Is pride a deadly sin or a key to our survival? Will it lead us down a destructive path or can it actually help us resist temptation?

In this conversation, Jessica Tracy answers these questions and more. Jessica is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of the book, Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. Her research has unearthed findings that help us see just how important pride is for human progress and survival.

Her discussion of pride takes us beyond associations of boastfulness and arrogance, in order to understand how feelings of pride can boost creativity, encourage altruism, and confer power and prestige in ways that benefit us as individuals and as a society.

In this interview, we talk about:

Why we need pride to feel good about ourselves
The fact that pride is innate, rather than learned
The body language we associate with pride and what it signals
How residents of Burkina Faso helped us recognize that pride is universal
How philosophers like Aristotle and Rousseau helped us see pride as positive
How studying narcissism clued us into key aspects of pride
The fact that there are two kinds of pride - authentic and hubristic
What we learned when we asked people to talk about times when they felt pride
How the speech of one political candidate included both aspects of pride
Why asking if you are a voter vs if you will vote makes you more likely to vote
How we can resist temptation by imagining the pride we will feel if we do
How displays of pride convey status and why that is important
What residents of Fiji taught us about pride, status, and evolution
Why we evolved to have hubristic pride and the dominance that comes with it
The connection between prestige and authentic pride
How people with hubristic pride dominate through fear
How dominant leaders are better at helping groups solve problems
How prestigious leaders cultivate creativity and innovation in groups
The fact that cultural ideas evolve through learning
How pride motivates us to create and make things better
How pride helps us want to teach and share and let others copy
When people show pride in answering questions observers will copy them
The fact that pride guides social learning
How pride helps helps scientists make progress - they want to be right and it feels good when that happens
Why we did not evolve to be selfless - we evolved to build a sense of self
How hubristic pride is about a false sense of self and why it leads to shortcuts
Why our sense of self is different from that of any other animal
To what extent do pride and shame drive bad behaviors?

Episode Links

http://ubc-emotionlab.ca/people/dr-jessica-tracy/

@ProfJessTracy

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