oriented, 25% democrats, 8% liberals and 17% populist movement (Five Star Movement).

The study was based on 2 × 4 bifactorial experimental between-subjects design with two independent variables: humble stance of the politician (present or not) and emotional display of the politician (calmness, joy, anger and sadness). The dependent variables were (1) emotions experienced during the politician’s message, (2) evaluation of the politician, (3) emotions felt towards immigrants and (4) prosocial orientation (how much is it right/necessary to host immigrants?).

Procedure

The methodology was a quasi-experiment, differentiated by two experimental conditions, performed by combining visual (pictures of a politician) and semantic stimuli and a reading of a politician’s message. Participants were exposed to one experimental condition resulting from the crossing of the two independent variables: (1) politician’s emotional display (calmness, joy, anger and sadness, tested in the preliminary study) and (2) humble communication (present or not present) via a message on immigration.

We choose as politician Barack Obama, to avoid a bias associated with participants’ affiliation with a politician belonging to their national contexts. In the following, we report the ‘humble’ reformulation of a real speech given by Barack Obama, the ‘Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Immigration’ (November 20, 2014):

Humble message: I thank you all for the warmth with which you welcomed me. I am very impressed and excited. My fellow citizens, today, I would like to address a delicate issue – that of our fellow immigrants, who come to our country in search of a dignified life for themselves and their families. We are studying measures to regulate landings in our country to ensure a civil welcome. But I would like to talk with you and try to find the best solution. For example, what I would like to ask you is if we are a nation that values families and works together for their well being. I would like to ask you, are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system in which workers, who very often work and support our homes, do not have the possibility to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them the chance to stand up, take responsibility, and give their children a better future? I would like to hear your opinions and propose to discuss together, taking into account and reconciling both the fears of us fellow citizens and imagining the difficulties of those who enter a country in a difficult situation.

Non-humble version: Hi, all of you! Today, I would like to address a delicate issue – that of immigrants who come to our country in search of a dignified life for themselves and their families. I am certain that we will be able to approve measures to regulate landings in our country, to guarantee a civil welcome. But what I would like to make clear is that my nation will value families by working together for their well being. I would like it to be clear that my nation will not tolerate the hypocrisy of a system in which workers, who very often work and support the homes of my constituents, do not have the possibility to get right with the law. But my nation gives them the chance to get in order, to take responsibility, and give their children a better future. This is my point of view, and I would like my country to handle both the perplexities of those who host and the difficulties of those who enter a country in a difficult situation.

Measures

After reading the humble or non-humble message, participants filled in a quantitative survey including questions related to manipulation checks [manipulation check: ‘How humble did you find the message to be?’; significance in the ANOVA analysis: F(1.117) = 4.501; p < 0.05], and questions grouped into four clusters, and each item was rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = not at all; 5 = very much).

Emotions towards the politician experienced during the message: attentive, curious, upset, irritated, relieved, uncomfortable, amused, disappointed, calm, embarrassed, envious, anxious, helpless, frightened, stressed, bored, ‘I felt contempt’, ‘I felt compassion’, disgusted, admiration, embittered, outraged, angry, enthusiastic (question: ‘During the reading of the message, how much did you feel . . . towards the politician?’)

Evaluation of the ‘humble’ politician: strong, powerful, uninfluential, determined, dominant, authoritative, authoritarian, unsure, undecided, humble (manipulation check), competitive, charismatic, obnoxious, grumpy, cold, unjust, good, incorrect, generous, altruistic, unfair, dishonest, unselfish, incompetent, intelligent, skilled, knowledgeable, self-confident, charming, seductive, convincing (question: ‘After the reading of the message, how much . . . do you evaluate the politician?’)

Emotions felt towards immigrants: attentive, curious, upset, irritated, relieved, uncomfortable, amused, disappointed, calm, embarrassed, envious, anxious, helpless, frightened, stressed, bored, ‘I felt contempt’, ‘I felt compassion’, disgusted, admiration, embittered, outraged, angry, enthusiastic (question: ‘During the reading, how much did you feel . . . towards immigrants?’)

