Abstract
Humility is considered to be an important social virtue, particularly in interpersonal contexts. Given the highly social nature of music participation, researchers have begun exploring the potential role that humility might play in music education. The purpose of this study was to examine how middle school, high school, and undergraduate band students (N = 116) perceived the virtue of humility, including whether they viewed it to be a social strength among various types of musicians. Results indicated that students viewed humility to be a positive quality and a social strength for different types of musicians (i.e., band directors, section leaders, famous musicians). However, middle schoolers struggled to articulate a meaning of humility consistent with accepted definitions put forth by social scientists. Based on these findings, I offer recommendations for music educators to model and promote humility as a positive and necessary virtue in their ensembles and classrooms.
It has been said that musicians who are able to moderate their egos in favor of more other-oriented and prosocial dispositions might significantly improve their experiences of a shared music engagement (Coppola, 2019). In following, the practice of humility can serve to quiet the ego and reorient one’s social motivations toward more collectivistic pursuits (Exline, 2008). It should follow, then, that the development of humility ought to be a priority in the social development of any novice musician.
Such a premise would likely be supported by several initiatives currently taking place within K–12 music education. The topic of social emotional learning (SEL), for example, has recently proliferated toward fostering students’ self and social awareness, developing positive social relationships, and addressing self-care initiatives (Edgar, 2017). A focus on character education has also been observed within educational research (Berkowitz & Bier, 2004; Berkowitz et al., 2017) and more recently promoted within music education (Critchfield, in press; Lee, 2016). Through character education, musicians work to navigate their ethical and moral identities as artistic citizens. Taken together, SEL, character education, and other related social competencies underscore a broader emphasis on the development of “soft skills,” or the characteristics and attitudes necessary for meaningfully connecting with others on an interpersonal level (Melser, 2018). Given that music participation is an inherently social act, the cultivation of such “soft skills” could be considered equally as essential to one’s overall musicianship as technical facility, knowledge of music theory, and other highly regarded “hard skills” in music.
It seems logical that humility would play a central role in developing students’ social, emotional, moral, and ethical competencies as well—particularly as students learn to navigate their intrapersonal proclivity for self-interest and their interpersonal need for other-orientedness (Leary, 2004). Instilling the virtue of humility among music students might therefore be a logical and necessary intermediary to cultivating their social emotional intelligence and developing their moral character, among other “soft skills.” As a psychological construct, humility includes both interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics, comprising a multifaceted definition. Those high in humility are able to maintain an accurate view of themselves by both acknowledging their strengths and accepting their weaknesses (Davis et al., 2010; Rowatt et al., 2006; Tangney, 2000). They also practice other-oriented motivations toward others (Davis et al., 2010; Tangney, 2000) and demonstrate an openness to new ideas, cultures, and worldviews—especially those that challenge their own (Hook et al., 2013; Tangney, 2000). Humble people also avoid self-enhancement tendencies, instead practicing modesty and nonsuperiority whenever possible (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Tangney, 2000). Humility has also been related to other prosocial traits, including honesty (Allgaier et al., 2015; Zettler et al., 2013), empathy (Davis et al., 2011; Krumrei-Mancuso, 2016), forgiveness (Davis et al., 2011; Davis et al., 2013; Hook et al., 2015), helpfulness (LaBouff et al., 2012), and generosity (Exline & Hill, 2012), and has been correlated positively with academic performance (Rowatt et al., 2006), social relationship quality (Davis et al., 2013; Peters et al., 2011), and social desirability (Exline & Hill, 2012).
