7 ms·

Intellectual Humility

51 points by axiomdata316 7y ago

RobertRoberts 7y ago
I found that as a father teaching my children to confidently, and respectfully, challenge me has brought a tremendous amount of peace to the family. Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional baggage that blocks you from admitting it. Having people in your life that are strong enough to deal with the discomfort of confrontation with the singular goal of peace is more valuable than your pride. But it also allows the same interaction to be reciprocated when others are wrong in the family and it's a self supporting system to overcome arrogance, angst and many other negative events and emotions.
- MichaelMoser123 7y ago
  how old are your children? At what age did you start to teach them in how to challenge you respectfully ?
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    The first moment it happened was when my oldest was about 7 (My oldest is 22 youngest is 13) and she yelled at me for doing something wrong. (I was a lousy parent early on) But she was right and I was wrong, and it hurt really bad (emotionally/pride) but I admitted she was right, but I asked her to speak to me respectfully about when I am wrong. This took years of patience and still my oldest doesn't do well with this, but the other kids are fairly ok with it. It's not perfect, we all still have some conflict, but the resolutions are swift and emotions don't linger after a conflict. It's taken more time for me to figure out how to treat others well than it has to teach my kids. Once I figured something out, getting them to behave like I am is the easier part.
    - MichaelMoser123 7y ago
      fascinating. Now what is your immediate reaction upon criticism? Do you respond to the issues raised or do you refrain from reacting? A second question: how do you react when the criticism stops to be respectful?
      - RobertRoberts 7y ago
        > what is your immediate reaction upon criticism? Sometimes mad, sometimes I have to pause and take a breath and think about what is happening. Sometimes I know I am wrong and in the heat of the moment I hope someone says something, and I am glad when they do. > Do you respond to the issues raised or do you refrain from reacting? Sometimes I can say sorry immediately, sometimes I argue for a bit, or explain myself and what is going on. Nothing happens in a vacuum, so there's other events occuring that need to be addressed. (ie other people's behavior) Very very rarely do I feel the need to step away and cool off, though my wife has historically preferred this. But the more control over situations I have gained over the years the less she needs to "cool off". It's like if anyone in the room has a cool head and can calm others down and it's generally agreed in the group that this is the goal, then it only takes that one person's input and energy to affect the situation. > how do you react when the criticism stops to be respectful? No one is perfect, and I express this. I say "you know I want open criticism, but do it respectfully please". Or something along those lines. The reason this works though is that I acknowledge when I have failed along the same lines. I often have to say "sorry, I overreacted, but the main issue is still important to address...". I have an expectation of failure in my interactions now. This means if a child attempts to intervene with input or criticism, the first thing that child gets is praise for the attempt. Even if everyone is still angry and yelling, I will address the child's successful choice in trying to do the right thing. Their heart was in the right place, then second they get a criticism for their poor behavior in their attempt. And then I respond to their specific statement. (usually requiring a change in my own behavior or an apology) This is all logical and easy to say, but it only works because I've been practicing it for a long time. And I openly state (even when failing spectacuraly) that it's important for all of us to get good at this. And that we will fail repeatedly, but that's ok. Keep in mind that the more I do this and the more my family does this, the less situations occur where these kinds of actions are needed. It's a curious quasi-paradox.