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

TY - JOUR

T1 - Intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility: Correlational evidence for an evolutionary-embodied-epistemological account

AU - Gregg, Aiden P.

AU - Mahadevan, Nikhila

AU - Sedikides, Constantine

PY - 2017/1/2

Y1 - 2017/1/2

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

U2 - 10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942

DO - 10.1080/17439760.2016.1167942

M3 - Article

SN - 1743-9760

VL - 12

SP - 59

EP - 73

JO - The Journal of Positive Psychology

JF - The Journal of Positive Psychology

IS - 1

ER -