Importantly, humility is also considered to be a highly contextual virtue, with specific subtypes emerging from different social circumstances. For example, the ability to recognize the limitations of one’s personal knowledge requires intellectual humility (Roberts & Wood, 2007), while cultural humility is called on when addressing someone’s openness to other cultures and worldviews (Hook et al., 2013). Leader humility (or organizational humility) becomes necessary in leadership contexts (Owens & Hekman, 2012), and relational humility emerges within personal relationships (Davis et al., 2011). Likewise, musical humility has been offered as a necessary behavior for the development of prosocial and collectivistic music engagements. With specific application to music educators, musical humility comprises five components that are developed through the interrelation of social, music, interpersonal, and intrapersonal domains, including (a) collaborating thoughtfully and meaningfully with others through musical interactions, (b) being other-oriented toward the artistic contributions of others, (c) carrying oneself in a nonsuperior manner, (d) accurately recognizing one’s continued room for personal and musical growth, and (e) carrying an appropriate degree of self-pride, that is neither overconfident nor meek (Coppola, 2019).
Despite its apparent benefits, however, humility has often been viewed as a social weakness by many. It has been conflated with such unfavorable social dispositions as deference, low self-esteem, embarrassment, and humiliation, calling its overall desirability into question (Gregg et al., 2008; Samuelson et al., 2015; Tangney, 2000). It has also been equated with modesty, which represents merely a single characteristic of humility (Exline & Geyer, 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Tangney, 2000). Button (2005) pondered whether humility might be considered a “monkish virtue” as suggested by philosophers like Aquinas, Hume, and Kant.
However, social scientists have clarified that humility, at least in a contemporary sense, actually represents an empowering equilibrium between the two equally problematic extremes of arrogance or narcissism at one end, and deference or low self-esteem at the other (Hagá & Olson, 2016; Samuelson et al., 2015; Tangney, 2000). Exline and Geyer (2004) found that despite its ongoing negative connotations, humility is generally viewed as a positive trait and a social strength overall. Given its potential value in music education, then, it is necessary to better understand how developing musicians in particular conceive of the virtue of humility. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to extend Exline and Geyer’s (2004) line of inquiry to music settings to clarify whether music students similarly view humility to be a social strength, and whether these views differ among various music roles. Specifically, the guiding research questions for this study were as follows:
Do music students (i.e., middle school, high school, undergraduate) perceive humility to be a positive or negative quality?
Do music students perceive humility to be a social strength, and do these views differ among various music roles (i.e., band director, section leader, famous musician)?
With what close-related terms do music students associate humility?
How do music students themselves define humility?
Method
Participants
Participants (N = 116) were middle school (n = 38), high school (n = 38), and undergraduate (n = 40) band students located in the southwestern United States. Middle and high school participants were located in the same school district and undergraduate students were selected from the author’s academic institution. Participants’ average ages were 12.68 years for middle school students (SD = 1.06; range = 12–14 years; 58.9% male, 2.6% nonbinary), 15.58 years for high school students (SD = 1.18; range = 14–18 years; 50.0% female), and 19.85 years for undergraduates (SD = 1.23; range = 18–32; 56.1% male). Because of the challenges associated with obtaining parental consent/assent for child participants in public schools, middle and high school participants were entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card incentive (one awarded to each school site). Both the institutional review board and school district approved the study protocol prior to data collection.
Procedure
The majority of survey items were adapted directly from Exline and Geyer’s (2004) study in an effort to preserve the survey validity and reliability as established by their original research protocol. I maintained the wordings and scale ranges for all questions, only altering items concerning music-specific variables (i.e., the strength of humility among band directors, section leaders, and famous musicians). The full survey instrument was then reviewed for content validity by three music education colleagues and one social psychologist specializing in humility research. I edited the instrument following their feedback, and pilot tested the survey with 22 music education undergraduates to ensure that the directions and items were clear and understandable, and that the final survey could be completed within an acceptable time frame. All surveys were completed in under 15 minutes.
