Actor–partner interdependence of humility and relationship quality among couples transitioning to parenthood

The transition to parenthood is a challenging experience that often strains relationships, but perceiving one’s partner as humble (actor relational humility) and being perceived by one’s partner as humble (partner relational humility) were hypothesized to benefit couples during this transition. Married couples (N = 69) were tracked from the third trimester of pregnancy through 21 months postpartum. Husbands and wives provided ratings of relational humility and dyadic adjustment. Actor–partner interdependence models tested actor and partner effects of relational humility on dyadic adjustment across the transition. Although couples declined in dyadic adjustment over the transition at the same rate regardless of relational humility (counter to Hypothesis 2), those higher in relational humility reported greater dyadic adjustment at each time point during the transition (consistent with Hypothesis 1). These findings support the benefits of relational humility to relationship quality, and we call for further research into humility’s benefits during times of relationship transition.     

Intellectual humility and between-party animus: Implications for affective polarization in two community samples

The extent to which individual differences in personality traits and cognitive styles diminish affective polarization (AP) is largely unknown. We address this gap by examining whether intellectual humility (IH) buffers against AP. We examined the associations between domain-general and domain-specific measures of IH, on the one hand, and AP, on the other, in two community samples. Measures of IH were robustly negatively associated with AP. Moreover, IH significantly incremented measures of allied constructs, including general humility, in the statistical prediction of AP. There was some evidence that IH buffered the relationships between strong political belief and AP. Future research is needed to clarify whether IH is sufficient to protect against AP in the presence of ideological extremity.