What is Humility Good For? A Meta-Analysis of Humility, Health, and Well-Being
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8915146 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yejin Lee (0000-0001-8233-5995, Georgia State University, corresponding author), Aaron T McLaughlin (0000-0001-6024-6211, Georgia State University), Shauna M Bowe (0000-0003-3826-9147, Vanderbilt University), Shauna M Bowes (Vanderbilt University), Joshua N Hook (0000-0003-2645-7060, University of North Texas), Daryl R Van Tongeren (0000-0002-1810-9448, Hope College), Jesse Owens (0000-0003-2307-9447, University of Denver), Jesse Owen (University of Denver), Don E Davis (0000-0003-3169-6576, Georgia State University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 881-912 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Counseling Psychologist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-0000 • E-ISSN: 1552-3861 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00110000251352566 |
| OpenAlex | W4415040681 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 72 |
Humility, the organizing virtue of multicultural frameworks in counseling psychology, has traditionally been framed to be positively associated with health and well-being and negatively associated with mental illness. Despite lauded benefits, however, scholars have cautioned that humility may not always be of benefit. To examine these associations, we conducted a meta-analysis to clarify the magnitude of the associations between humility and physical health, mental illness (i.e., depression, anxiety), life satisfaction, and eudaimonic well-being (i.e., meaning in life, purpose in life), in addition to testing moderators. The final sample included 65 studies, with results yielding small to medium associations ( r s ranged from −.06 to .20) between humility and examined outcomes. Results suggest that the size and direction of associations depend on methodological choices and cultural contexts. Implications for studying the cultural context of humility are discussed
Context (archaeology · Cultural diversity · Cultural humility · Humility · Meaning (existential · Mental health · Multiculturalism · Virtue · Optimism, Hope, and Well-being · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Resilience and Mental Health
The PRISMA 2020 statement
Development and initial validation of an implicit measure of humility relative to arrogance
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults
Meta-regression approximations to reduce publication selection bias
The Development and Validation of the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale
The multicultural orientation framework
Cultural humility
Thankful for the little things
Correcting for Bias in Psychology
Mini Meta‐Analysis of Your Own Studies
Three-level meta-analysis of dependent effect sizes
Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta‐analysis
Mortality prediction with a single general self-rated health question
The PHQ-8 as a measure of current depression in the general population
The Satisfaction With Life Scale
The CES-D Scale
On Happiness and Human Potentials
Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package
Burdened Virtues
Cross-Temporal Exploration of the Relationship Between Wisdom-Related Cognitive Broadening and Subjective Well-Being
Security versus growth
The effect of religious diversity on religious belonging and meaning
Development of the Experiences of Humility Scale
Cultural Humility of Religious Communities and Well-Being in Sexual Minority Persons
Cultural Humility for People of Color
Intellectual Humility
A consideration of the influence of researchers’ lived experiences
Acculturative strategies and mental distress among Asian American college students
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21
Development of physical and mental health summary scores from the patient-reported outcomes measurement information system (PROMIS) global items
Humble leadership
The Asian American Values Scale--Multidimensional
Is There a Dark Side to Humility? Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence for Existential Costs of Humility
Antecedents and consequences of LGBT individuals’ perceptions of straight allyship
The structure of psychological well-being revisited
The meaning in life questionnaire
Toward a more transparent, rigorous, and generative psychology
Validation of the Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale in a Sample of Chinese University Students
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |