The virtue of humility and the folly of pride

I teach confirmation, and one of the topics that it hard to get across is pride and humility. My students seem to see pride as the virtue and humility as self hate. I have tried to explained that humility is seeing onself as one really is. Humility is being honest and it provides the ability for growth. In regards to pride, I try to give them examples of people acting proud and it seems to work as far as showing them the concept. Anyway this study also shows the distinction between humility and pride from a secular source.

A recent NYTimes article highlights the work of Cornell psychologist David Dunning and his grad student Justin Kruger on the critical relationship between self-assessment and skill level. Not surprisingly, they've shown that people with poor skills are also quite bad at assessing their own abilities. They tend to be grossly overconfident, demonstrating a notable deficiency in "self-monitoring skills." The opposite is also true: better performers have far more humble predictions, and subsequently more accurate assessments, of their performances. (Link)