Prototypical Modesty 1 Running head: PROTOTYPICAL MODESTY Everyday Conceptions of Modesty: A Prototype Analysis

Prototypical Modesty 2 Abstract Good theoretical definitions of psychological phenomena are not only rigorously formulated but also provide ample conceptual coverage. To assess the latter, we empirically surveyed everyday conceptions of modesty in a combined US/UK sample. In Study 1, participants freely generated multiple exemplars of modesty that judges subsequently sorted into superordinate categories. Exemplar frequency and priority served respectively as primary and secondary indices of category prototypicality that enabled central, peripheral, and marginal clusters to be identified. Follow-up studies then confirmed the ordinal prototypicality of these clusters with the aid of both explicit (Studies 2 and 3) and implicit (Study 3) methodologies. Modest people emerged centrally as humble, shy, solicitous, and not boastful, and peripherally as honest, likeable, not arrogant, attention-avoiding, plain, and gracious. Everyday conceptions of modesty also spanned both mind and behavior, interestingly emphasized agreeableness and introversion, and predictably incorporated an element of humility. A Prototype Analysis Empirical psychologists who investigate everyday social phenomena face a perennial problem: how to define adequately the phenomena that they study from a theoretical point of view We submit that one reason why adequate theoretical definitions prove elusive is that they must simultaneously satisfy two criteria that tend to be mutually exclusive: rigor and coverage. We begin by illustrating this difficulty for the construct of modesty, the focus of this article. This illustration is important to our rationale for the reported research. Rigor and Coverage Rigor. A good definition should be clear and coherent; it should fit neatly into a broader theoretical framework; and it should lend itself easily to measurement and manipulation. Suppose we were to define modesty as either (a) " not going overboard with self-love, " or as (b) " the dispositional tendency to evaluate oneself globally in an intermediately positive way " (Sedikides, Gregg, & Hart, 2007, p. 164). Although both definitions may have some truth to them, the latter is scientifically superior. It features terms that are more concrete and exact; it makes contact with 1998); and it suggests practical avenues of empirical investigation (e.g., operationalizations of moderate self-evaluation). A further mark of definitional rigor is that the conditions necessary or sufficient to qualify something as an instance of a phenomenon can be readily identified (Smith & Medin, 1981). For example, according to definition (b), it is clear that a person cannot be modest unless they have a moderately favorable view of themselves as a whole, …