Development And Application Of Chinese University Students’ Humility Scale

Humility is widely accepted as a character strength or virtue, yet very little research has been done as to its development or benefits, partly due to the lack of a reliable and valid explicit measure or scale. Since to date no such scale has been published, the current study investigates the importance and nature of dispositional humility and develops a measure to be analyzed as to its reliability and validity.First we based on literature analysis and made a half-structural interview for 10 university students. Then developed six dimensions of humility:accurate self-assessment, introverted, thanksgiving, sustained progress, respect others, openness. Potential scales were derived from participants’recollection of humbling experiences and mature scale of humility.In study 1,350 students from Zhejiang Normal University (120 males,215 females) completed 59 items generated to reflect these six dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) resulted in a five factor solution comprising 20 items that explained 51.481% of the variance in humility scale and reflected the hypothesized factor structure. Principal components analysis revealed five humility subscales:accurate self-assessment, openness, introverted, thanksgiving, sustained progress, openness.In Study 2,430 respondents (151 males,279 females) from all over the country completed two Humility Scales, the Narcissism Scale, Machiavellianism Scale, Emotional Intelligence Scale, Forgiveness Scale, Altruism Scale, Subjective Well-being Scale. In a second sample, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) replicated the initial factor structure of the humility scale and indicated a satisfactory goodness-of-fit. Internal consistencies for the subscales were 0.683,0.626,0.629,0.617,0.511, supporting the reliability of the humility scale.In sum, this research resulted in the development of the humility, a reliable, comprehensive measure of humility scale that has promising validity and considerable potential utility in research.Researchers can use information from the Humility scale to better understand how it relates to other concepts of positive psychology and how increasing humility might be advantageous to interpersonal relationships.