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional baggage that blocks you from admitting it. Teaching my children that it's okay (and indeed desirable) to admit when you were wrong, and if need be, to make amends, by direct example, is one of the best things I do as a parent, I think. But I'm also upfront with the reasoning around it - 1) I consider it a moral imperative of a good member of a society and 2) being willing to acknowledge and own my mistakes has been a major factor in my success in life - especially in IT where there's a lot of intellectual pride, it can really take people by surprise. And likewise, I have to model the behaviour I want them to show in their actions within my family. And I'll admit my heart swelled with love and pride when my 15 year old son who had a rather big row with his step-Mum wherein both said things that were hurtful to the other out of anger, initiated a conversation soon after to apologise for what he said, and she apologised what she said, and they both agreed to work harder. I know how much guts that took him, and I think it surprised my partner - she was going to take that initiative later that day when there were less younger siblings interrupting, but it was obviously weighing on his mind. I like to think that my teaching and example were reflected in his bravery in initiating what is a hard conversation for grown adults, let alone teenaged boys.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    That is a great story, and I agree that it seems your son following your example. I have never seen a child successfully change a behavior that the parent refuses to change first, unless they have some kind of personal epiphany, which I've only really seen from teens or young adults that have just left home. I have had the same experience in IT, it's brutal to have false accusations of system failures so causally thrown my way. (It's what got me to put GIT on all template editors) But it's also good experience to have so I don't repeat to back towards others because it feels so debilitating. I appreciate the "desirable" part of your statement, as it certainly is better to give up on a false premise quickly than to try and defend it only to have fail on you later.
neonate 7y ago
Isn't "Intellectual Humility: The Ultimate Guide" a bit oxymoronic?
- SllX 7y ago
  If the author has a sense of humor anything like mine, yes but it is worth it.
- kensai 7y ago
  Heh, nice touch with the word "oxymoronic" (instead of oxymoron). ;)
robocat 7y ago
Beware dark pattern: the humility “test” asks for your email at the end rather than give you a score - sad.
- mkl 7y ago
  It does mention that before you start - I backed out right away. Someone who knows about psychology: Is this article anything more than advertising for his "academy"?
  - netsharc 7y ago
    I can't bear reading it, just the "pre-roll" paragraphs read like a Tim Robbins motivational speech where each paragraph is a soundbite that is supposed to be profound or move you. Or to say it with a 4chan meme: https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png
grabbalacious 7y ago
>On the other hand, philosophers agree That's hilarious. I've never noticed philosophers agreeing about anything. One thing I would question is the necessity of having viewpoints at all about things which aren't connected to some problem in my life. I don't need to take a position about whether triangles are better than octagons, for instance, unless I'm trying to build something out of octagons. Sometimes opinions are necessary, e.g. a physician must make a diagnosis, but on the whole progress depends upon solving problems and not upon debating them. Furthermore, the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them and use your solution to make further progress.
- hu3 7y ago
  > the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them and use your solution to make further progress. While I don't generaly recommend doing this with superiors at work, it got me a promotion once. I was a middle level developer and was tasked with building the authentication layer of our monolithic application. Our team lead insisted that I created a microservice for that for "futureproofness sake". I argued that keeping the code inside our monolith would have many benefits like shaving dev time and being simpler to mantain. By chance the CTO was nearby, got interested in our discussion, and gave me the choice as long as I could deliver the promisses and demonstrate the benefits. I went home and wrote the authentication layer in a sleepless night. It was finished next day, included some tests and the code was trivial to understand. A month later my team lead was downgraded and transfered to another team (he left the company not long after) and I was promoted to team lead senior dev. Be careful when pulling stuff like this because often your superior has more experience and does know better. In my case the team lead was a bit too much hype driven and it resulted in his downfall.