Prosocial orientation: How right, necessary, useful and important is it to host immigrants?

Results

Regarding the negative emotions felt towards the politician, the significant main effect of humility emerged. The ANOVA results revealed that sadness [F(1.117) = 2.093; p < 0.05], bitterness [F(1.117) = 2.262; p < 0.05], worry [F(2.117) = 2.351; p < 0.05], contempt [F(1.117) = 2.462; p < 0.02], fear [F(1.117) = 2.822; p < 0.02] and disgust [F(1.117) = 2.693; p < 0.05] were higher in the humble condition than in the non-humble condition. The main effect of emotions expressed by the politician was singled out in particular with regard to sadness [F(3.117) = 2.93; p < 0.05] and bitterness [F(3.117) = 3.331; p < 0.025]. Furthermore, sadness and calm (low arousal emotions) were higher than joy and anger (high arousal emotions). On the evaluation of contempt [F(3.117) = 2.093; p < 0.05], disgust [F(3.117) = 2.89; p < 0.05], anxiety [F(3.117) = 3.13; p < 0.05] and bitterness [F(3.117) = 2.98; p < 0.05], an interaction effect emerged between emotions and humility, highlighting that negative emotions were higher in the humility condition when the politician expressed sadness, while in the non-humble condition, they were higher when he expressed anger or calm. In the case of humility, when the politician expressed sadness, participants felt higher levels of negative emotions (see Table 5), highlighting that a less assertive and certain message can provoke a state of anxiety and hostility (Izard, 1975) towards a politician.

Table 5.

Emotions towards the politician.

			Sadness		Bitterness		Worry		Contempt		Fear		Disgust		Anxiety
	N		M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS
Humble	11	Calm	2.64	1.21	2.91	1,38	2.46	1.51	1.18	0.60	1.46	0.82	1.18	0.40	1.36	0.67
	11	Anger	1.91	0.83	1.36	0,67	2.73	1.10	1.46	0.93	1.46	0.52	1.46	0.93	1.46	0.52
	10	Sadness	2.70	1.06	2.10	1.20	2.60	1.17	1.60	1.08	1.70	1.25	1.70	1.16	2.00	1.05
	10	Joy	1.70	1.34	1.90	1.29	3.00	1.63	1.40	0.84	2.00	1.63	1.40	0.84	1.70	1.34
Not humble	12	Calm	2.17	1.27	1.92	1.31	2.42	1.38	1.42	1.00	1.67	1.23	1.50	0.80	1.83	1.19
	11	Anger	1.82	1.17	1.91	1.30	2.00	1.26	1.18	0.40	1.00	0.00	1.36	0.92	1.09	0.30
	10	Sadness	1.80	1.14	1.60	1.08	2.20	1.40	1.00	0.00	1.20	0.63	1.00	0.00	1.20	0.63
	12	Joy	1.25	0.62	1.25	0.87	2.00	0.95	1.08	0.29	1.33	0.89	1.08	0.29	1.50	1.00

Concerning the evaluation of Obama, the ANOVA results showed that in the humble condition, participants saw him as more humble, but less enthusiastic [F(1.117) = 2.871; p < 0.05] and charismatic [F(1, 117) = 3.276; p < 0.05], while the activating emotions, joy and anger, increased the positive evaluation of the politician, whom participants perceived as more factual [F(3.117) = 2.87; p < 0.05], enthusiastic [F(3, 117) = 2.678; p < 0.05], charismatic [F(3,117) = 3.065; p < 0.03] and less hypocrite [F(3.117) = 2.815; p < 0.05] (Table 6). More interesting is the significance of the interaction effect on the perception of the politician as a hypocrite in the humble condition when he displayed a sad facial expression, whereas in the non-humble condition, this was mainly calmness. The low arousal emotions confirmed the negative evaluation of the leader (Lewis, 2000), but in the humble condition in particular, there was an effect of stressing the politician’s efficacy until his credibility was compromised, since he was evaluated as being a hypocrite.

