You Know You're Right: How Intellectual Humility Decreases Political Hostility

Abstract

Political hostility is a pervasive problem in American politics, producing dangerous consequences for individuals and society. Recent research in social psychology suggests that intellectual humility may be able to reduce political hostility, but the underlying causal relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this article is to examine how intellectual humility lowers hostility toward people who disagree (dissenters) about specific political topics. Results from a national survey indicate that those holding political beliefs with humility feel less negativity toward dissenters. Fixed-effects regression models also show that intrapersonal variation in intellectual humility predicts issue-specific hostility across political topics. Furthermore, a survey experiment priming intellectual humility caused a corresponding decrease in hostility toward dissenters without impacting underlying opinions. Altogether, these results suggest that fostering intellectual humility may be a fruitful avenue for alleviating the hostility and anger that often accompany political disagreement.