  - mewpmewp2 7y ago
    I love that. It seems to me that people around me can be so tunnel visioned and obsessed with micro services which in the end just creates so much complexity and it will be just much more difficult to maintain and debug in the future.
- 7y ago
kristianc 7y ago
On the topic of Intellectual Humility... > In his entertaining and provocative keynote presentations, Shane Snow shatters common wisdom through gripping stories and surprising research on innovation and human behavior. The BBC says that his ideas, "could change your life," and Maxim adds, "Snow is not telling you how to succeed; he's daring you to do it."
vemv 7y ago
I have the impression that most 'smart' people (at least, college-smart) have lived most of their lives thinking (quite rightfully) that they're the smartest person in any given room. Such mentality may work quite well for the first 25-30 years of their lives. But then they'll be put to work with other people just as smart as them, and they'll be unable to collaborate constructively. Some people are able to realise this breakthrough moment in their careers, and improve on their own. For the rest, I wish college had prepared them more specifically for intellectual humility.
- archivist1 7y ago
  I remember feeling I was really good at math in highschool and thinking I was really smart. Going to college, I attended a few math group seminars for talented students and I realized there were a lot of people way smarter at math than me. It was pretty shocking. But at least it happened when I was 20.
- foobar_ 7y ago
  Smart people collaborate. Scientists collaborate. Flat earthers don't.
  - mewpmewp2 7y ago
    What? Some flat earthers do collaborate with each other. Some scientists do not collaborate. Collaboration is one aspect of being smart. It is definitely not a full indicator of intelligence.
fuball63 7y ago
I work for a company where intellectual humility is a core value. It is expected of all of us to be curious and also accepting of being wrong sometimes. I'm in tech, and compared to other places I've worked, there are significantly fewer of the stereotypical pretentious nerd types that are tough to get along with. Strong opinions, loosely held, is a mantra I use.
- b0afc375b5 7y ago
  How does one go about finding such companies?
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    Hmm, good question. I think I work for such a company, I guess an easy tell would be during an interview coding exercise, if they explicitly invite you to use a search engine or API documentation etc. In a company where people take excessive pride in their intellect, I find that it often manifests in the "What, you don't know this exact thing I don't know?!" attitude you can find in some interviewers (to quote the infamous tweet: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.") Likewise, if they want you to write actual code, their culture of intellectual humility will manifest in asking beforehand if you have a preferred tool and making it available, or inviting you to bring your laptop etc. instead of forcing you to write code on a whiteboard (bonus points if they point out every semi-colon you missed), or in their arbitrary editor of choice, complete with customised key-bindings that combine the "best" of Emacs AND Vim.
    - fuball63 7y ago
      I think this is a good start for sure. I had a take home assignment. Also, a lot of the interviewing was personality based, so that was a good sign too.
  - fuball63 7y ago
    I found this company through a friend that worked there, and he just got lucky I think.
friendlybus 7y ago
Too much of this is a simple retelling of haidt's book and Malcolm. Read the original sources and skip the self-promoting dross of the 'intellectually humble'.

