#249： The Benefits of Pride
Episode Stats
Summary
Pride has been called one of the "deadly sins," but what if it's actually a virtue? In this episode, psychologist Jessica Tracy and I discuss why pride gets a bad rap, the different kinds of pride that exist, and how feeling the good kind of pride is essential to growth, development, and even cooperation. We also discuss how men and women experience and express pride differently, and what that means for us.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast, Pride. It's
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been called one of the deadly sins, but what if pride holds the key to human success and
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flourishing? Well, that's what the argument my guest today makes in her book, Take Pride.
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Her name is Jessica Tracy and she's a psychologist at the University of British Columbia. And today
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on the show, Jessica and I discuss why pride gets a bad rap, the different kinds of pride
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that exist, and how feeling the good kind of pride is essential to growth, development,
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and even cooperation. We also discuss how men and women experience and express pride differently
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and what that means for us. Really fascinating show. After the show's over, check out the
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So your latest book or your new book is called Take Pride and it's about the benefits, how
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pride can actually be a good thing, this thing that we call one of the deadly virtues. What
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I think is interesting, you're a psychologist and you've written a book about pride, the feeling
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of pride. And what's interesting about it, there's a lot of ink spilled in academia and
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psychology about other feelings like happiness, sadness, lust, but there isn't a lot out there
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You know, I think there's a number of reasons for that distinction that you're noticing.
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So one thing is that, you know, there's been a lot of research on emotions, as you note,
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and that kind of took off really in the 1980s and 90s, psychologists got really interested
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in studying emotions. And that was largely due to research that had been done by Paul
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Ekman. And Ekman, he's a big deal in emotion research. He's kind of one of the leaders in
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the field. And in the 1960s, late 1960s, he actually decided to sort of put ideas to the
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test that had first been proposed by Darwin, which was basically the idea that emotions
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are evolved, that they're a universal part of human nature. And prior to Ekman kind of
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looking into this, that wasn't really what anyone thought. Even though Darwin said that
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about a hundred years earlier, the kind of reigning theory of the day in the 1960s, 70s
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and earlier was that emotions were culturally specific. So you learned emotions from other
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people in your social group. That's how you learned what you were supposed to feel in any
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given situation. And that's how you learned how to express those feelings. What Ekman did was
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he traveled across the world. He traveled to Papua New Guinea, which at the time was pretty
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unexplored by Westerners. And he found groups of people living there who were totally cut
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off from the Western world. Most of them had never before seen anyone from the West. And
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he basically just showed them emotion expressions, photos of emotion expressions shown by Americans.
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And he asked them how they identified them. And what he found was that these Papua New Guineans
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identified the emotion expressions that were shown by Americans in the same way that Americans
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did. And that's really important because it was sort of the first evidence to suggest
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that emotions aren't specific to each culture, that actually they're universal, right? Because
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there's kind of no other good explanation for how these people on the other side of the world who have
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no contact with the Western world could recognize emotions in the same way Americans do, unless
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that's because emotions are universal. And so this was kind of one piece of many that came to
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build this finding that emotions are universal. They're part of our nature. They're, there's
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something that we evolved to experience as humans, uh, not something that we, that were socialized
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to experience or learn from others. But the thing about this research was that there was kind of a
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small set of emotions that really were focused on. Ekman basically said there were six emotions that
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have facial expressions. Uh, and, and he found good evidence for that. And then he kind of said,
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that's all there is, right? He sort of said, there's, there's no more than these six. I've,
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I've, I've looked at the face and he really did. I mean, he knows the face better than anyone else.
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I think he said, I've looked at the face and these are the six emotions that are expressed
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in the face. Um, and those are emotions that you think of, I think is sort of the most predominant
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emotions that are really important to our daily lives. Things like anger, fear, sadness, disgust,
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uh, I think surprise is one of them happiness. And so, so this was a big deal on fear. I forgot fear,
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I think. Um, anyway, it was a big deal finding, but it basically also meant that any emotions that
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weren't considered in that list that didn't seem to have universal facial expressions,
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they were kind of left behind. They were sort of considered to be less important,
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less foundational, less fundamental to human nature. And so they received a whole lot less
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research attention. And of course, pride, even though I think it's incredibly important,
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and we now have research to suggest that it's really important. It was one of those emotions
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that kind of didn't make the cut. You can't recognize pride from someone else's face alone.
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It turns out what we found in my research is that you can recognize pride and it is universal,
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but it requires the body as well as the face. Okay. And we'll, um, we'll talk about, um, what that,
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what pride looks like in a bit, but let's talk about, you know, the, the basic, the big picture
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of your argument here is that pride can be a good thing. Um, but in our modern Western culture,
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pride has a bad rap. It's considered one of the seven deadly sin sins. Um, there's been a backlash
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lately against the self-esteem movement. Um, and there's a perception of the rising generation
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that's too narcissistic, too prideful and unduly proud of themselves. And humility is the virtue
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that we should aim for. But you say again that, you know, the title of your book is that pride is
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the secret to human success. So why does pride have such a bad rap and how can pride actually be
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good for us? Well, the reason for that is because it turns out pride is not just one thing. It's
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actually two pretty different things. And, and this is really confusing for us in English because
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we just have the one word for it, which is a real problem. I think, you know, we, we use the word
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pride to refer to, uh, the kind of pride that, you know, I think you're referring to as a deadly sin.
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And, and that's historically the way that many scholars have thought of it. Certainly religions
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throughout history have talked about pride in this way. And that's pride in the sense of arrogance,
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right? These, this is narcissism. It's, it's pride in the sense of feeling too much pride,
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right? Sort of being egotistical about it, self-centered, conceited. Um, and, and that kind
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of pride is a real thing. Many people feel it and we all have the propensity to feel it. And it,
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it comes with a lot of negative consequences, all kinds of problematic social behaviors
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that people tend to engage in when they're feeling that kind of pride. But what we found
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is that that's not all the pride is. There's this whole other kind of pride also, and we call this
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authentic pride. Um, and authentic pride is much more a sense of self-confidence, feelings of
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self-worth, a sense of accomplishment or achievement or productivity. It's really the
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kind of pride that we feel when we've worked hard for something and we have an accomplishment. And,
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and we know that that accomplishment is due to our own efforts, right? That we sort of say,
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here's what I did to get the success. And I feel genuinely good about myself as a result of that
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success. And what we found is that authentic pride really is very different from what we call
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hubristic pride, the bad kind of pride. Authentic pride actually seems to foster all kinds of
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positive social behaviors. When people feel that they tend to care more about others,
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they want to help others. Uh, they feel good about themselves, but in a way that lets them
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also kind of care about the community. Whereas hubristic pride makes people feel good about
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themselves in this way that makes them not care about others. And in fact, at times they will use
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others. They'll actually sort of put others down in order to feel good about themselves.
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So really different emotional experiences in almost every way, but they're both part of what pride is.
