Is it possible that there is a connection between being humble and having better self control?
Does it take a specific effort to maintain a disposition of “humbleness” instead of letting your ego run rampant? Maybe the ability to self-regulate your ego through inducing humility requires disciplined effort. If you have the discipline to maintain humility, then its possible that the discipline will spill over into other sectors of your life.
Scientists tested the theory that humility facilitates higher self control in their paper, Humility Facilitates Higher Self-Control, and found evidence supporting it.
Their theory:
- Humble individuals are thought to be able to resist self-enhancing tendencies (Davis et. al, 2011)
- A self-enhancing tendency is when a person views the world in a biased way to maintain a positive view of themselves. It is basically a delusion that we all experience.
- There is evidence that self-enhancing tendencies are a dominant and automatic tendency (Beer, Chester & Hughes, 2013)
- Overriding natural tendencies requires considerable resources (Baumeister & Vohs, 2003)
According to the scientists:
This suggests the possibility of a greater self-control capacity driving the proficiency of humble people at resisting self-enhancement. However, it is also possible that the humble individual’s ability to rein in self-enhancing urges has been automatized due to prolonged engagement, requiring less regulatory resources.
What I take from this - practice makes perfect. Humans have so many different tendencies that it is difficult to know what is going on all the time. Unless its just me. So applying mindfulness to our biases - paying attention at a deeper level to the silly and potentially self-destructive things that we do in our lives - could really help us achieve the happiness we so desperately seek.
If you put effort towards learning how to resist self-enhancing urges, you may get better at it over time and develop both humility and self-control that spills over into other parts of your life. There are all sorts of formalized academic psychological characteristics that people can get better at through effort. The problem is that nobody is aware of these characteristics - the knowledge mostly stays in academia - so people aren’t aware of all of the things the growth mindset can be applied to.
References
1. Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Self-regulation and the executive function of the self. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 197-217). New York: Guilford Press.
2. Beer, J.S., Chester, D.S., Hughes, B.L. (2013). Social threat and cognitive load magnify self- enhancement and attenuate self-deprecation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 706–711. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.02.017
3. Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., Worthington, E. L., Jr., Van Tongeren, D. R., Gartner, A. L., Jennings, D. J. II., & Emmons, R. A. (2011). Relational humility: Conceptualizing and measuring humility as a personality judgment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93, 225–234. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2011.558871
4. Hepper, E. G., Gramzow, R. H., & Sedikides, C. (2010). Individual differences in self‐enhancement and self‐protection strategies: An integrative analysis. Journal of personality, 78(2), 781-814.
5. Tong, E. M., Tan, K. W., Chor, A. A., Koh, E. P., Lee, J. S., & Tan, R. W. (2016). Humility facilitates higher self-control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 62, 30-39. Chicago
Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to get hanging indentations to work in markdown for the references section. Sorry gods of academia for not following your standards. Please do not smite me.