Pride

Pride is positive emotional response or attitude to something with an intimate connection to oneself, due to its perceived value.[citation needed] Oxford defines it amongst other things as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance"[1] This may be related to one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country. Richard Taylor defined pride as "the justified love of oneself",[2]as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as "the love of one's own excellence",[3]and Meher Baba called it "the specific feeling through which egoism manifests."[4]

Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g. that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others.[5] Some social psychologists identify the nonverbal expression of pride as a means of sending a functional, automatically perceived signal of high social status.[6] In contrast, pride could also be defined as a lowly disagreement with the truth.

Pride is sometimes viewed as corrupt or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a content sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging. With a negative connotation pride refers to a foolishly[7] and irrationally corrupt sense of one's personal value, status or accomplishments,[8] used synonymously with hubris. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (and George Bernard Shaw) consider pride (but not hubris) a profound virtue, some world religions consider pride's fraudulent form a sin, such as is expressed in Proverbs 11:2 of the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil. When viewed as a virtue, pride in one's abilities is known as virtuous pride, the greatness of soul or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory. Other possible objects of pride are one's ethnicity, and one's sexual identity (especially LGBT pride).

Proud comes from late Old English prut, probably from Old French prud "brave, valiant" (11th century) (which became preux in French), from Late Latin term prodis "useful", which is compared with the Latin prodesse "be of use".[9] The sense of "having a high opinion of oneself", not in French, may reflect the Anglo-Saxons' opinion of the Norman knights who called themselves "proud".

In psychological terms, positive pride is "a pleasant, sometimes exhilarating, emotion that results from a positive self-evaluation".[18] It was added by Tracy et al. to the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE) in 2009, as one of three "self-conscious" emotions known to have recognizable expressions (along with embarrassment and shame).[19]

The term "fiero" was coined by Italian psychologist Isabella Poggi to describe the pride experienced and expressed in the moments following a personal triumph over adversity.[20][21] Facial expressions and gestures that demonstrate pride can involve a lifting of the chin, smiles, or arms on hips to demonstrate victory. Individuals may implicitly grant status to others based solely on their expressions of pride, even in cases in which they wish to avoid doing so. Indeed, some studies show that the nonverbal expression of pride conveys a message that is automatically perceived by others about a person's high social status in a group.[6]

Behaviorally, pride can also be expressed by adopting an expanded posture in which the head is tilted back and the arms extended out from the body. This postural display is innate as it is shown in congenitally blind individuals who have lacked the opportunity to see it in others.