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And are there any cultures that have differentiated the two? Like they have like
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in America or in the West or English, it's like pride is, you know, it's how we describe both of
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these types of like the hubristic pride and the authentic pride. Are there any languages that have
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words that differentiate, differentiate between the two?
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Yeah. You know, I've looked into this a bit and from what I can tell, absolutely. That's the case.
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Now I'm not a native speaker of any of these languages. So, you know, people who, who speak them
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better than me might take issue with this, but from what I understand, uh, yeah, French, Italian,
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uh, basically all the romance languages do make this, do make this distinction. So in Italian,
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I think it's, uh, uh, Fiorezza or Fiorezza is, is more authentic pride. It's kind of this fierce,
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excited kind of pride. Uh, whereas, or I'm going to totally butcher this, but orgulio, uh, is more of
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what we would think of as hubristic pride, more of an arrogant pride. And, and, uh, that's Italian,
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but French has very similar words to that as well. Um, so, so the, the lack of a distinction
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is partly a restriction of English in particular, many, many other languages do seem to actually
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make this distinction in a more concrete way. Okay. So you said earlier, um, that Ekman, you know,
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he just focused on these six types of emotions and he said, yeah, these are the ones that are
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universal. Pride didn't get on that list and make the list, but you're saying your research shows
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that yeah, pride is in fact, uh, universal. So what's the explanation? Why do humans feel pride?
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What's the evolutionary psychology psychological explanation for it?
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Well, what we think is that people evolved to feel pride because it ultimately helps us
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get status. It helps us climb the social ladder, basically be looked upon by others in our group
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as someone of influence. And it helps us do all the things that we need to do in order to get
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influence and power over others. And of course, having influence, having power is really adaptive in
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an evolutionary sense. People who have more influence over others have a better control over the group's
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shared resources, uh, more access to better mates, all kinds of things that basically end up enhancing
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our ability to survive and reproduce. So, um, how, how, how were you able to determine that this is
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indeed a universal emotion? You know, what are, what does pride, both hubristic pride and authentic
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pride, what does it look like or what does it feel like, uh, within the person?
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Yeah. So, I mean, to, to figure out whether it's universal, we kind of just followed the
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Ekman protocol. Um, you know, like I said, he, he studied facial expressions and traveled all over
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the world to, to see if people in different countries recognize them and showed them in the
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same way. We basically did the same thing with pride. And what we did was we sort of realized,
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you know, yes, pride is not just going to be in the face. Sure. When people feel pride,
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they smile, but that doesn't really look any different than happiness, but they also do stuff with
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their body. Right. And this is something, if, you know, if you take a minute to think about it,
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we all know this when people feel pride, they make themselves bigger, right? They expand their
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posture. They push out their chest. They might tilt their head up a bit. Um, they basically take
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this wide stance and, and it, and it's noticeable, right? We, we know when someone feels pride because
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we see them, we see them become this kind of expansive, um, person. And so what we did was we
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took photos of people doing exactly that kind of different variations of it, lots of different
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variations. And we showed these photos to other people. And so we started just, you know,
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in California where I was in grad school and we found that yes, Californians recognize pride.
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They all agree. When we show them this photo, they say, yeah, that's pride. And they say,
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in fact, not only that's pride, but also that's not some other emotion. It's not happiness. It's
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not other emotions that look similar to pride. It's actually distinct to pride, that particular
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display. And then we, then we went beyond California and we ended up traveling across the
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world to Burkina Faso, West Africa. Um, and we managed to find a group of people there who were
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sort of tribal villagers, much like the people that Ekman studied in Papua New Guinea, very cut
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off from the Western world. They couldn't read or write. They only spoke their local dialect.
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They've never traveled far from their village. And we showed them photos of people showing this
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pride display. And they showed the same thing. They also agreed that that was pride and not some
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other emotion. So that's nice evidence for, for kind of universality that people in cultures all
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over the world who are unlikely to have been exposed to a pride expression, you know, in a Western
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movie or a magazine or something like that, because these are people who don't really have
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access to those things, they still understand pride in the same way that Americans do.
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Um, and then the last thing we did on this point is we said, okay, well, what about displaying
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pride? Do people actually display this expression all over the world or people from countries all
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over the world when they're feeling pride? And so to get at that issue, what we did was we, um,
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we said, let's, let's take a look at a situation that causes people to feel pride that people from
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countries all over the world engage in at the same time. And so the Olympics kind of provided an ideal
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opportunity for this, right? Cause here you have people succeeding in this incredible way,
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uh, probably the most intense pride of their lives when they win a medal. And of course,
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since the Olympics, you have countries from, you know, all over the world. So we simply took a look
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at, at photos that were taken and we were able to get access to photos taken by an official
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photographer in the judo competition in the 2004 Olympic games, which meant that we had photos
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right from on the mat. So really close up high quality images of exactly what these athletes did
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immediately after they won their match. And sure enough, what we found is that if they won their
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match, they tended to show all of the behaviors that we had previously found to be part of this
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recognizable display. And so that included things like expanded chest, head tilt up, smiling, but
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also these really important body movements, right? Arms extended out from the body, either raised above
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the head with hands and fists, sometimes, uh, crossed on the chest or, uh, at sides, sort of in this
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akimbo position with hands on hips. All these displays we found tend to be shown by winners,
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more than losers that held for people from countries all over the world. It was the case
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for men and women. And then most interestingly, we were able to get a blind sample because we had
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photos from the Paralympics as well. Turns out in the Paralympics, there's a blind judo competition
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and we were able to look at congenitally blind people, people who've never in their lives seen a
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pride expression, right? Cause these are people who are born blind. They've never been able to see.
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And we were able to document the same thing in them. So, so this is a group of people who,
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you know, inarguably could not have learned to display pride from watching what,
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uh, that looks like when others show us, cause these are people who've never been able to see.
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And yet they show that same display. So that I think is really nice evidence for, for universality.
