Intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility: Correlational evidence for an evolutionary-embodied-epistemological account

Aiden P. Gregg; Nikhila Mahadevan; Constantine Sedikides

doi:10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942

Intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility: Correlational evidence for an evolutionary-embodied-epistemological account

Aiden P. Gregg, Nikhila Mahadevan, Constantine Sedikides

School of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We outline an evolutionary-embodied-epistemic (EEE) account of intellectual arrogance (IA), proposing that people psychologically experience their important beliefs as valued possessions – mental materialism – that they must fight to keep – ideological territoriality – thereby disposing them toward IA. Nonetheless, IA should still vary, being higher among people taking a hostile and domineering epistemic stance (rejecting reality, resisting evidence) than among those taking an open and deferential one (embracing reality, respecting evidence). Such variations can be predicted from people’s standing on the communion-agency circumplex at multiple levels of analysis (i.e. from their social inclusion and status; dispositional warmth and competence; and behavioral amiability and assertiveness). Using pre-validated indices of mental materialism and ideological territoriality, and an argument evaluation task permitting the quantification of rational objectivity and egotistical bias, we obtained consistent correlational evidence that, as hypothesized, IA is the highest when agency is high and communion low, validating the EEE account.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	59-73
Journal	The Journal of Positive Psychology
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942
Publication status	Published - 2 Jan 2017

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10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942

Cite this

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abstract = "We outline an evolutionary-embodied-epistemic (EEE) account of intellectual arrogance (IA), proposing that people psychologically experience their important beliefs as valued possessions – mental materialism – that they must fight to keep – ideological territoriality – thereby disposing them toward IA. Nonetheless, IA should still vary, being higher among people taking a hostile and domineering epistemic stance (rejecting reality, resisting evidence) than among those taking an open and deferential one (embracing reality, respecting evidence). Such variations can be predicted from people{\textquoteright}s standing on the communion-agency circumplex at multiple levels of analysis (i.e. from their social inclusion and status; dispositional warmth and competence; and behavioral amiability and assertiveness). Using pre-validated indices of mental materialism and ideological territoriality, and an argument evaluation task permitting the quantification of rational objectivity and egotistical bias, we obtained consistent correlational evidence that, as hypothesized, IA is the highest when agency is high and communion low, validating the EEE account.",

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