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Physician virtues, including humility, are crucial for shaping a physician's identity and practice. This review aimed to develop a cohesive conceptualization of physician humility and to define how it functions in medical practice. Physician virtues, including humility, are crucial for shaping a physician's identity and practice. The health care literature offers varied views on humility, and the rising call for discussing virtues as a framing for professional identity formation underscores the need for a clearer understanding of physician humility. This review aimed to develop a cohesive conceptualization of physician humility and to define how it functions in medical practice. To achieve this, a comprehensive search was done across PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, ERIC, and PsycInfo, covering all records up to 30 October 2023. Articles were included if they discussed physician humility and excluded if they were unrelated to physician humility, focused on nonphysician health professionals, lacked conceptual depth, or focused solely on cultural humility. An applied thematic analysis was conducted. The results provide a synthesized conceptualization of physician humility across stances toward self, others, and the profession. The included articles identified the pivotal role of physician humility within the following 5 domains of medical practice: learning and professional growth, navigating error, uncertainty tolerance, trust and entrustment, and teamwork and communication. The authors highlight some of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociocontextual challenges to cultivating and practicing physician humility. These findings highlight the importance of promoting humility in shaping physicians' actions, thoughts, and relationships with patients, colleagues, and their profession. Integrating such virtues as humility into medical education is essential for upholding the ideals of the medical profession and cultivating moral agents who engage in self-reflection and embody the principles of exemplary physicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates associations between two types of control beliefs—self-efficacy for self-regulation and implicit theories of willpower—and undergraduate biology students' (N = 535) behavioral self-regulation and performance. Findings suggest that self-efficacy is the more proximally related motive for students to engage in academic self-regulatory behaviors, as it was directly related to both behavioral self-regulation and course grades. In contrast, implicit theories about willpower were indirectly associated with both outcomes through self-efficacy. Collectively, results support implicit theories about willpower as a potential influence on how students interpret mental effort, in turn raising or lowering self-efficacy, ultimately predicting their self-regulatory behaviors and grades. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal study examines (a) whether perceptions of ethnic discrimination during the first weeks of college predicted later school belonging among first-year college students of color (N = 638) attending a predominantly White institution (PWI), (b) whether school belonging, in turn, predicted retention to the second year, and (c) whether ethnic identity centrality buffered the effects of discrimination on school belonging and academic retention. Participants completed measures of ethnic discrimination and identity near the beginning of the first semester and school belonging at the end of the semester. Academic data from the fall of the second year were obtained from school records. Tests of moderated mediation revealed that perceptions of discrimination at the beginning of college had an indirect effect on retention in the second year of college, as mediated by lowered school belonging, but only for students with low and moderate (but not high) ethnic identity centrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This multilevel study applies motivational climate theory as a conceptual framework. • Data are from 5,057 undergraduate students and 94 instructors at a U.S. university. • Students' individual and aggregated perceptions of instructor mindset predict grades. • Link between aggregate perceptions and grades is only significant in STEM courses. • Shifting students' interpretations of learning environments could improve outcomes. Academic achievement depends not only on learners' skill but also the psychological factors that arise during learning, such as the belief that intelligence improves with effort—a growth mindset. In addition to being guided by their own beliefs, students might use information present in their learning environments to imagine what their instructors believe about students' abilities, and alter their engagement accordingly. The present study applies motivational climate theory to examine the association between individual and shared student perceptions of instructors' ability mindset on their academic performance. Data from 5,057 undergraduate students and 94 instructors in a public research university in the United States, across academic disciplines and instructional modalities, revealed that students' individual and aggregated perceptions of their instructors' mindset, but not their own mindset or instructors' self-reported mindset, were associated with final grades. Additionally, a moderation analysis revealed that the association between aggregated perceptions of students' perceptions of their instructors' fixed mindset and course performance was significant in STEM courses but not in non-STEM courses, possibly reflecting meaningful differences in disciplinary norms and traditions that could shape ability mindset. Shifting instructors' framing about ability, classroom practices, and students' understanding and interpretation of these environmental signals, could improve achievement outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]