51 points by axiomdata316 7y ago

I found that as a father teaching my children to confidently, and respectfully, challenge me has brought a tremendous amount of peace to the family. Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional baggage that blocks you from admitting it. Having people in your life that are strong enough to deal with the discomfort of confrontation with the singular goal of peace is more valuable than your pride. But it also allows the same interaction to be reciprocated when others are wrong in the family and it's a self supporting system to overcome arrogance, angst and many other negative events and emotions.

MichaelMoser123 7y ago
how old are your children? At what age did you start to teach them in how to challenge you respectfully ?
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  The first moment it happened was when my oldest was about 7 (My oldest is 22 youngest is 13) and she yelled at me for doing something wrong. (I was a lousy parent early on) But she was right and I was wrong, and it hurt really bad (emotionally/pride) but I admitted she was right, but I asked her to speak to me respectfully about when I am wrong. This took years of patience and still my oldest doesn't do well with this, but the other kids are fairly ok with it. It's not perfect, we all still have some conflict, but the resolutions are swift and emotions don't linger after a conflict. It's taken more time for me to figure out how to treat others well than it has to teach my kids. Once I figured something out, getting them to behave like I am is the easier part.
  - MichaelMoser123 7y ago
    fascinating. Now what is your immediate reaction upon criticism? Do you respond to the issues raised or do you refrain from reacting? A second question: how do you react when the criticism stops to be respectful?
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      > what is your immediate reaction upon criticism? Sometimes mad, sometimes I have to pause and take a breath and think about what is happening. Sometimes I know I am wrong and in the heat of the moment I hope someone says something, and I am glad when they do. > Do you respond to the issues raised or do you refrain from reacting? Sometimes I can say sorry immediately, sometimes I argue for a bit, or explain myself and what is going on. Nothing happens in a vacuum, so there's other events occuring that need to be addressed. (ie other people's behavior) Very very rarely do I feel the need to step away and cool off, though my wife has historically preferred this. But the more control over situations I have gained over the years the less she needs to "cool off". It's like if anyone in the room has a cool head and can calm others down and it's generally agreed in the group that this is the goal, then it only takes that one person's input and energy to affect the situation. > how do you react when the criticism stops to be respectful? No one is perfect, and I express this. I say "you know I want open criticism, but do it respectfully please". Or something along those lines. The reason this works though is that I acknowledge when I have failed along the same lines. I often have to say "sorry, I overreacted, but the main issue is still important to address...". I have an expectation of failure in my interactions now. This means if a child attempts to intervene with input or criticism, the first thing that child gets is praise for the attempt. Even if everyone is still angry and yelling, I will address the child's successful choice in trying to do the right thing. Their heart was in the right place, then second they get a criticism for their poor behavior in their attempt. And then I respond to their specific statement. (usually requiring a change in my own behavior or an apology) This is all logical and easy to say, but it only works because I've been practicing it for a long time. And I openly state (even when failing spectacuraly) that it's important for all of us to get good at this. And that we will fail repeatedly, but that's ok. Keep in mind that the more I do this and the more my family does this, the less situations occur where these kinds of actions are needed. It's a curious quasi-paradox.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional baggage that blocks you from admitting it. Teaching my children that it's okay (and indeed desirable) to admit when you were wrong, and if need be, to make amends, by direct example, is one of the best things I do as a parent, I think. But I'm also upfront with the reasoning around it - 1) I consider it a moral imperative of a good member of a society and 2) being willing to acknowledge and own my mistakes has been a major factor in my success in life - especially in IT where there's a lot of intellectual pride, it can really take people by surprise. And likewise, I have to model the behaviour I want them to show in their actions within my family. And I'll admit my heart swelled with love and pride when my 15 year old son who had a rather big row with his step-Mum wherein both said things that were hurtful to the other out of anger, initiated a conversation soon after to apologise for what he said, and she apologised what she said, and they both agreed to work harder. I know how much guts that took him, and I think it surprised my partner - she was going to take that initiative later that day when there were less younger siblings interrupting, but it was obviously weighing on his mind. I like to think that my teaching and example were reflected in his bravery in initiating what is a hard conversation for grown adults, let alone teenaged boys.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  That is a great story, and I agree that it seems your son following your example. I have never seen a child successfully change a behavior that the parent refuses to change first, unless they have some kind of personal epiphany, which I've only really seen from teens or young adults that have just left home. I have had the same experience in IT, it's brutal to have false accusations of system failures so causally thrown my way. (It's what got me to put GIT on all template editors) But it's also good experience to have so I don't repeat to back towards others because it feels so debilitating. I appreciate the "desirable" part of your statement, as it certainly is better to give up on a false premise quickly than to try and defend it only to have fail on you later.

neonate 7y ago

Isn't "Intellectual Humility: The Ultimate Guide" a bit oxymoronic?

SllX 7y ago
If the author has a sense of humor anything like mine, yes but it is worth it.
kensai 7y ago
Heh, nice touch with the word "oxymoronic" (instead of oxymoron). ;)

robocat 7y ago

Beware dark pattern: the humility “test” asks for your email at the end rather than give you a score - sad.

mkl 7y ago
It does mention that before you start - I backed out right away. Someone who knows about psychology: Is this article anything more than advertising for his "academy"?
- netsharc 7y ago
  I can't bear reading it, just the "pre-roll" paragraphs read like a Tim Robbins motivational speech where each paragraph is a soundbite that is supposed to be profound or move you. Or to say it with a 4chan meme: https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png

grabbalacious 7y ago

>On the other hand, philosophers agree That's hilarious. I've never noticed philosophers agreeing about anything. One thing I would question is the necessity of having viewpoints at all about things which aren't connected to some problem in my life. I don't need to take a position about whether triangles are better than octagons, for instance, unless I'm trying to build something out of octagons. Sometimes opinions are necessary, e.g. a physician must make a diagnosis, but on the whole progress depends upon solving problems and not upon debating them. Furthermore, the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them and use your solution to make further progress.

