Another aspect of intellectual humility that may reduce susceptibility to misinformation is enhanced metacognitive insight (Deffler et al., 2016; Leary et al., 2017; Porter et al., 2022). Specifically, if those higher in intellectual humility are better able to distinguish between their own accurate and inaccurate judgments about the truth (or falsity) of information, then they may be less prone to sharing that information with others, more likely to seek out additional information, and\/or more receptive to updating their beliefs. Therefore, in this study we examined the relationship between intellectual humility and people\u2019s ability to discern between true and false headlines, as well as whether intellectual humility is associated with greater metacognitive insight into those truthfulness judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intellectual Humility<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
There are multiple definitions and measures of intellectual humility; however, metacognitive awareness of one\u2019s own thinking and limitations, is common to most definitions (Alfano et al., 2017; Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; Leary et al., 2017; McElroy et al., 2014; for a review see Porter et al., 2022). Many definitions also emphasize related aspects, such as openness to conflicting ideas, acceptance of the potential to be wrong, and a willingness to update beliefs in response to evidence (Alfano et al., 2017; Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016). Some researchers have also highlighted the importance of other facets of intellectual humility, such as respecting others\u2019 viewpoints even if they differ from one\u2019s own, and acknowledging the worth and value of others\u2019 intellectual contributions (Porter et al., 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between intellectual humility and susceptibility to both misinformation and conspiracy theories. Although misinformation and conspiracy theories are distinct constructs, they are interrelated because many conspiracy theories are based on misinformation and some, but not all, misinformation is conspiratorial in nature (Lewandowsky et al., 2017; Tay et al., 2024). These studies have found that intellectual humility is associated with reduced endorsement of conspiracy theories, more positive vaccination attitudes and intentions, reduced endorsement of pseudoscience, and reduced susceptibility to misinformation (Bowes et al., 2021; Bowes & Tasimi, 2022; Huynh & Bayles, 2022; Huynh & Senger, 2021; Koetke et al., 2022, 2023; Senger & Huynh, 2021). Relatedly, the actively open-minded thinking about evidence scale (AOT-E; Pennycook et al., 2020), has also been found to be associated with reduced endorsement of conspiracy theories, paranormal beliefs, moralistic thinking, and anti-science attitudes. Although actively open-minded thinking is not generally defined as a facet of intellectual humility, there is considerable overlap between actively open-minded thinking about evidence and some aspects of intellectual humility, although actively open-minded thinking places an even greater emphasis on willingness to consider evidence and update one\u2019s beliefs. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The above findings are promising in terms of establishing intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking about evidence as individual differences that may reduce susceptibility to misinformation. However, one important limitation is that prior research does not distinguish between ability to discern misinformation and response bias. In the context of misinformation, discernment is defined as accurately identifying false information as false, and true information as true<\/a>, whereas response bias is the overall tendency to label information as true or false, regardless of veracity (Batailler et al., 2022; Gawronski et al., 2023). Disentangling discernment from response bias is particularly important because a key component of intellectual humility is an awareness of one\u2019s own limitations (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; Leary et al., 2017; Porter et al., 2022). Therefore, it is possible that what appears to be reduced susceptibility to misinformation is actually driven by a conservative response bias (Batailler et al., 2022; Modirrousta-Galian & Higham, 2023). That is, individuals higher in intellectual humility might be excessively cautious or skeptical, and therefore may be more prone to label even true information as false. This is potentially problematic because, just as belief in misinformation can have negative consequences for both individuals and society, failure to accept true information can have potential negative consequences, and may lead people to be underinformed, reducing their ability to form beliefs based on evidence, and to follow advice or support policies that are based on accurate information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Signal detection theory (SDT) is a longstanding and well-established approach for separating discernment from response bias, and recently it has increasingly been applied to misinformation research (Batailler et al., 2022; Gawronski et al., 2023; Modirrousta-Galian & Higham, 2023; Modirrousta-Galian et al., 2023; Wixted, 2020). The application of a SDT framework to misinformation has already provided important insights, revealing that cognitive reflection is associated with improved