Just What the Doctor Ordered: Effects of Humility on Medical Adherence

Humble people are open to new information, are other-focused, and hold egalitarian beliefs. This project will investigate whether humble people are more likely to be adherent to medical advice. Study 1 will examine trait humility, using the Honest-Humility subscale of the HEXACO and the General Medication Adherence Scale (GMAS). Study 2 will examine whether increasing a person’s state humility affects adherence intentions. Participants will be given a health screening survey and will be told that they have a fictitious disease called thioamine acetlyase (TAA) deficiency. A modified GMAS will measure their adherence intention to treatment of this disease. In Study 1, we expect a positive relationship with higher trait humility correlating with higher adherence. In Study 2, we expect the experimental group to have higher humility scores and higher adherence intentions to pursue treatment. Overall, the findings will provide a better understanding of how people’s humility may affect their health