Table 6.

Evaluation of the politician.

			Factual		Humble		Enthusiastic		Charismatic		Hypocrite
	N		M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS	M	DS
Humble	15	Calm	3.20	0.77	3.87	0.92	3.27	1.22	3.33	1.18	1.27	0.46
	15	Anger	2.87	1.13	3.47	1.41	3.00	1.25	3.33	1.23	1.33	0.62
	14	Sadness	3.07	0.73	3.50	0.85	2.43	0.85	3.07	1.07	2.07	1.14
	14	Joy	3.79	1.05	3.50	1.16	3.07	0.92	3.93	0.83	1.71	1.33
Not humble	15	Calm	3.13	1.30	3.07	1.33	2.80	1.21	3.60	1.45	2.20	1.47
	16	Anger	3.63	1.09	2.81	1.33	3.50	1.21	4.13	1.26	1.63	1.15
	15	Sadness	3.33	1.18	3.27	1.03	2.93	1.39	3.27	1.39	1.53	1.06
	13	Joy	3.77	1.24	3.62	1.71	4.00	1.15	4.31	1.18	1.39	0.96

Effects on prosocial orientation toward immigrants

Regarding people in a state of need – in this case, immigrants – the humble formulation of the message elicited lower positive emotions than in the non-humble condition, but it elicited an increase in negative emotions, like anxiety [F(1.117) = 2.64; p < 0.05] and guilt [F(1.117) = 4.66; p < 0.03], and a decrease in positive emotions, like satisfaction [F(1.117) = 3.85; p < 0.05], enthusiasm [F(1.117) = 9.225; p < 0.003] and joy [F(1.117) = 9.051; p < 0.003]. Contrary to our expectation (Weidman et al., 2018) that there would be a strong relationship between humility and voters’ positive emotions, since they could be reassured by the intellectual humility of the message and positively affected by the inclusiveness of the political decision, our results indicated that the horizontal relations evoked by the humble stance also had mainly negative emotional effects towards people in a state of need. In fact, they increased their sense of anxiety and guilt (Table 6).

The one-way ANOVA highlighted the significant effect of the politician’s emotional display on emotions towards immigrants in the sense that sadness significantly induced anger [F(3.117) = 2.86; p < 0.04], discomfort [F(3.117) = 3.919; p < 0.01] and anxiety [F(3.117) = 2.79; p < 0.05] towards immigrants. Close to the sadness effect was the politician’s display of calmness; in this case, the low arousal emotions also elicited participants’ negative emotions (Table 7).

Table 7.

Emotions towards immigrants * humility.

	Humble		Not humble
	M	DS	M	DS
Satisfaction	2.09	1.22	2.53	1.45
Enthusiasm	2.07	0.95	2.70	1.30
Joy	1.66	0.97	2.29	1.33
Guilt	1.72	0.95	1.37	0.76
Anxiety	1.57	0.88	1.34	0.69

Table 8.

Emotions towards immigrants * emotional display.

		Calm	Anger	Sadness	Joy
Sadness	M	3.03	2.52	2.97	2.19
	DS	0.96	1.12	1.18	1.39
Anger	M	1.73	1.55	1.86	1.19
	DS	0.94	0.81	1.19	0.62
Disconfort	M	2.03	1.71	2.48	1.56
	DS	1.22	0.82	1.33	0.97
Anxiety	M	1.33	1.32	1.79	1.37
	DS	0.61	0.70	1.08	0.63

Table 9.