After obtaining permission from the music teachers, I met with students in their classes to explain the nature of the study and answer questions. I then provided a link to an online survey, which students accessed using either a school-issued computer or a personal device. Before completing the questions related to the current study, participants first completed a 10-minute research protocol for use in a separate study on musical humility, addressing completely unique research questions (Coppola, forthcoming). Thus, participants were primed to some degree to think about the presence of humility within music contexts, but the actual term “humility” was not used during this portion to avoid preassigning a definition of the term to students. Participants responded to (a) their overall view of humility as a positive or negative trait; (b) their view of humility as a strength or weakness within various music roles (i.e., band director, section leader, famous musician); and (c) the degree to which they viewed humility to be related to several other concepts (i.e., modesty, low self-esteem, humiliation, strength, confidence, leadership), both using an 11-point scale (−5 = weakness/not at all similar; +5 = strength/extremely similar). An 11-point scale was used for these items to maintain continuity with Exline and Geyer’s (2004) study. Finally, participants were prompted to offer their own definition of humility using an open-response format.
Results 1
With regard to the first research question, I found that participants indeed viewed humility to be a positive quality, rating it significantly above the neutral scale midpoint of zero (p < .001). I then conducted an analysis of variance between the school levels to determine whether these perceptions differed between middle schoolers, high schoolers, and undergraduates, and found the positive perception of humility to be consistent across school levels
For the second research question, I sought to clarify whether these views differed between various music roles (i.e., band director, section leader, famous musician). Results again indicated that ratings for all music roles were significantly above the scale midpoint of zero (all p values < .001). A series of analyses of variance were again conducted to determine whether these perceptions differed between age groups. With regard to band directors, students differed by age group
Descriptive Statistics for Student Perceptions of Humility.
Note. Possible ranges were selected to maintain continuity with extant literature (i.e., Exline & Geyer, 2004). Possible ranges were as follows: Humility as a (a) positive quality: −5 to +5; (b) strength or weakness: −5 to +5; and (c) similar to other closely related terms: 0 to 10.
For the third research question, I investigated the related qualities with which students associated humility. Participants most closely related humility to modesty, followed by leadership, strength, and confidence, respectively. They also generally agreed that humility was dissimilar to low self-esteem and humiliation. However, the degree to which participants expressed these perceptions again differed by school level. First, participants differed in associating humility with modesty (p < .001), as well as confidence (p < .001), with pairwise comparisons revealing that middle schoolers’ associations of both terms were lower than high schoolers’ and undergraduates’ ratings. A related finding was also established for leadership (p = .004), with middle schoolers ascribing weaker associations of humility and leadership than high schoolers (but responding similarly to undergraduates). In contrast, the difference found for strength (p = .01), indicated that middle schoolers’ ratings differed significantly from undergraduates’ (but were similar to high schoolers’).
Overall, these findings suggest that middle schoolers were less successful in recognizing the terms with which social scientists have associated humility (i.e., modesty, confidence, leadership, strength) than high schoolers and undergraduates. Furthermore, neither middle schoolers nor high schoolers were as successful as undergraduates in identifying the terms with which humility should be dissociated (i.e., low self-esteem, humiliation). Results indicate that undergraduates carry the most accurate definition of humility, with middle schoolers carrying the least secure understanding. High schoolers were successful in identifying the terms that were positively associated with humility, but they nevertheless struggled to dissociate those that are inconsistent with the true operationalization of humility.
To explore the final research question, I used descriptive coding to analyze participants’ open-ended definitions of humility (Saldaña, 2016). A music education research assistant served as a second coder, and responses were entered into a text file to ensure that both coders were blind to participants’ ratings from the previous questions. A total of 146 unique codes were identified among the 114 total responses (two participants declined to respond to this question). Total reliability between the two coders was 88.36% (as calculated by the number of agreements divided by the total number of observations). Discrepancies were discussed and resolved by both coders until consensus was achieved. Final categories were divided between corroborating and opposing definitions of humility (which included “I don’t know” statements). See Table 2 for categories, relevant subcategories, and frequencies of responses.
Categories and Frequencies of Participants’ Open-Ended Responses.
Note. Percentages of subcategories exceed 100% because some participants included multiple subcategories within their definition.
