The trust signaling hypothesis of humility: how humble leaders elicit greater monetary contributions

ABSTRACT

We advance prior work on humility by proposing the trust signaling hypothesis of humility. Five preregistered experiments (N = 3,302), examined whether humble leaders humility would elicit more favorable ratings, greater trust, and generate behavioral intentions toward making financial contributions. Experiment 1 (n = 864) revealed that humble leaders elicited more favorable ratings and intentions to make financial contributions, even when leader competence was low. These interactive effects were mediated by perceived trustworthiness. Experiment 2 (n = 807) replicated these effects and compared for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Experiment 3 (n = 823) clarified these effects and compared domestic and international organizations. Experiment 4 (n = 375), replicated these effects using a more direct leader description. Experiment 5 (n = 433) revealed a boundary condition, wherein likable leaders were viewed as or more favorably than humble leaders. We discuss the central role of trust and the financial appeal of humble leaders.

KEYWORDS:

• Humility
• leadership
• trust
• donation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The data are openly accessible at https://osf.io/eb8yp/

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2222373.

Notes

1. Because we did not have a priori predictions about gender, and because gender did not consistently moderate the results, we do not focus heavily on this variable in our results or discussion.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by a grant (60622) from the John Templeton Foundation