People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

I agree with you. My honest answers to each of questions (save 8 and 9) are what the researchers would probably consider the "correct" response. Personally I don't like it when people point out my shortcomings or errors, but I'd argue those questions are under-specified. I may not like it, but I'll welcome it and earnestly assume they have some insight I do not.

In any case I think it makes me an unenjoyable person to be around. I more or less don't engage in opinionated discussion with people unless I'm intimately familiar with the topic at hand. Then it's no longer discussing opinions but trading facts. When I do engage, it's usually to ask questions of the other person's opinion without really challenging them. While I might agree with their opinions, I'm reluctant to refute them unless I can systematically prove them wrong. That's usually not possible, because they often know more than I do about any given topic. When I am asked questions directly I hedge my answers extensively.

When I was younger I used to take pride in this, but now I find it isolating. It's difficult to relate to people like this.

Is the article implying causation or just correlation? Because either cause->effect pathway would imply correlation. The pathway you describe seems like a common way to get to humility, through actually learning how little domain knowledge you have.

We have a long history of education based on punishment, reward, and PR.

Myself I've felt compelled to pretend to know-it-all out of fear of being excluded. Being excluded is not a naive thing, it could mean not getting any job, and falling in disgrace and being hated by a majority of people. It happened to me for saying the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time to the wrong people.

There is also the problem of PR, the post-modern fallacy, people who think they can convince anyone of anything just to get what they want, because truth is relative, and it doesn't really matter if you are good or competent as long as you get a seat at the big table.

Modern western society has a low tolerance for ignorance, which is sad given that many people is ignorant not out of their will, they were just dealt a bad hand. Also, it is very difficult for ignorant people to get out of their ignorance if nobody helps them, there are unknown unknowns which they cannot see without external help.

Yes and no. Yes, being known as one of the ones who knows gives you freedom to say "I don't know" without being judged. In the past few years, I've started feeling that freedom. (Maybe others wouldn't have judged me before. Maybe the issue is that now I don't judge myself for not knowing.)

But no, being the one who doesn't know in a room full of those who do shouldn't stop you from learning. There are two different cases here, though.

If you're in a sane (not too political, and not too toxic) environment, just ask when you don't know something. (Don't do it so often that you hijack the meeting, but do it once or twice a meeting.) You will often be speaking for others as well who don't know but are unwilling to admit their ignorance (unless you're the only junior person). Your asking can free them to also ask and also learn.

If you are in a toxic or political environment, you still need to learn, without getting destroyed. That's harder. You need to try to find out who it's safe to ask. But the bigger task in that environment, in my opinion, is to not learn to be political or toxic yourself.

There is also a chance these concept correlate because they share many of the same characteristics, i.e. they are mostly the same thing.

Measuring psychological concept is far easier then then rigid and if you align one question or answer to one concept there is a good chance you are actually measuring the other, or both. In fact the very concept of general intelligence has been severely criticized for this. To an extend that many psychologist (and laymen like my self) don’t even belief it exists.