Dividing open-ended definitions by school level revealed that middle schoolers expressed the greatest degree of inconsistency in their definitions of humility, 57.89% of whom provided definitions that were either in opposition to its operationalization or were unfamiliar with the term altogether (see Figure 1). Moreover, they comprised two thirds of the total number of opposing definitions. Those middle schoolers who provided inconsistent definitions most commonly (a) conflated humility with being put down or made fun of (sample response, “being laughed at or scolded for messing up”); (b) confused it with humiliation or embarrassment (sample response, “another word for embarrassed”); or (c) were unfamiliar with the word (don’t know or unsure). On the other hand, those middle schoolers who provided corroborating definitions of humility most commonly defined it in terms of nonsuperiority, modesty, and nonself-enhancement (sample response, “being accepting of doing a good job, but not thinking overly confident or snarky about it”) and other-orientedness (sample response, “not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less”).
Percentage of participants offering corroborating or opposing definitions of humility, by school level.
High schoolers offered definitions that more consistently matched accepted operationalizations of humility (76.32%), and undergraduates offered the most consistently matched definitions (94.74%). High schoolers most commonly defined humility as acknowledging limitations and learnability (sample response, “having the wisdom to understand that you are capable of infinite amounts of growth regardless of life experience”). Meanwhilre, undergraduates’ definitions equally comprised the themes of acknowledging limitations and learnability (sample response, “having the ability to recognize and grow from making a mistake or failing”), accurate view of self with abilities and achievements (sample response, “understanding what you are capable of, no more, and no less”), and nonsuperiority, modesty, and nonself-enhancement (sample response, “someone with high self-esteem and confidence in themselves, but is very modest. Not cocky or arrogant in any way”). Within the subcategory corollaries to humility, which was how eleven participants chose to define the term, middle schoolers (n = 3) used the word “kind”; high schoolers (n = 5) used the words “kind,” “respectful,” “strong,” and “able to lead”; and undergraduates (n = 3) used the words “conscientious,” “kind,” and “gracious” to describe humility.
Discussion
Overall, the findings from this study suggest that these music students indeed viewed humility as both a positive quality and a social strength within various music roles—including band directors, section leaders, and famous musicians. These results substantiate Exline and Geyer’s (2004) findings and seem to counter the premise that humility might be widely considered to be an undesirable—or “monkish” (Button, 2005)—virtue.
Although these results indicate an overall positive conclusion for the social desirability of humility among these young musicians, the data according to school level depict a somewhat more concerning—albeit not necessarily surprising—picture. While middle schoolers consistently reported that humility was a positive quality and an overall strength among various music roles, they did not ascribe nearly as much strength to the virtue as did high schoolers and undergraduates. They also struggled to properly (a) associate humility with closely related traits (i.e., modesty, confidence, leadership, strength) and (b) dissociate it from conflicting terms (i.e., low self-esteem, humiliation). A closer inspection of their open-ended definitions offers a logical explanation to these findings: it appears unlikely that middle schoolers truly have an unfavorable view of humility in practice, but rather that they are unfamiliar with the meaning of the word itself. With nearly sixty percent of middle schoolers either incorrectly defining it as a social “put-down,” conflating it with embarrassment or humiliation, or stating that they did not know what the word meant, it is not surprising that they would struggle to recognize the strength of humility as readily as high schoolers and undergraduates. Importantly, middle school-aged students have been found to ascribe substantial likeability and knowledgeability to humble people both in educational (Hagá & Olson, 2016) and music (Coppola, forthcoming) settings. That these two studies tested students’ preferences for humble behaviors without explicitly identifying humility by name supports the conclusion that students of this age generally view humility positively, even if they might lack an explicit comprehension of the word itself.
