Being open to the ideas and opinions of others -- irrespective of how controversial they may seem -- fundamentally enables growth and learning. Blindly succumbing to our own inherent biases causes a fixed mind-set, which hampers resiliency and a love of learning.
We all have a tendency to overestimate how much we know — which, in turn, means that we often cling stubbornly to our beliefs while tuning out opinions different from our own. We generally believe we’re better or more correct than everyone else, or at least better than most people — a psychological quirk that’s as true for politics and religion as it is for things like fashion and lifestyles. And in a time when it seems like we’re all more convinced than ever of our own rightness, social scientists have begun to look more closely at an antidote: a concept called intellectual humility.