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And is there a difference between, you know, how someone displays authentic pride? Cause I think
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like Olympics, that's a great manifestation of authentic pride. You work really hard. You have
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this accomplishment and hubristic pride. Is there a difference in the way people display those two
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types of pride? We've looked pretty hard for that. We haven't found much on that front. You know,
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we've done things where we've sort of said that we think this one looks, you know,
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maybe when someone has their hands on their hips and kind of in that, um, you know, uh,
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it seems a little arrogant kind of posture when they, you know, they're pushing their chest out
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and, um, something about their face looks arrogant. And we've tried, we've shown those photos to people
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and said, come on, is this, is this more arrogant or is it more confident? We don't tend to get much
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agreement on that. Um, my guess is there, there are big cultural differences in that, you know,
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I think in some cultures it's so unacceptable to display any pride at all, but even, you know,
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pride expression that might seem to us pretty authentic would seem to them hubristic simply
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because it seems arrogant to just, just show any pride. Um, so I think that's going to be a
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factor. You know, we have found that when, when we tell people other things about the person,
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like this person, he thinks he's really great. You know, we sort of suggest this person's pretty
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arrogant. Then people will say, Oh yeah, that, that display suggests hubristic pride,
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but it's not based on the behaviors alone. It seems to be based on the behaviors combined with
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some sort of contextual factor. All right. So just to clarify, so, um, you found, um,
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societies where pride displays are looked down upon, they don't encourage it, but yet these people
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were still able to recognize pride displays. Yeah, no, that's, that's interesting. So this,
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the society that I looked at for Kina Faso that I mentioned before, pride isn't particularly kind of,
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what should I say? It's not a particularly highly valued emotion. Um, you know, it's really, it's,
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this is a very small scale subsistence society. Most of their efforts are focused literally on kind
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of surviving, right? Finding enough food for themselves and their family. Um, and so thinking
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about an emotion that makes you feel good about yourself and status isn't really a central part
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of their society. And yes, they recognize pride. But in addition to that, we also did a study in
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Fiji and Fiji is neat because they're actually a culture where pride is, is explicitly downplayed
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and sort of unacceptable. And this is a group, this is a culture where, um, status differences are
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incredibly sort of determined by birth. They're really hard and fast rules. There's no movement.
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It's not like, you know, America where, you know, theoretically anyone can, can get high
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status. It's kind of the opposite of that. You're either born into it or you're not.
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And if you're not, you need to show that in your behaviors and the way that you interact with people
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in almost everything you do. Status differences are a huge part of daily life in this Fijian culture.
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And so the result of that is a display like pride, which, which is seen as sort of a way of saying,
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Hey, you know, I deserve higher status is really not acceptable. And so when we showed people
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pride displays, they recognized it as pride. And then they would also say, that's not a high
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status display. We'd say to them, you know, does this person have high status? And they would say,
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no, not really, because it's so unacceptable to do that. You know, if you're low status,
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that's the last thing you would do. And if you're high status, you also wouldn't show this display
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because it would sort of be seen as lording your status over others, right? Because your status is
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never in question. You have it due to her heredity. You don't have to, you don't have to do that.
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And so that's also unacceptable. But the neat thing that we found was when we, when we looked
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at people's unconscious automatic associations, their kind of responses to the pride display
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that they can't help going beneath kind of the surface of what they tell us. Then what we found
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was, in fact, they did see these pride displays as high status. When we, when we probed for sort of
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their, their unavoidable unconscious responses, they couldn't help, but show a tendency to see pride
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displayers as people who deserve high status. And I think that's pretty cool because what it tells us
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is that even in this culture, we're at an explicit level where, you know, what their culture says
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is pride displays are not okay. They're not high status. Even in a culture like that, because of
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this evolved tendency that we have as humans to see pride displays as signals of high status,
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we see evidence of it in, in these people's unconscious responses.
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Yeah. That's really interesting. So we, we do that. We put the fist in the air.
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That is just a way to show it to others that, yeah, we are awesome and you should give the status.
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I mean, yeah, I think, you know, I think the extent to which we do it purposely or intentionally
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versus automatically is always a question, right? Because we can control our pride displays. This is
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something we can choose to regulate. Like most emotion expressions, we can sort of say, I'm feeling
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it, but I know it's not okay to show it right now. So I'm going to tamp it down. And I think,
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you know, in many contexts and many cultures, that's what people do much of the time because
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pride is really regulated by cultures because it has such a strong impact on status. When we see people
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display pride, we have this automatic tendency to see them as high status and we decide they
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deserve high status. So the result of that is you have this really powerful display that can really
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mess with a society's status rules. Society counteracts that by saying, okay, here's all
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the rules you're going to create about when it's okay to show your pride and when it's not.
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Okay. And we'll talk about some of those rules here later on. Besides the external manifestations of
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pride, like what does, what happens with inside of our bodies biologically when we feel pride?
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You know, I think we know a lot less about that. There's, there's certainly, you know,
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this is all kind of a new area of research. And so the biological side of it, even any emotion is
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kind of something we're just learning about now. And we know more about it for things like anger and
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fear. We know a pretty good deal about that for pride. You know, we certainly would expect to see
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increases in the hormone testosterone, which is all about high status, or it's, it's largely about
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high status, I should say. And there's some evidence to suggest that that's the case. You know,
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there's, there's research that's been kind of widely talked about from Amy Cuddy and Dana Carney
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and others suggesting that when people pose a display that looks a lot like pride, but they
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call it power posing, but it's basically the pride display, they show increases in testosterone.
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Now, I don't know if you've heard, there's questions about whether those findings replicate
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widely. And, you know, I don't do that research, so I can't really speak to that. But theoretically
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speaking, we would expect to see links between pride and testosterone. You know, maybe not when you
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pose it in the moment, but just in general, when you genuinely feel pride, or when, when you feel
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yourself gaining in status, there is evidence that status gains are linked to testosterone. And so
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that's something that we would expect. And then you also mentioned in the book, serotonin, the
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neurotransmitter, serotonin. Yeah. Yeah. So there's nice evidence from the animal literature more than the
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human literature to suggest that sometimes when animals increase in status, they actually show
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serotonin increases, which is kind of surprising in many ways, because we think of serotonin as very,
00:19:51.100
it's sort of the happiness neurotransmitter, right? It's, you know, people who are depressed
00:19:54.980
take drugs that are serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which basically means they increase serotonin levels
00:19:59.100
in the brain, making people feel a greater sense of contentedness. And so it's interesting that that
00:20:05.560
would be associated with high status. But the thinking in the, in the literature on this is that
00:20:09.580
it's a particular kind of high status. It's a high status that's really about social popularity.
00:20:16.160
So people, people who are high in serotonin, if they're high status, it's going to be of the sort
00:20:21.020
of high status where they get along really well with others. Others like them. They are sort of
00:20:25.780
good, good social communicators, that kind of thing. And so theoretically, it would make sense
00:20:31.220
that authentic pride, which really is all about increasing the form of status that we call prestige,
00:20:35.300
which is a status that basically involves being well-respected by others, having accomplishments
00:20:40.200
that then others see as valuable to the group and others want to learn from you and work with you.
00:20:44.620
So that kind of status, which is so social in nature, theoretically should be linked to serotonin.
00:20:49.900
Now we don't, you know, there's no evidence yet for a link between authentic pride and serotonin.
00:20:53.720
So this is all sort of theoretical, but I would expect to see that.
00:20:57.040
Okay. So let's, let's carry this conversation about prestige or different types of status.
00:21:00.820
So prestige is one type of status. And as you said, it's connected to, you know, being well-respected,
00:21:05.940
well-regarded, being useful to those around you. But then there's another type of social status
00:21:10.680
that's not as friendly. What's that other type of social status and what are its characteristics?