There are some logical explanations that might help clarify why middle schoolers struggled to define humility despite the positive value they placed on the virtue. First, middle schoolers may have simply had fewer experiences in which humility would have been socially called on at their age. Second, the need for humility often arises when one’s ego is threatened (Davis et al., 2011; Exline, 2008), and because adolescents’ moral and ethical development is still very much in flux at their age, their individual and collective sense of morality is not yet fully matured (Kohlberg, 1979), perhaps resulting in less sensitivity to ego-threatening behaviors from others. Third, when children and adolescents do experience ego threat and/or carry themselves in an egocentric manner, teachers and parents might neglect to explicitly use the word “humility” to identify the socially desirable response (perhaps because of its historically confounded connotations).
To illustrate an example of this last point, whereas other virtues are commonly called on by name when the time comes to teach children about them—”be patient,” “be respectful,” and “be kind,” for example—humility may be more commonly taught by highlighting its absence: “don’t show off,” “don’t be selfish,” or “don’t be a know-it-all” rather than “be humble.” Therefore, teachers who are invested in the social, emotional, moral, and ethical development of their students might do well to begin discussing the virtue of humility by name when the need arises, so that students are able to better associate the word humility with the desirable response. This might be particularly pertinent for music educators, given that music participation navigates the challenging binary of self-expression and collective collaboration. For instance, a student who “grandstands” their music skill may be adversely affecting the confidence and self-esteem of their peers. Rather than rebuking that the student should avoid “showing off,” the music teacher might instead encourage them to “practice more humility” in that moment. Students can then clearly connect the undesirable behavior (grandstanding) to the desirable response (humility) in practice.
Humility and the Development of “Soft Skills”
The findings from this study support meaningful opportunities for music educators to develop humility among young musicians in particular, and these suggestions appear to align closely with the goals of SEL, character education, and the general development of “soft skills.” First, the social purposes of humility are closely related to several components of SEL, particularly self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management (Edgar, 2017). For example, students developing their self-awareness though SEL are working to understand their “place in the world and relation to other things” (Merrell & Gueldner, 2010, p. 9), which harkens to Tangney’s (2000) declaration that humility involves an “appreciation of the value of all things, as well as the many different ways that people and things can contribute to our world” (p. 74). SEL’s social awareness component prioritizes “perspective taking” (Zins et al., 2004, p. 7), echoing humility’s role in “keeping of one’s abilities and accomplishments—one’s place in the world—in perspective” (Tangney, 2000, p. 73). Finally, where SEL seeks to develop students’ impulse control (self-management), humility is similarly considered to be a virtue of temperance, or self-moderation (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
Therefore, given their similar interpersonal benefits, humility might be meaningfully promoted alongside music activities that are also intended to develop SEL. For example, Edgar (2017) pointed to improvisation and ensemble participation as two activities that can aid in developing SEL because students are tasked with negotiating their creative contributions while cooperating purposefully with others. As students engage in improvisation, they must humbly negotiate their own music contributions while actively valuing—and responding to—the contributions of others in the moment (Coppola, 2019). In ensemble settings, teachers can further promote students’ humility as they encourage them to respond to one another toward developing a desirable ensemble balance and blend (e.g., “your sound is no more important than your neighbors’”). In short, music teachers—particularly those teaching younger students—might identify humility by name as the social mechanism that allows one to surrender their own individual “voice” in the interest of the larger ensemble.
Proponents of the character education movement (Berkowitz & Bier, 2004; Berkowitz et al., 2017) would likely also agree that carrying oneself humbly is a social skill that ought to be developed throughout youths’ development. Given the collaborative ethos central to meaningful music participation, music education might be an optimal arena for developing one’s character. For instance, based on Berkowitz et al.’s (2017) PRIMED framework of character education, Critchfield (2019) synthesized six principles that music educators should pursue toward establishing a character-centered learning environment. These include (a) a prioritization of core classroom values, (b) a focus on developing healthy relationships between students and teachers, (c) promoting students’ intrinsic motivation through the recognition of effort rather than skill, (d) the modeling of core values and appropriate behaviors by the teacher, (e) the empowerment of students to engage in collaborative and democratic learning processes, and (f) the developmental pedagogy to instill and reinforce character-driven values among students. When it comes to developing one’s character, humility reveals itself to be a moral concern, in that people are only able to mold their personal character to the degree at which they can recognize their own room for personal growth and recognize their nonsuperiority over others. Indeed, with the ego so inextricable from musical participation (Coppola, 2019), for better or worse, opportunities for promoting and modeling the virtue of humility in music education reveals itself as a matter of moral and ethical development.