misinformation discernment, whereas partisan bias is associated with changes in response bias (lower threshold to judge politically aligned information as true; Batailler et al., 2022; Gawronski et al., 2023); SDT has also proven useful in examinations of the efficacy of some existing misinformation interventions<\/a> (Modirrousta-Galian & Higham, 2023; Modirrousta-Galian et al., 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the strong emphasis on metacognition as a key component of intellectual humility, there is surprisingly little research on the relationship between intellectual humility and performance on metacognitive tasks (Porter et al., 2022). That said, some prior research has investigated the relationship between intellectual humility and overclaiming, producing mixed evidence. Both Alfano et al. (2017) and Krumrei-Mancuso et al. (2020) found that lower intellectual humility was associated with overclaiming of knowledge one did not have. However, Deffler et al. (2016) applied SDT and found that intellectual humility was related to improved discernment on an overclaiming task, but was unrelated to response bias (i.e., unrelated to a tendency to overclaim). Bowes et al. (2023) found that for both college and community samples, intellectual humility was associated with greater discernment on an overclaiming task, but an association with response bias (i.e., tendency to overclaim) was only found for the general community sample. Bowes et al. (2023) also found that intellectual humility was associated with better discernment on the bullshit receptivity scale but not response bias, with prior research also finding that bullshit receptivity is associated with poorer fake news discernment (Pennycook & Rand, 2020). Both Bowes et al. (2023) and Leman et al. (2023) found that lower intellectual humility was associated with greater overestimation of one\u2019s abilities, although the strength and significance of these relationships varied across measures; both studies also found some limited evidence that intellectual humility was negatively related to overconfidence, but again the strength and significance of these relationships varied across measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These previous applications of SDT to misinformation and intellectual humility have focused on SDT for so-called type-1 tasks, which are tasks requiring participants to distinguish between signal and noise trials, such as when discerning true claims (signal) from false ones (noise). However, SDT can also be applied to metacognitive judgments or decisions, using what is known as type-2 SDT (Higham, 2011). Like type-1 SDT, type-2 SDT also produces two separate measures, discernment and response bias. However, in the case of type-2 SDT these measures index metacognitive discernment (i.e., ability to discern one\u2019s own correct and incorrect responses) and metacognitive response bias (e.g., tendency to report or withhold one\u2019s type-1 judgments). Given the central role of metacognition in intellectual humility, the present study included a type-2 task to allow for examination of the relationship between intellectual humility and metacognitive discernment and response bias. This enables us to expand upon previous work on intellectual humility and metacognition, which has primarily focused on type-1 discernment, response bias, and confidence, by examining whether greater intellectual humility is also associated with being better able to distinguish one\u2019s own correct and incorrect responses. Given an awareness of the limitations of one\u2019s knowledge is a core component of intellectual humility, finding a positive association between intellectual humility and metacognitive discernment would also provide convergent validity for the intellectual-humility measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The present study used a standard misinformation-detection task, in which participants were presented with a series of news headlines (Pennycook et al., 2021). Participants were provided with a cover story instructing them to imagine they were part of a non-partisan online group who tried to promote true news and debunk misinformation. Therefore, their task was to evaluate the truthfulness of each headline and then decide whether to share these truthfulness ratings with others (see Procedure for more detail; full instructions details are provided in Supplementary Materials at https:\/\/osf.io\/brh83\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For each headline, participants judged the truthfulness of the headline, with type-1 SDT used to gain measures of misinformation discernment (d<\/em>\u2019), response bias (C<\/em>; overall tendency to respond true or false), and area under the curve (AUC).Following each truthfulness judgment, participants then decided whether to share (report) that truthfulness rating or withhold it, with type-2 SDT used to determine measures of metacognitive discernment (d<\/em>\u2019), response bias (C<\/em>; overall tendency to report or withhold truthfulness judgments), and AUC. Additionally, to capture the multi-dimensional nature of intellectual humility and examine which dimensions are most strongly related to misinformation susceptibility and metacognition, we included three measures that focused on awareness of one\u2019s own limitations (Leary et al., 2017), open mindedness (Alfano et al., 2017), and attitudes towards evidence and belief updating (Pennycook et al., 