Results of linear regression analysis examining the effect of personal distress and empathic interest in predicting prosocial orientation towards immigrants. N = 117; b: unstandardized regression coefficient; SE: standard error; β: standardised coefficient; t: obtained t-value; p: probability; R²: proportion of variance explained.

	b	SE	β	t	p	R2
Constant	2.94	0.28		10.44	0.00
Personal distress	–0.39	0.10	–0.30	–3.75	0.00
Empathic interest	0.72	0.11	0.52	6.46	0.00
Model						0.00

Furthermore, from the ANOVA, emerged also an interaction effect of humility and emotional display on perceived anxiety [F(3.117) = 2.709; p < 0.05] and guilt [F(3.117) = 3.52; p < 0.015]. As shown in the figures below, in the humble condition, the display of sadness provoked higher levels of anxiety and guilt differently from in the non-humble condition where, on the contrary, the positive emotions facial display increased these negative emotions. Presumably, the association of politician humility with a sad facial display provoked emotional overload, a state of emotional depletion (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), of not feeling able to face and support the other’s state of need.

By summing the negative emotions of indignation, anger, discomfort and disgust, and positive emotions of interest, pity and empathy, we obtained unique indexes of personal distress (seen as negative emotions that we may experience when we view/imagine another person’s suffering) and empathic interest (Batson et al., 1983), respectively. On personal distress, there was a significant main effect of humility [F(1.117) = 2.09; p < 0.05] and emotion type [F(3.117) = 3.83; p < 0.01], since participants significantly reported more personal distress towards immigrants in relation to the humble communication and in the sad emotional display condition. No significant effect was observed on empathic interest in these conditions.

Figure 2.

Figure 2a. Anxiety.

Figure 3.

Personal distress.

Figure 4.

Prosocial orientation towards immigrants.

Prosocial orientation towards immigrants

We conducted a factorial analysis to obtain a unique index of positive orientation towards hosting immigrants that extracted one dimension explaining 69% of the variance while presenting good reliability (alpha equal to .72). The index was composed by summing the items on immigrant hosting evaluated as right, necessary, useful (reversed) and important.

Moreover, prosocial orientation was affected mainly by the humble message and the politician’s sad emotional display in the sense that when the humble stance was accompanied by an emotional display of sadness, it was significantly lower than in the non-humble condition [interaction effect: F(1.117) = 3.078; p < 0.025]. Furthermore, we observed the main effect of humble communication – that is, prosocial orientation was lower in the humble condition [main effect: F(1.117) = 2.658; p < 0.05].

The negative emotional state evaluated during the reading of the humble message was strictly connected to the prosocial orientation index in the sense that a regression highlighted how the personal distress experienced across different conditions affected significantly the prosocial intention towards immigrants, like empathic interest, which was not affected by experimental conditions. As more distress was perceived, the less prosocial orientation there was towards immigrants, confirming Batson et al.’s (1983) finding that personal distress is a way to lower prosocial tendency.

Discussion

‘Humility makes men equal to angels’

Following Augustinus (413), humility makes men equal to angels – that is, inhabiting a space far beyond human powers and laws, and thus entailing positive behaviours attributed to a non-human agent. According to Tangney (2000), humility is a positive feature that, through ‘self-forgetting’, allows people to be sincere by admitting their own limitations and mistakes. Nevertheless, it is not only a temporary admission of personal limitations but defines a psychological force aimed at being acutely aware in ‘joy and in sorrow’ by having a realistic approach in everyday interactions.

Being humble, according the common sense (Weidman et al., 2018), is a self-abasing stance. However, this has never been experimentally studied in the political communication field (Morris et al., 2005). Rather, it has been acknowledged mostly as a power domain where politicians tend mainly to express their dominance and acquire more public consent (Poggi & D’Errico, 2010a). Studies in the fields of positive psychology and organisational psychology have pointed out that humility promotes positive reactions in terms of emotional responses such as gratitude and elevation (Davis et al., 2013; Kruse et al., 2014) and behavioural responses such as generosity (Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff et al., 2012) and other moral and collaborative conduct (Liu, 2016; Weidman et al., 2018). In the present study, juggling with humility and political leadership led the politician to generate mainly negative results, first, in terms of emotional reactions and then personal evaluation.

