Humble people: 5 characteristics that define them

Humility is one of the personal characteristics that have been historically valued and praised the most. However, in practice humble people are not the most predominant in our society.

In this article we will see what are the typical characteristics of humble people that help us to recognize them through their actions and attitudes.

• Related article: "The 10 types of values: principles that govern our lives"

How are humble people?

Virtually all nations have stories that narrate the lives of humble and hardworking people who strive to improve some aspect of society, even if they exaggerate to do so. In any case, it is clear that it is a value that is usually promoted to try to get everyone to catch it.

However, humble people are not the norm, but the exception; Most people do not excel at this characteristic, in the same way that most are not characterized by being the opposite, narcissistic and conceited.

The fact of opting for humility brings positive advantages for society, but for those who practice this habit

it is not always a behavioral dynamic that brings you personal benefits; this depends a lot on the context.

Partly because of this, and because in a culture dominated by individualism and the logic of personal marketing it sells more to communicate To do something worth communicating, humble people are not the most common, although they are not an absolute rarity. Let's see then what are the personality characteristics that help us to recognize them.

1. They value hard work

Humble people are mentalized that most situations in life, unless they are part of a privileged minority, they require hard work to be able to live with dignity and to help others as well do.

Because, they highly value the value of effort and hard work, and of course they do not make fun of those who decide to sacrifice various aspects of their day to day to promote ambitious projects and difficult (a difficult university degree, a highly specialized career path in which many people compete, etc.).

2. They find no pleasure in outperforming others

A humble person does not have to reject completely situations in which they participate in a competition dynamics, such as in a competitive examination or in a project competition to receive a scholarship.

However, he also does not experience pleasure from the experience of surpassing a person or group in something, since your self-esteem does not depend on obsessive comparisons with others.

That is, they do not get emotionally involved in the competition itself, but in the development of a quality product that as a consequence can help them stand out in a competition. If anything, find motivation in surpassing yourself, going beyond what you thought you could not do.

• You may be interested: "Low selfsteem? When you become your worst enemy"

3. They can better tolerate inattention

Humble people can be both introverted and extraverted (that is, more or less inclined towards introspection, on the one hand, or seeking external stimuli, on the other), but in any case they resent the experience of not receiving much attention from the rest.

This is somewhat relative, since everyone needs to be recognized by their peers, but as these types of people do not feel the need to constantly receive validation from third parties, a certain loneliness in this aspect does not cause them so much discomfort.

4. They yield less to prejudice

It is practically impossible never to have fallen into a prejudice, but humble people have it easier because spontaneously They rarely find reasons to value other people negatively without having a concrete and rational reason for it.

For example, a humble person is less likely to make negative judgments about the fact that another individual has little money, since classism is unjustified.

5. They give relative importance to their virtues

Humble people do not have inflated self-esteem, among other things because although their capacity at the time striving for something can make them stand out, that for them does not define all their global value as beings humans.

Where others would believe that they are above the rest by virtue of being elite athletes or recognized authorities in some academic field, people The humble simply see what there is: a skill that they are good at, combined with external factors that they cannot fully control: luck, help from others, etc. Nevertheless, this should not be confused with low self-esteem, which occurs when there is a tendency to assume that everything bad is the responsibility of oneself and everything good is given by the duerte.

Bibliographic references:

• Hermangómez, L. & Fernández, C. (2012). Personality and Differential Psychology. CEDE Preparation Manual PIR, 07. CEDE: Madrid.
• Kail, R.; Barnfield, A. (2014). Children and Their Development. Pearson.
• Kawamoto, T. (2016). Personality Change from Life Experiences: Moderation Effect of Attachment Security. Japanese Psychological Research, 58 (2), pp. 218–231.
• Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: The Free Press.