hu3 7y ago
> the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them and use your solution to make further progress. While I don't generaly recommend doing this with superiors at work, it got me a promotion once. I was a middle level developer and was tasked with building the authentication layer of our monolithic application. Our team lead insisted that I created a microservice for that for "futureproofness sake". I argued that keeping the code inside our monolith would have many benefits like shaving dev time and being simpler to mantain. By chance the CTO was nearby, got interested in our discussion, and gave me the choice as long as I could deliver the promisses and demonstrate the benefits. I went home and wrote the authentication layer in a sleepless night. It was finished next day, included some tests and the code was trivial to understand. A month later my team lead was downgraded and transfered to another team (he left the company not long after) and I was promoted to team lead senior dev. Be careful when pulling stuff like this because often your superior has more experience and does know better. In my case the team lead was a bit too much hype driven and it resulted in his downfall.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  I love that. It seems to me that people around me can be so tunnel visioned and obsessed with micro services which in the end just creates so much complexity and it will be just much more difficult to maintain and debug in the future.
7y ago

kristianc 7y ago

On the topic of Intellectual Humility... > In his entertaining and provocative keynote presentations, Shane Snow shatters common wisdom through gripping stories and surprising research on innovation and human behavior. The BBC says that his ideas, "could change your life," and Maxim adds, "Snow is not telling you how to succeed; he's daring you to do it."

vemv 7y ago

I have the impression that most 'smart' people (at least, college-smart) have lived most of their lives thinking (quite rightfully) that they're the smartest person in any given room. Such mentality may work quite well for the first 25-30 years of their lives. But then they'll be put to work with other people just as smart as them, and they'll be unable to collaborate constructively. Some people are able to realise this breakthrough moment in their careers, and improve on their own. For the rest, I wish college had prepared them more specifically for intellectual humility.

archivist1 7y ago
I remember feeling I was really good at math in highschool and thinking I was really smart. Going to college, I attended a few math group seminars for talented students and I realized there were a lot of people way smarter at math than me. It was pretty shocking. But at least it happened when I was 20.
foobar_ 7y ago
Smart people collaborate. Scientists collaborate. Flat earthers don't.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  What? Some flat earthers do collaborate with each other. Some scientists do not collaborate. Collaboration is one aspect of being smart. It is definitely not a full indicator of intelligence.

fuball63 7y ago

I work for a company where intellectual humility is a core value. It is expected of all of us to be curious and also accepting of being wrong sometimes. I'm in tech, and compared to other places I've worked, there are significantly fewer of the stereotypical pretentious nerd types that are tough to get along with. Strong opinions, loosely held, is a mantra I use.

b0afc375b5 7y ago
How does one go about finding such companies?
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  Hmm, good question. I think I work for such a company, I guess an easy tell would be during an interview coding exercise, if they explicitly invite you to use a search engine or API documentation etc. In a company where people take excessive pride in their intellect, I find that it often manifests in the "What, you don't know this exact thing I don't know?!" attitude you can find in some interviewers (to quote the infamous tweet: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.") Likewise, if they want you to write actual code, their culture of intellectual humility will manifest in asking beforehand if you have a preferred tool and making it available, or inviting you to bring your laptop etc. instead of forcing you to write code on a whiteboard (bonus points if they point out every semi-colon you missed), or in their arbitrary editor of choice, complete with customised key-bindings that combine the "best" of Emacs AND Vim.
  - fuball63 7y ago
    I think this is a good start for sure. I had a take home assignment. Also, a lot of the interviewing was personality based, so that was a good sign too.
- fuball63 7y ago
  I found this company through a friend that worked there, and he just got lucky I think.

friendlybus 7y ago

Too much of this is a simple retelling of haidt's book and Malcolm. Read the original sources and skip the self-promoting dross of the 'intellectually humble'.