00:21:16.080
Yeah. So, so the distinction we make is between prestige and dominance and dominance is a status
00:21:20.540
that it's, it's, you still have power. It's, it's a very, we found that people who are dominant do have
00:21:25.260
influence over others, but it's not because they contribute something of value to the group or,
00:21:29.820
or they're respected. It's actually because they're, they're seen as threatening that basically
00:21:34.340
these are people who have control over some resource that others want. Maybe it's wealth,
00:21:39.680
maybe they're just physically stronger. You can think of this in chimpanzees where it's the
00:21:43.120
physically strong chimp that becomes the most dominant. And they, they wield that control in
00:21:48.260
a manipulative and aggressive way, essentially literally threatening people, making them think,
00:21:53.120
but listen, if you don't do what I tell you, I'm going to hurt you, or I will take away something
00:21:57.320
of value to you. So this is the boss who, who threatens to fire her employees if they don't do what she
00:22:02.160
says, right? So these are people who do have power and you can imagine that boss being quite
00:22:06.040
influential. Her employees are going to do exactly what she says, but they're not doing it because
00:22:10.100
they want to, right? They're not deferring to her out of choice. They're deferring to her in fact,
00:22:14.460
because they feel they have no choice at all. Okay. And so connecting this to the types of pride.
00:22:20.140
So authentic pride would be a channel to prestige status and hubristic pride would be a channel to
00:22:25.960
dominant status. Yeah, that's exactly right. So if you think about what authentic pride does for us,
00:22:30.580
basically it's this emotion that makes us feel good about ourselves for our accomplishments,
00:22:33.980
for the specific kind of hard work that we put in to achieve. And then it makes us want to be nice
00:22:38.640
to others. There's good evidence to suggest that when we feel authentic pride, we care more about
00:22:42.720
others. And these are exactly the kinds of behaviors that would get one prestige because you have a
00:22:47.100
person who's going to be working hard to achieve in ways that are valuable to the group and then
00:22:50.920
caring about others, being nice to others. And that's really important for prestigious leaders.
00:22:54.840
These are people who get power because they want to help others, right? Others want to defer to them
00:22:59.440
because they think here's someone who I admire. He's got all these accomplishments and he's going
00:23:03.920
to help me learn from him. I'm going to, I'm going to learn valuable skills that he already knows.
00:23:07.500
And that's really important. So prestigious leaders kind of need to be nice to others and
00:23:11.400
helpful to others. Dominant leaders in contrast, they get their power kind of explicitly from being
00:23:16.660
not nice to others, right? These are people who are threatening and they're intimidating.
00:23:20.480
They essentially force others to do what they want by telling them, look, you're going to be
00:23:24.620
sorry if you don't do that. And hubristic pride, hubristic pride basically is this emotion that
00:23:29.680
makes people feel superior to others. It makes them believe I'm better than everyone else around.
00:23:34.240
It makes them feel aggressive and disagreeable. People who tend to feel hubristic pride tend to
00:23:38.860
become antisocial in various ways. They're not very nice to others. They are manipulative at times.
00:23:44.440
They're more willing to engage in what we call misbehavior, whether it's petty crime or lying
00:23:48.700
or cheating. All these behaviors are exactly the kinds of things that we would expect to see in someone
00:23:53.400
who's going to attain dominance, sort of a willingness to get ahead at the expense of others, to use
00:23:57.800
others toward getting ahead, basically to be a bully.
00:24:00.580
But again, going back, dominant status does work, but in the long run, does prestige status do better?
00:24:08.220
Well, you know, I mean, that's a great empirical question and I would certainly like to think so.
00:24:12.660
What we have found is that both kinds of status get people power. So we brought students together
00:24:17.820
in groups to try to work together just to see how hierarchies emerge. And what we do is we have them
00:24:22.480
do this task together. And then afterwards we ask them to tell us who was the most influential in
00:24:27.180
the group, how influential was everyone, and then tell us how prestigious and how dominant everyone
00:24:31.700
else was. And then we also get outside observers, people who watch videos that we make of these
00:24:36.100
interactions, and they tell us who is most influential as well. And what we find is that
00:24:40.080
both dominant and prestigious people end up with a lot of influence. The people who are seen as
00:24:45.980
dominant, which means other people on their group say, I didn't like him. I was afraid of him,
00:24:50.000
right? Literally, I was afraid of him. Those people still get power. They're seen as highly
00:24:54.260
influential by the people they worked with. And they're seen as influential by people who are
00:24:57.560
watching from outside. And they actually have influence. When we look at sort of decision-making
00:25:01.480
over, you know, what happens in that interaction, what happens with the task, the dominant people
00:25:05.460
have just as much influence in the sense of actually making the decisions as do prestigious people.
00:25:11.140
So both dominance and prestige actually work in terms of getting influence over a group.
00:25:15.600
However, there are real differences. So the prestigious people come out of that situation being well-liked.
00:25:20.000
Everyone had a good time working with them. They like them. The dominant people are not well-liked.
00:25:24.540
The people don't like them. And so you can imagine a situation in which, yes, both get power,
00:25:29.740
but there's certain value to having power and also being well-liked versus having power. And then the
00:25:35.080
moment that people have a chance to take you down, they're going to do that, right? I mean,
00:25:39.040
eventually groups form coalitions against leaders they don't like and topple them, right? And so
00:25:43.960
when you have a dominant leader, that's what's going to happen. The group's always going to be
00:25:47.180
looking for an opportunity to get rid of that person. And so in the long run, it's probably
00:25:51.320
not going to be a particularly adaptive strategy. Whereas someone who's prestigious, the group is
00:25:55.560
not looking for an opportunity to get rid of them at all because the group really likes them.
00:25:59.160
So even when they're no longer as valuable, say at some point they no longer have the wisdom or the
00:26:02.840
skills that they once had that originally earned them the prestige, the group still isn't going to
00:26:07.080
try to oust them, right? The group might not, you know, they might find someone else to sort of,
00:26:11.720
you know, lead as well, but the group will always find a place for a prestigious person because
00:26:15.480
they like them, right? When you care about your leader, you're not going to sort of try to get
00:26:19.500
rid of them. You're going to try to find a place and a way to keep them.
00:26:22.140
Yeah. We've had Richard Wrangham on the podcast talk about demonic males and he found the same
00:26:28.200
behavior amongst chimpanzees is that there'll be a super assertive, aggressive chimp that will take
00:26:33.580
the lead. But after a while, the monkeys get tired of it and he calls them election seasons and
00:26:38.860
all coalesce together and like, you know, have a coup and kick that guy out.
00:26:43.560
That's exactly right. Yeah. And now, you know, chimpanzees don't have prestige. Prestige seems
00:26:48.900
to be unique to human, uh, to the humans species. And so, so that's why you're going to see that
00:26:53.780
kind of thing where when you have prestige, if you have a hierarchy based on prestige,
00:26:56.540
there's no reason to kick out a prestigious leader. So it should work very differently.
00:27:00.400
Well, you can go in circling back to, um, testosterone and its connection to, uh, dominance pride.
