TY - JOUR
T1 - Developing intellectual humility in adolescence
T2 - Why it matters and how schools can help
AU - Porter, Tenelle
AU - Ballard, Parissa J.
AU - Valant, Jon
AU - Newark, Daniel
AU - Baehr, Jason
AU - Hoyle, Rick H.
AU - Jayawickreme, Eranda
AU - Macpherson, Anna
AU - Smith, Mark
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2026/6
Y1 - 2026/6
N2 - Humans are not omniscient. For individuals, appropriately reckoning with intellectual limitations requires intellectual humility or acknowledging the boundaries of their knowledge. Adolescence is a time of immense developmental potential, but is intellectual humility valuable for adolescents to develop, can they develop it, and how might it be developed? Rooted in recent research, in this article, we describe why intellectual humility benefits adolescents in intellectual, social, and civic domains. We also explain why adolescents have the capacity to develop intellectual humility due to developmental changes in both cognitive sophistication and self-understanding. Finally, drawing on an emerging evidence base, we describe how experiences in school shape the development of intellectual humility and we identify priorities for future work in this area.
AB - Humans are not omniscient. For individuals, appropriately reckoning with intellectual limitations requires intellectual humility or acknowledging the boundaries of their knowledge. Adolescence is a time of immense developmental potential, but is intellectual humility valuable for adolescents to develop, can they develop it, and how might it be developed? Rooted in recent research, in this article, we describe why intellectual humility benefits adolescents in intellectual, social, and civic domains. We also explain why adolescents have the capacity to develop intellectual humility due to developmental changes in both cognitive sophistication and self-understanding. Finally, drawing on an emerging evidence base, we describe how experiences in school shape the development of intellectual humility and we identify priorities for future work in this area.
KW - Adolescence
KW - Civic development
KW - Cognitive development
KW - Intellectual humility
KW - Social development
KW - adolescence
KW - cognitive development
KW - intellectual humility
KW - civic development
KW - social development
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105040971226
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105040971226#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1093/cdpers/aadag001
DO - 10.1093/cdpers/aadag001
M3 - Article
SN - 1750-8592
VL - 20
SP - 123
EP - 130
JO - Child Development Perspectives
JF - Child Development Perspectives
IS - 2
ER -