Limitations and Extensions
There are some important limitations to this research as well as several ways in which this line of inquiry should be extended. First, participants from this study were all band students, given their immediate access to the researcher, but responses from students participating in choirs, orchestras, and other school-based settings would add greater robustness to these conclusions. Second, it should be noted that because participants first responded to questions addressing a separate research protocol on humility, there was the possibility of a priming effect during this study. However, while the first research protocol sought to examine perceptions of humble and arrogant behaviors through an experimental model, this protocol sought to investigate perceptions of the construct itself through a descriptive study model. The conditions presented in the experimental protocol were not explicitly connected to the actual word “humility,” but students may have nevertheless implicitly connected the two.
Future studies seeking to explore similar research questions should also extend the sample to include a wider distribution of geographic areas (as the current study only surveyed students in the southwestern United States), and might address perceptions of humility among professional musicians, music educators, music consumers, and other stakeholders (in addition to 6th- 12th-grade music students). Researchers might examine these participants’ perceptions of humility within more specific music roles as well. In the present study, only three types of music roles were explored (band directors, section leaders, and famous musicians) because I sought to establish an initial extension of Exline and Geyer’s (2004) inquiry while balancing the overall length of the research protocol (to maintain a survey length of 10-15 minutes). However, future participants might be asked to respond to their perceived importance of humility for a church choir director, an opera singer, a jazz musician, or a hip-hop artist, for example—as it would be reasonable to believe that these roles might yield varying expectations given their unique identities. For this same reason, rather than asking participants about “famous musicians” generally, it might be more illustrative to instead ask about the need for humility among specific music figures or celebrities—especially those who might be known for their outspoken egos.
Conclusion
The results from this study suggest that music students generally view humility to be a desirable social trait for musicians, but that younger students may struggle to understand its true meaning and import. In response, music educators would do well to explicitly communicate the importance of practicing humility with their students whenever the opportunity presents itself. For example, music teachers might choose to identify humility by name when discussing the importance of bowing after a performance, when addressing a student who behaves in a haughty or conceited manner with a peer, or when coaching students to graciously accept a win (or loss) at a music competition. Favorably, these initiatives closely align with many teachers’ ongoing efforts to develop their students’ social emotional skills and personal character. Yet teachers may wish to even more thoroughly imbue the concept of music humility into all facets of their music program—perhaps by encouraging students to (a) collaborate and engage meaningfully with each other when making music decisions, (b) practice other-oriented behaviors beyond the rehearsal, (c) willfully acknowledge their continued room for improvement, (d) exercise a disposition of nonsuperiority, and (e) carry themselves with an appropriate degree of pride that is neither self-effacing nor self-congratulatory (Coppola, 2019). Auspiciously, students engaged in a music climate so rooted in humility may further develop related interpersonal skills such as empathy, helpfulness, forgiveness, generosity, and social desirability. By treating these moments as worthwhile learning opportunities for virtuous growth, music educators will guide their students toward the self-regulation of their own egos while simultaneously cultivating a robust artistic spirit from which all may benefit.
Supplemental Material
Coppola_Appendix – Supplemental material for An Artistic Virtue? Student Perceptions of Humility in Music Participation
Supplemental material, Coppola_Appendix for An Artistic Virtue? Student Perceptions of Humility in Music Participation by William J. Coppola in Update: Applications of Research in Music Education
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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References
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