00:27:06.520
So, I mean, this is the art of manliness podcast. Is there a type of pride that men tend to
00:27:15.520
What we found is that most people tend toward authentic pride. So if we just measure these
00:27:20.680
two things, levels of authentic pride are always higher than hubristic pride. And that might be
00:27:25.340
partly due to what we call social desirability, right? It's not a very socially acceptable thing
00:27:29.340
to tell us that you experience things like arrogance on a regular basis. And so that might
00:27:34.060
be influencing things, but in general, people tend more toward authentic pride. Now that said,
00:27:38.960
we do find a gender difference in hubristic pride, which is to say, on average, men report
00:27:44.460
experiencing higher levels of hubristic pride than women do. However, men still report even higher
00:27:49.300
levels of authentic pride. Okay. And I thought it was interesting in your book, you taught going
00:27:53.360
back to the usefulness of dominant, um, dominant social status and prestigious social status is that
00:27:59.140
there are certain instances where one does better than the, like it's more useful than the other.
00:28:04.840
So like, and what would be a situation where Dom, like a dominant strategy, sort of the assertive,
00:28:10.260
very aggressive, overbearing, um, status strategy would be better than say prestige.
00:28:15.760
Yeah. Well, this is really neat. We found this in a study. This is another study where we had groups
00:28:19.540
work together to solve problems and work on tasks. And this time we assign leaders. So rather than just
00:28:24.960
let the leader emerge naturally, we specifically assign one person in the group to lead the group.
00:28:29.880
And then we measured whether that person tended toward a dominant or prestigious strategy. And we
00:28:34.580
did that just by asking the other people who worked with, with him or her, you know, was this person
00:28:38.700
prestigious? Was this person dominant using various measures that we have for that? And, and then we
00:28:44.020
looked at outcomes. So we actually had, had ways of scoring the tasks that people did. And they did a
00:28:48.240
bunch of tasks that requires sort of complicated logical analysis, problem solving. And then there were
00:28:52.920
some tasks that involved creativity. Uh, for example, there was this task where you have to think of as
00:28:56.780
many creative uses for a brick as you can. And it's kind of a fun one. People end up, you know,
00:29:00.900
if they're good at it, they'll say all kinds of crazy things for using a brick. And if they're not,
00:29:04.060
they'll say, you know, building a house. And that's kind of where it ends. Um, and so what we
00:29:08.860
were interested in is whether the groups who were led by someone high and prestigious would do better
00:29:13.020
than the groups that were led by someone high and dominant. So that's kind of what we expected,
00:29:16.420
right? We thought, yeah, these dominant leaders, sure, they get control over a group,
00:29:20.640
but no one likes working for them. No one likes them. So the group is not going to do well.
00:29:24.360
But in fact, that's not what we found. And actually we had three different tasks that
00:29:29.180
required problem solving sort of analytic thought for all three of those tasks. Groups did better
00:29:34.500
if they were led by a dominant than if they were led by a prestigious person. The only thing that
00:29:38.800
groups did better on if they were led by a prestigious person was the creativity task,
00:29:42.320
the brick task, basically. And I think that makes sense. They did better on that because to be
00:29:46.500
creative, you have to be really comfortable. You have to feel safe, kind of spitballing ideas,
00:29:50.780
you know, not worry about someone belittling you as a dominant leader might,
00:29:54.360
so it does make sense that prestigious leader fostered, you know, greater creativity.
00:29:58.700
But I think it's surprising in some ways that, you know, the dominant leader was the one who
00:30:02.660
actually led people to success on these other tasks, these analytic tasks. My thinking there is
00:30:07.380
that the prestigious leader was really concerned about consensus, right? Prestigious leaders care
00:30:11.900
about including everyone, make sure everyone's voice is heard. And when you have 20 minutes to
00:30:16.980
solve a few problems, sure, consensus is great, but you really need to come to a clear answer.
00:30:21.720
And it may be the case that in that situation, the dominant leader was better able to say,
00:30:25.560
look, I don't want to hear from you anymore. We've heard from you. I want to hear this person. Okay,
00:30:28.980
this is the answer we're going with. Making a firm decision, not worrying about hurting others'
00:30:33.020
opinions, you know, kind of going with whatever he or she believed to be correct, based presumably on
00:30:39.240
the kind of feedback that other people were giving. We don't really know. And that ended up being
00:30:44.880
So when deadlines are short, you want the dominant guy, the dominant boss. I mean,
00:30:49.420
you give the example of Steve Jobs as an example of that, where he demanded these, like, what seemed
00:30:55.160
like impossible things on a short timeframe. And I guess the usual route that sort of these creative
00:31:01.200
types that work at Apple would be like, well, let's work together. Let's get a consensus. But he was
00:31:04.440
like, no, it's like, solve the problem now. And they did it.
00:31:08.280
They did it. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'd like to think there's a third option as well.
00:31:12.840
You know, I'd like to think that because there was a downside too. Yes, these people,
00:31:16.620
these groups were solving tasks. Yes, the people who worked for Steve Jobs, you know,
00:31:19.680
made amazing, amazing technological innovations, but they didn't like it. People don't like working
00:31:24.720
for Steve Jobs. They're not happy in their work. And that's what we found in our study as well.
00:31:28.540
The people who worked with a dominant leader weren't happy. They didn't enjoy the study. They
00:31:32.160
didn't enjoy the task. They didn't like the leader. They didn't feel good about themselves.
00:31:35.720
Whereas the people who worked for a prestigious leader, they had all those things. They were really
00:31:38.980
happy. They had a good time. They felt pride in themselves. They liked their leader.
00:31:41.840
So what we really would like, obviously, is both, right? We want people to be happy,
00:31:46.320
feel good about themselves, like their leader, but also get the job done. It's possible that you
00:31:51.280
could have a prestigious leader who fosters all those good feelings, but also takes into account
00:31:56.360
the way that a dominant person might wield control and, you know, the kind of expectations a dominant
00:32:00.880
person sets and perhaps can, you know, say at times, listen, I'm not going to look for consensus.
00:32:05.100
This is the time where we need to solve the problem and sort of take that perspective and solve it that
00:32:09.260
way. That would be my hope. You know, I mean, the study that we did, the other thing is it's very
00:32:13.560
different to assign someone to be the leader of a task and just kind of say, listen, you've been
00:32:18.000
chosen. You're all equal. You know, you're all undergrads coming in to do this study, but we're
00:32:21.540
randomly selecting you to be the leader. And if that person tends toward, you know, the prestige style,
00:32:27.340
they might feel uncomfortable actually sort of taking charge in a real serious way where they say,
00:32:31.240
no, I'm going to go with your decision and not yours. It might, in that situation, require someone
00:32:35.420
who's got the more dominant personality to be able to do that, to override people who he or she knows
00:32:40.020
are actually his equals, right? In real life situations, people typically get to the top,
00:32:46.320
you know, in other ways. They're not randomly assigned to be the leader. And so in those situations,
00:32:49.400
it's possible the prestigious leader would feel more comfortable, you know, drawing a conclusion
00:32:53.660
without reaching consensus. All right. So being able to mix it up, I guess, I guess status,
00:32:58.260
be statusly adroit is the goal. Yeah, I think, I mean, that might be one solution. I, you know,
00:33:02.460
Steve Jobs did have both. It's fair to say he was definitely dominant. I mean,
00:33:06.340
based on lots of reports of people working with him, he could be a real unpleasant person to work
00:33:10.360
for, but he also, I mean, in many ways, he's a creative genius, right? I mean, he had incredible
00:33:14.440
ideas and that's prestige, right? Being able to see things and have a vision and then portray it to
00:33:19.780
others and convince others to follow you. That's prestige. So he definitely is someone who wielded
00:33:24.240
both strategies quite effectively. So let's talk about people who do make that trip up to the top.