Defying our expectations, our results seem to demonstrate that a humble politician imposed a kind of burden on potential voters, since a humble communication increased emotions like sadness, bitterness (Poggi & D’Errico, 2009) and worry, but also anxiety and fear and other hostile emotions, like contempt and disgust. Participants also evaluated the humble politician negatively as less factual, enthusiastic, charismatic and, in a particular condition, also as more hypocritical. Our results also indicated that when communicating through a sad facial display, the humble politician induced higher levels of contempt, disgust, bitterness and anxiety, and was also evaluated as a hypocrite. For a politician, humility associated with a sad facial expression can signal potential failure (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2002) and reinforce an image of impotence that is associated with humility, thus provoking in the audience a ‘depletion of internal resources’ (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000) towards the resolution of the problem. A humble and sad politician has no possibility of resolving the problem and this causes anxiety. After all, a humble politician is perceived not spontaneous; humility is viewed as a strategy. In a sense, humility can be viewed as a (false) strategy as well, possibly because the political domain is generally linked to power and dominance.

Examining these results from another angle, a humble politician expressing joy, thus with an emotion associated with high arousal, is seen less negatively. Humility promotes prosociality (Exline & Hill, 2012; LaBouff et al., 2012) in interpersonal relationships, but in the political domain, this relationship is less evident. In our study, we chose to focus in particular on the moral domain of ‘care’ (hosting immigrants and equal health care system; Graham et al., 2011), and in this regard, a humble stance with a sad emotional display also induced a negative state of personal distress regarding people in a state of need, which is strictly linked to a lower prosocial orientation towards immigrants, confirming both the classical (Batson et al., 1983) and also the more recent literature on this topic (D’Errico & Paciello, 2018). On the contrary, an empathic interest induced a positive relationship with prosocial orientation, but it was not affected by experimental conditions. The prosocial orientation in the humble condition was higher when the politician expressed positive emotions, like calm and joy – that is, emotions that provide a sense of hope (Lewis, 2000), as here the politician has a real possibility of facing and solving the problem, making more probable the idea of managing uncertainty that humility can temporarily elicit.

The main experimental study was conducted in a particular historical context, where immigration is considered to be a ‘hot topic’ within political communication, and thus it could be considered as a limitation, since voters in threatening or emergency situations could prefer a more assertive and dominant leader, as evinced by the negative emotional reactions to, and judgements of, the humble politician. The pilot study aimed at testing the main effect of a humble message regarding the equity of an health care also confirmed the ambivalent effect on emotions and politician evaluation. Reflecting on these results we can add that the humble politician affected also the empathic side, increasing mainly voters’ personal distress toward people in state of need. However, future studies should test emotional effects of humble politicians by using a positive frame instead of the one of poverty or suffering. Furthermore, the social dominance orientation of the voters and their cultural backgrounds should be controlled because scholars conducting studies in other contexts (Oc et al., 2015) and considering personal traits (D’Errico, forthcoming) highlighted how these features can contribute to evaluate humility in a differentiated way. This study was a first investigation into the potential effects of political humility and it shed light on the counterproductive potential voters’ reactions. Future studies will be aimed at understanding other communicative devices that could make humble leadership effective, by promoting, for example, political participation.

Footnotes

Funding

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

ORCID iD

Francesca D’Errico

Author biography

Francesca D’Errico is Assistant professor of Social Psychology at Roma Tre University, in the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts. She is part of Roma Tre CosmicLab (Cognition, Social Multimodal Interaction and Communication Laboratory) where she works mainly on multimodal communication of emotions and social interactions in real and mediated contexts. She also works on prosocial and aggressive communication within new media (social media, app, virtual reality), focusing particularly on the emotional side. She has authored/co-authored more than 100 studies published as journal articles and chapters, and she is also the co-editor of two Springer books on the multimodal approach to the study of conflictual political communication.

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