Intellectual humility and existentially relevant moral decisions

Research on intellectual humility has grown, but little work has explored its role in moral decisions. Building on recent work on the Veil of Ignorance, we randomly assigned some participants to imagine being part of an existentially-threatening situation that could possibly lead to the greater good for society (i.e. The Human Challenge Experiments [HCE]). We predicted that informing participants that they might be part of such a study (i.e. the veil of ignorance [VOI]) would reduce HCE support, and that this would be amplified among intellectually humble participants. A preregistered study (N = 1,032) drawn from three samples, including participants from the United States (n = 346), the Netherlands (n = 340), and Hong Kong (n = 346), confirmed our hypothesis. In addition, this effect was pronounced for those high in intellectual humility. This work offers a novel contribution by examining the role of intellectual humility in existentially-relevant moral decisions.