00:33:29.140
And they often do that through authentic pride and using prestige status to get there.
00:33:35.360
But is it possible to switch to hubristic pride and dominance status once you get to the top?
00:33:41.400
Yeah, I think that does happen. I think it's not uncommon. In the book, the example I give of this
00:33:46.160
is actually Lance Armstrong. And the reason for that is because he's someone who we know,
00:33:50.820
you know, in his early life, he had to be motivated by authentic pride, right? I mean,
00:33:54.520
the hours that he put in on a bicycle when he was just a teenager, it's pretty incredible. And one
00:34:01.160
of the big arguments I make in the book is that authentic pride is what motivates us to do things
00:34:05.880
that are boring, you know, tedious, actually painful when there's an easier option, right?
00:34:11.640
And in our daily lives that we often have a situation where we don't have to ride our bike
00:34:16.100
for 20 hours at a time. You know, we don't have to work really hard to, you know, ace every exam.
00:34:21.740
We could get B pluses, you know, we can even get Bs, we could get by, in other words,
00:34:26.180
without going above and beyond. But because we evolved to have the sense of self that we care
00:34:31.260
so deeply about, and we, you know, are so motivated to feel good about ourselves and feel authentic
00:34:36.000
pride in the kind of person that we are and the kind of person we want to be, we will end up putting
00:34:40.800
in that extra work, basically going, you know, going the extra mile, whatever it is, sacrificing
00:34:45.280
pleasure, and even subjecting ourselves to pain in order to get these positive feelings about our sense
00:34:50.060
of self. And that's, I mean, Lance Armstrong is a good example of anyone of that, because he just
00:34:54.520
put in so much work as a young man to become the fastest cyclist in the world. He had to be doing
00:34:59.600
that because he genuinely wanted to be the fastest cyclist in the world, right? That was his ideal
00:35:04.740
sense of self. He wanted to be this person who is faster than anyone else. But then, of course,
00:35:10.540
we know something changed, right? At some point, we don't know exactly when, at some point,
00:35:14.700
he stopped actually trying to be the fastest cyclist in the world and started doing whatever
00:35:19.480
he could to be perceived as the fastest cyclist in the world. And in cycling, as in many things in
00:35:25.320
real life, there's an easier way, right? It turns out he was able to use doping to sort of get ahead
00:35:30.300
without actually, you know, being the fastest cyclist. He could seem to be the fastest if he
00:35:34.700
was cheating. This is an option that's available to many people, you know, in various ways that we
00:35:38.640
could either work really hard to actually have that achievement, or we could find an easier way to get the
00:35:42.920
praise, to get the adulation of others without actually putting in the hard work. Sometimes
00:35:47.400
through explicit cheating. Other times, you know, rather than you have an achievement, rather than
00:35:52.160
keep working hard for the next achievement, you're going to find ways to publicize your achievement to
00:35:55.860
others, right? Maybe you'll brag about it. Maybe you'll, you know, make sure everyone else knows
00:35:59.440
about your achievement. And that's a way to keep those feelings going without actually putting the
00:36:03.500
hard work in. And it's really tempting to do that, you know? I mean, I think we can all see once we
00:36:08.460
start feeling those pride feelings that we've worked so hard for, it's, it's, it's a pleasurable
00:36:13.620
feeling, right? I mean, those, that's the motivation that got us there. But that is when authentic
00:36:17.640
pride flips to hubristic pride. As soon as we start thinking about the praise that we're getting from
00:36:21.940
others, how we're seen by others, and sort of easier ways of getting that praise rather than the
00:36:26.700
hard work that we put in to get there, that's when we're fixating on hubristic pride and a sort of
00:36:32.420
more artificial sense of pride, rather than the authentic pride that's based on achievements.
00:36:36.000
Yeah. I think this is connected to Carol Dweck's work about growth and fixed mindsets. It seems
00:36:40.560
like people with a hubristic pride have that fixed mindset. Like I am awesome. I am smart. I don't
00:36:46.160
have to work for it. And then, you know, she's found studies that students, you know, high school
00:36:50.740
students perceive themselves as smart. That's where they think other people, like they're more likely
00:36:54.640
to cheat, to maintain that as opposed to a student with a growth mindset who is willing to put in the
00:37:01.440
extra work to actually learn the topic. That's exactly right. Yeah. No, I mean,
00:37:06.160
it makes sense, right? That if all of a sudden what you're focused on isn't being the best,
00:37:10.140
but seeming like the best, the last thing you want to do is actually challenge yourself, right?
00:37:14.080
Because if you challenge yourself, you could fail. You could not seem like the best, right? Of course,
00:37:18.540
to be the best, you have to challenge yourself. You're never going to actually be the best unless
00:37:21.820
you keep pushing yourself harder and harder. So as soon as you start to care more about performance,
00:37:26.040
how others perceive you, whether it's performance goals or hubristic pride, which is this artificial
00:37:31.420
sense of superiority, you're not going to put in the hard work. You're not going to challenge
00:37:34.880
yourself. You're going to look for an easier way to make sure others think you're great and you're
00:37:39.400
going to avoid anything that can actually threaten that. And so how do you avoid that? How do you avoid
00:37:44.020
that, you know, success going into your head and you're shifting to a hubristic pride mindset?
00:37:49.880
It's tough, you know? I mean, I think, I really think this is where understanding this
00:37:54.160
distinction becomes really important because, you know, I think this is why a lot of, a lot of
00:37:59.100
cultures, a lot of religions, like we started talking about have said, well, pride is bad,
00:38:03.080
you know? So then their answer is don't feel pride at all. As soon as you start feeling pride,
00:38:06.360
you're sinful, you're, you know, that's a bad place to be. And that really puts people in a bind
00:38:10.200
because we're hardwired to feel pride, right? And so telling us not to feel something that
00:38:13.860
we evolved to feel and we evolved to want to feel, that's, that's a pretty tough thing to ask people
00:38:18.820
to do. I think the better solution is to think, well, listen, authentic pride feels pretty great too.
