Spiritual barriers to humility: a multidimensional study

Many spiritual and religious traditions view spiritual pride as contrary to humility; however, the rising empirical research on spirituality and humility has involved limited investigation of the variety of spiritual barriers that inhibit a humble disposition. The present study investigated three distinct spiritual barriers (spiritual grandiosity, insecure attachment to God, and hunger for idealisation) as independent predictors of dispositional humility among graduate trainees in the helping professions (N?=?162) from a Protestant-affiliated university in the USA. Results indicated that each construct of interest predicted lower levels of humility when controlling for both spiritual impression management and the other spiritual barriers. These findings supported theoretical assertions of the discriminant validity of each independent variable in predicting lower levels of humility and supported construct validity of the humility measure. Conceptual considerations and suggestions for future research and graduate training are discussed.