From Potential to Practice: Intellectual Humility During Search on Debated Topics
Alisa Rieger, Frank Bredius, Mariët Theune, Maria Soledad Pera. 2024. “From Potential to Practice: Intellectual Humility During Search on Debated Topics”. In Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR 2024). ACM, pp. 130-141. DOI:10.1145/3627508.3638306
Abstract
An essential characteristic for unbiased and diligent information-seeking that can enable informed opinion formation and decision-making is intellectual humility (IH), the awareness of the limitations of one’s knowledge and opinions. While researchers have recognized the potential to boost IH in individuals, the effect of such interventions on their search behavior, along with the broader significance of IH in the context of web search on debated topics remains unexplored. In this paper, we present the results of a preregistered user study (N = 299) that we conducted to (1) test the effect of three interventions that boost self-reported IH on opinionated individuals’ search behavior and (2) explore the role of IH in the search process of opinionated individuals more broadly. IH-boosting interventions did not affect search behavior; we attribute this to the high familiarity of the search environment, prompting searchers to default