00:38:24.160
But to get authentic pride, you can't just rest on your laurels. You can't just stop challenging
00:38:28.620
yourself. In fact, if you do that, you're going to veer over to this other kind of pride that we
00:38:32.480
know has all kinds of negative consequences, right? People who feel hubristic pride, you know,
00:38:36.200
they end up lying, cheating, they lose friendships, they lose relationships. I mean, Lance Armstrong,
00:38:40.620
it's a great example of all these things. And no one wants that. So I think bearing that in mind,
00:38:46.000
you know, as soon as you sort of have that success watching yourself, what do you do next? You know,
00:38:50.460
do you, do you keep, you know, sure, celebrate the success, feel pride, but then do you keep
00:38:55.640
celebrating? Do you look for new ways of getting praise, new ways of celebrating yourself? Or do
00:39:01.020
you look for new ways of accomplishing something? You know, do you think back, how can I keep the
00:39:05.120
cycle going by going for that next goal? Let me think about the next thing I need to do to become
00:39:10.100
the kind of person I want to be versus I'm going to stay right here. I don't want to challenge myself
00:39:14.380
anymore. And I'm going to just maximize how good I feel about myself right now. That's a,
00:39:18.220
that's a real important distinction. Okay. That's a, that's a tricky thing to navigate,
00:39:21.520
but be thoughtful about. Well, so I mean, okay. So pride is connected to social status and social
00:39:26.500
status is connected to comparing ourselves to others, either negatively or positively. I mean,
00:39:33.080
I think we understand like how hubristic pride can encourage this sort of negative type of
00:39:37.260
comparison, but it seems like in order to have authentic pride, you also have to sort of be aware
00:39:42.140
of your social status amongst your peers and how you can be useful. So how can you have authentic
00:39:49.900
pride and, you know, compare yourself in a helpful, healthy way? That question makes any sense.
00:39:58.220
Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. The comparisons to others are going to be part of both pride. And
00:40:02.580
maybe that's kind of what you're getting at, that it's not just, you know, hubristic pride is this
00:40:06.060
really explicit, I'm better than others. But even with authentic pride, it's hard to sort of have a goal
00:40:11.220
for yourself without thinking about where others stand on any particular dimension, right? We sort
00:40:15.740
of, we're always evaluating ourselves in comparison to others. And that's the case for, for both kinds
00:40:19.940
of pride. We, we kind of can't help it. We're social beings, you know, they are both about status.
00:40:24.260
So it is always going to be about, well, you know, I had this achievement, but my colleague,
00:40:29.420
they, you know, they just had this other achievement. Is my achievement better or worse? Should I
00:40:32.620
really, do I deserve to feel pride in my achievement when my colleague just did this great thing?
00:40:36.180
It's really hard not to do that. Um, and it's really tricky because the more we do it,
00:40:40.660
you know, on the one hand, it can push us, right? If we have a colleague, you know, who's done great
00:40:44.220
things and, and we, we see them as a role model and want to do, you know, great things like them
00:40:48.500
and feel pride when we're kind of getting there, that's great. But then once we surpass them,
00:40:54.000
that becomes really tricky because then it's sort of like, oh, well, maybe I'm better than them,
00:40:56.980
right? And so that's, that's where hubris becomes a risk factor. Um, so I do think, I do think
00:41:01.240
it's complicated at the same time. It's probably unavoidable, right? It's sort of, we can't just,
00:41:05.820
as much as I would like to say, just figure out who you want to be yourself. Don't worry about anyone
00:41:08.940
else, you know, try to be that person. It's probably not possible, right? As we're figuring
00:41:13.620
out our own goals for ourself, we're doing that partly on the basis of the goals that we see others
00:41:18.040
around us accomplishing. Um, and that, that's part of being human being, you know, a social being
00:41:23.080
that's aware of others in our group and what they're doing. Yeah. I came across research talking
00:41:27.260
about comparison and, you know, improvement. And they found that, um, if I remember the study
00:41:31.540
correctly, is that if you, it's better to like compare yourself to someone who's just a little bit
00:41:35.060
better than you, cause they have more to teach you cause they're more like you than comparing
00:41:38.980
yourself to someone who's like an expert. Cause that just debilitates you. And it's like,
00:41:42.340
I'm never going to get better. Um, I think this is the air force Academy. They actually did this,
00:41:46.920
um, unintentionally. They, they stuck people who were sort of like really good students and really
00:41:51.820
poor students. They were thinking that the really good students would help the really poor students,
00:41:55.220
but actually the poor students got worse. And then they put, um, sort of average students
00:42:00.020
and they found that the average students actually improved more because they were learning the
00:42:04.420
comparisons were more in line with each other and they can actually learn more from each other to
00:42:08.440
improve. Yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense when you're both at the same level. So you're both
00:42:12.900
students. I think that's absolutely right. If you, if you're a really poor student and you're paired
00:42:16.520
with one of the best students, you're just going to feel horrible about yourself, right? Cause you're
00:42:20.300
going to see this person who theoretically you shouldn't be that far off from, and yet you are,
00:42:24.060
and that just feels incredibly discouraging, but someone who's a little bit better and you,
00:42:27.660
you can see clearly, okay, here are the steps I can take to get to that level.
00:42:31.140
That can be really encouraging. And that could be a great thing. You know, I think it's different
00:42:34.580
when someone's a student and when someone's a teacher, you know, I think teachers, we see them
00:42:38.540
explicitly as a whole different level than us. So there it's okay to have a teacher who's,
00:42:42.280
who we see as a real expert and really smart and competent. And that's really important. We want
00:42:46.260
to have teachers that we respect, but there we're not trying to become the teacher. We're just trying
00:42:50.300
to learn as much as we can from the teacher. So it's a bit of a different goal.
00:42:53.100
Okay. So, um, you, you mentioned earlier that we have these evolved
00:42:56.200
status displays or pride displays. Um, but you also, it's, it's kind of tricky because
00:43:02.420
we've, if you display too much, uh, pride, then people are like, ugh, that's, you're actually
00:43:08.980
have low. So, I mean, what is it, what does the research say about, you know, modulating your,
00:43:13.540
your pride displays so that people can sense that you, you are, you, you have high status,
00:43:18.300
but yet at the same time, like you don't want to do it so much where you turn people off.