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had two key hypotheses regarding the relationships between intellectual humility, misinformation susceptibility, and metacognition. (1) Consistent with prior research, we predicted that individuals higher in intellectual humility would be better able to discern between true and false news (type-1 d<\/em>\u2019 and AUC; Bowes & Tasimi, 2022; Koetke et al., 2022, 2023); (2) because metacognition, specifically an awareness of the limitations of one\u2019s knowledge, is a core component of intellectual humility, we predicted that individuals higher in intellectual humility would be better able to discern between their own accurate and inaccurate truthfulness judgments (type-2 d<\/em>\u2019 and AUC; Alfano et al., 2017; Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; Leary et al., 2017; Zmigrod et al., 2019). We did not make any specific predictions regarding the relationship between intellectual humility and either type-1 or type-2 response bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This study used a correlational design, with intellectual humility as the independent variable, and the six SDT measures (type-1 d<\/em>\u2019, type-1 C<\/em>, type-1 AUC, type-2 d<\/em>\u2019, type-2 C<\/em>, type-2 AUC) as the dependent variables. More detailed explanations of the SDT measures and how they were calculated are presented in the Results section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An a-priori power analysis for a correlation was conducted using G*Power 3 (Faul et al., 2007) and suggested a minimum sample size of 191 participants to detect a small effect size of r<\/em> = 0.20 (\u03b1 = 0.05, 1 \u2013 \u03b2 = 0.80). This effect size was chosen based on our reading of prior literature and because it is the median effect size for individual differences research (Gignac & Szodorai, 2016). To ensure sufficient power even after potential exclusions, 246 U.S.-based participants were recruited via the online platform Prolific. Participants were reimbursed $4.75 USD for completing the study. Prolific was used to collect a more diverse and demographically representative sample than could be obtained from a standard university cohort (Palan & Schitter, 2018). The a-priori exclusion criteria were: self-reporting only \u2018fair\u2019 or \u2018poor\u2019 English proficiency (score of 0 or 1 on a 0-4 scale; n<\/em> = 0); self-reported lack of effort (n <\/em>= 0); self-reporting residing outside the U.S. (n <\/em>= 2). This resulted in a final sample size of N<\/em> = 244. The sample included 126 men, 113 women, 4 non-binary participants, and 1 who opted not to disclose their gender; 36 participants identified as Republicans, 115 as Democrats, and 93 as Independents; mean age was 39.82 years (SD<\/em> = 12.33, age range 19-73).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty headlines (30 true, 30 false) were selected for inclusion from an initial pool of 120 headlines. Headlines were selected based on two independent pilot studies, in which the headlines were rated on shareability and current relevance (Pilot 1) and believability and political leaning (Pilot 2; see Supplementary Materials https:\/\/osf.io\/brh83\/<\/a> for more details). The most currently relevant and shareable headlines were chosen to increase participant engagement and maximize external validity; political leaning of both true and false headlines was balanced to minimize the impact of political ideology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For each headline, participants were asked \u201cDo you believe this news headline is true or false?\u201d and responded on a 6-point scale from \u201ccertainly false<\/em>\u201d (0) to \u201ccertainly true<\/em>\u201d (5). Participants were then immediately shown their truthfulness judgment and asked to make a metacognitive report\/withhold judgment. Specifically, participants were asked \u201cWould you be willing to report this judgment?\u201d and responded on a 6-point scale ranging from \u201ccertainly withhold<\/em>\u201d (0) to \u201ccertainly report<\/em>\u201d (5). Figure 1 contains an example trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The GIH was used to measure awareness of one\u2019s own limitations and belief flexibility (Leary et al., 2017). The GIH is a six-item measure that includes items such as \u201cI question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because they could be wrong\u201d. Items are answered on a 5-point scale anchored by \u201cnot at all true or characteristic of me<\/em>\u201d (0) and \u201cextremely true or characteristic of me<\/em>\u201d (4). Previous research has found the GIH exhibits robust construct and criterion validity, and good internal consistency (Leary et al., 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Example Trial for a False Headline<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nSignal Detection Theory and Metacognition<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Present Study<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Method<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Participants<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Materials<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
News Headlines<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
General Intellectual Humility Scale (GIH)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/advances.in\/psychology\/wp-content\/uploads\/figure1_aip00025-1.webp\")