Humility and the Healthy Ego

Part 1, Mistaking the House for the Door

As I've recently shared here, in The Shape of Joy I recount how positive psychologists have put humility on the map as being integral to mental health. A humble ego is a healthy ego. That may come as a bit of a surprise, especially if you've been raised in conservative Christian spaces. Many of us have internalized the message that "to be humble" means thinking less of yourself. Humility, in this view, is associated with words like "humiliation."

But as psychologists have taken a closer look at humility that's not what they have found. Humble people are, rather, people who aren't overly wrapped up in themselves, either negatively or positively. That is to say, humble people don't denigrate themselves. Nor do they artificially inflate their egos. As described in the research, humble people are characterized by the following:

• An accurate perception of the self free of distortion (either negatively or positively)

• Being other-focused rather than self-focused

• A willingness to admit mistakes and failures

• Teachable and coachable, open to other viewpoints

• A lack of superiority and an appreciation of the value of others

• A secure, accepting, non-reactive identity

Again, I've shared this list before. But I've recently taught through this material in two different classes, one graduate and the other undergraduate. And in describing this research I've started to have some questions about if "humility" is the right word to describe all this.

To illustrate my question, imagine I shared the bulleted list above with you and asked, "What one word, or short description, would describe a person like this?" Would "humility" be the word you'd chose? Try reading the list to someone else, asking them to come up with a word or brief description. "This person is very _______." My hunch is that what you'd hear are things like "healthy," "secure," and "well-adjusted." Even "not real." Because what the list seems to capture is the very picture of mental health, a secure and extremely well-adjusted person. If so, this brings me to my question: In the positive psychology research has the word humility come to mean healthy?

Take, for example, the point that humble people possess a secure, accepting, non-reactive identity. This is backwards. The psychological cart is being put before the horse. It would be more accurate to say that people with secure, accepting, and non-reactive identities are humble. In fact, as I point out in The Shape of Joy, the key to the whole list above is the security and stability of your identity.

So, how did we this get backwards in the positive psychology research? Here's the speculation I floated with my classes. Humility was the door positive psychologists used to enter into the house of the healthy ego. And once they walked through that door they observed all these amazing things. A secure identity. Lack of self-focus. Etc. And since they walked into this house through the door of humility they named the whole house humility. But humility is just a door, one entryway into the healthy ego. Humility isn't the house itself. Which is exactly why direct imperatives to "be humble" tend to go awry. Humility imposed upon an unhealthy ego will backfire. Humility is, rather, a symptom of a secure ego, a downstream effect. Humility flows out of a secure and grounded identity as an expression of that identity and not as something imposed upon that identity.