HAVE we reached the peak of the culture war? Looking at my social media feeds, it seems that polarised thinking and misinformation have never been more common. Even users I once admired now draw on dubious evidence to support their beliefs.
Perhaps it is time for us all to embrace a little “existential humility”. I came across this idea in a by Jeffrey Green at Virginia Commonwealth University and his colleagues. They build on a decade of research examining the benefits of “intellectual humility” more generally – our ability to recognise the errors in our judgement and remain aware of the limits of our knowledge.
Advertisement
You can get a flavour of this research by rating your agreement with the following statements, on a scale from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (very like me): I question my own opinions and positions because they could be wrong; I recognise the value in opinions that are different from my own; in the face of conflicting evidence, I am open to changing my opinions.
People who score highly on are less likely to form knee-jerk reactions on a topic, and they find it easier to consider the strengths or weaknesses of a logical argument. They are to misinformation, since they are more likely to read the article in full, the sources of a news story and compare its reporting to other outlets, before coming to a strong conclusion about its veracity.
Cultivating intellectual humility would be an excellent idea in all domains, but certain situations may make it particularly difficult to achieve. Green points out that some beliefs – mainly those regarding politics and religion – are so central to our identity that any challenge can trigger an existential crisis, as if our whole world view and meaning in life are under threat. As a result, we become more entrenched in our opinions and look for any way to protect them. This may reduce some of our feelings of uncertainty, but it comes at the cost of more analytical thinking.
For these reasons, Green defines “existential humility” as the capacity to entertain the thought of another world view without becoming so defensive and closed-minded. So how could we achieve it? This will be the subject of future research, but the emotion may offer one possibility. One found that watching awe-inspiring videos about space and the universe led to humbler thinking, including a greater capacity to admit weaknesses.
Perhaps we could all benefit from interrupting our doomscrolling with awe-inspiring content such as this image of the Pillars of Creation (above). At the very least, we can try to question our preconceptions before offering our views on social media – and be a little less ready to lash out when others disagree.
For other projects visit newscientist.com/maker