00:43:22.440
Yeah, no, incredibly complicated also. Um, you know, and, and this is something that is
00:43:27.340
complicated also because there's no one size fits all answer. Um, when it's okay to display
00:43:32.520
pride and how it's okay to display pride varies dramatically by situation, culture, social group,
00:43:38.520
uh, you know, country, um, there are all kinds of differences in this. And this is what I was kind
00:43:42.420
of getting at before that cultures do have all these rules about how we display pride because
00:43:46.720
cultures want to regulate how status works. And there's all kinds of cultural differences. And,
00:43:50.320
uh, you know, whether you have a really strict hierarchy or really mobile hierarchy when it's
00:43:54.040
flexible and that's going to play into all this, um, you know, studies have found, for example,
00:43:58.220
that, um, people who, so, you know, in our study of the Olympics, of course, people show pride. And
00:44:02.920
I think that seemed as pretty acceptable. We didn't measure whether, you know, was it acceptable or
00:44:07.140
not, but I think we can agree that when you win an Olympic medal, that's a time where not showing
00:44:11.580
pride would probably be problematic, right? It was sort of say, look, what do you think you're too good
00:44:14.700
for the Olympics even, you know, if you want to show your pride. Um, but there's this other study
00:44:19.360
that was conducted in Australia, which, you know, as far as I understand, very individualistic,
00:44:22.780
much like the U S. Um, and they looked at Academy award winners and winners of other athletic events,
00:44:28.580
not the Olympics, but various athletic events. And they looked at pride displays that were shown,
00:44:32.760
um, either kind of pretty overt and extreme displays versus much more mild and subtle displays.
00:44:39.320
And what they found was that when they had participants who were college students looking
00:44:43.200
at these displays, they knew that they were winners in all these cases. So theoretically,
00:44:46.560
the pride is considered appropriate, but when the, when these people, when these winners showed
00:44:51.500
displays that were really extreme, that was considered too much, right? Then, yeah, they said,
00:44:56.540
okay, they're a winner. That's fine. And maybe there'll be high status, but I don't like him.
00:45:00.580
He seems arrogant. I like the other guy better, right? They actually preferred people who showed much
00:45:05.440
more subtle displays because they thought those people are taking into account the feelings of the
00:45:10.260
person who didn't win, right? Showing too extreme pride when there's a loser as well,
00:45:14.100
is seen as antisocial, you know, inconsiderate and, and hubristic. And so people aren't liked
00:45:19.880
as a result of it, even, even in a situation where, you know, winning something really important,
00:45:24.100
like an Academy award, it should be okay to show pride. And yet we do have rules and expectations
00:45:29.180
about this. Right. I mean, that's the tough thing. That's an important question for people
00:45:33.000
in our information economy have to figure out. Cause like, you have to toot your own horn,
00:45:38.080
right? And like show like, Hey, I got these skills. I'm awesome. But at the same time,
00:45:41.460
you can't do it so much that people are just like, ugh, like this guy just seems really
00:45:45.520
unsufferable. Exactly. No, it's, it's really complicated because that is the other side of
00:45:49.880
it that we found is that showing pride does get you status. When we see people show pride,
00:45:53.480
we automatically assume that they're deserving of high status. We're more likely to want to hire
00:45:58.020
them. You know, if you see someone show pride in an interview, we found that we'll hire that person
00:46:01.800
above someone who shows shame. Even if the person who shows shame has a much better resume,
00:46:05.740
we'll still go for the pride displaying person. You know, we like a winner. We like someone who's
00:46:09.620
telling us in their, in their body movements that they have high status. That's something
00:46:12.940
that we all want. At the same time, we don't like people who are arrogant. So it's, it's a really
00:46:17.680
tough line to navigate, you know? And I think the people who, who, who are best at it are the people
00:46:22.580
who are the prestigious leaders of the group, right? They're the people who are respected.
00:46:25.700
They're known to be high status. You know, everyone looks up to them, but they're not considered overly
00:46:29.620
arrogant. Um, and, and part of, I think why they're able to manage that is because of the humility
00:46:34.080
that they're able to display at the same time as, as they're displaying pride. Um, but it is,
00:46:38.760
it's really, it's really complicated. You know, I would say, I guess, concrete advice,
00:46:42.780
acknowledging others is always a really helpful way of doing that while you're crediting yourself.
00:46:46.860
You're also talking about the role that others played. Um, in the book, an example I give of
00:46:51.540
this is when, uh, Barack Obama, when he gave his speech after, uh, the assassination of bin Laden,
00:46:57.160
he gave this speech and it was a really big deal earlier on his presidency. This was back in his
00:47:00.820
first term. He hadn't done a whole lot that people were really excited about at that point. This was a
00:47:05.440
really big deal. And his speech was really sort of calculated to be this great example of authentic
00:47:11.600
pride and prestige, because he made it clear that he was responsible for this. He used the word I a
00:47:16.940
lot, but he talked about specific behaviors he did. He was very focused on here are the things that I
00:47:21.820
did to get there, which is, you know, very much authentic versus hubristic pride. It wasn't, I'm
00:47:25.760
great. It was, I did this. And then I did this. The other thing he did was he talked about all the
00:47:30.660
other people who were relevant, right? He made sure to give a lot of credit to the military,
00:47:34.020
uh, the, the soldiers who actually went in and, and, and took bin Laden to the, his advisors who
00:47:39.440
came in with the intelligence to basically all the people involved. He made sure to give credit.
00:47:43.640
And that's really important because it's a way of suggesting I didn't do this alone. I have a sense
00:47:48.140
of humility, but at the same time, here are the things that I did that I deserve credit for.
00:47:52.600
Yeah. That's, that's great. That's a great example. But the, the other issue too, with,
00:47:55.680
you know, trying to show some humility while displaying pride is like the humble brag. Like we don't
00:47:59.820
like that. Like where you humbly assert your, your pride or your status. Um, it was, so what's going
00:48:07.160
on there? Like, why, why do, why does that rub people the wrong way where the humble brag?
00:48:12.300
My sense is it's because it's too obvious, right? That it's not, it's not a humble pride. You know,
00:48:17.540
if there was a way, like, I think, you know, what Obama did was there was no bragging at all. There was
00:48:21.800
humility and pride. And that's very different than humility and bragging or humility and arrogance.
00:48:26.540
Right. And I think those two things don't work together when, when you're clearly bragging,
00:48:31.500
but also kind of trying to play it off and like, but really, you know, I'm not great.
00:48:36.020
Everyone knows that what you really mean is no, but really I am great. You know,
00:48:39.920
if you're actually humble, you don't want to brag. Right. And so I think the combination of the two
00:48:46.200
tells people to signal the humility shouldn't be taken seriously. That's sort of just a front.
00:48:51.000
Well, Jessica, this has been a great conversation. Where can people, um, find out more about your
00:48:55.960
work and your books? They can delve deeper into this topic. Yeah, well, of course the book is
00:49:00.180
available anywhere books are sold and you can also go to, we have, we have a website for the book at my,
00:49:04.640
um, my research website and it's ubc-emotionlab.ca. And then it's, uh, the link, the, the tab to click on
00:49:14.420
to learn about the book is take pride. Uh, and you can go directly there by doing ubc-emotionlab.ca
00:49:19.420
backslash take dash pride. Um, either way gets you there and that's, that will tell you all about
00:49:25.060
the book and how to get it. Awesome. Well, Jessica, Tracy, thank you so much for your time. It's been
00:49:44.280
My guest today was Jessica Tracy. She's the author of the book,
00:49:47.080
Take Pride. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more
00:49:51.080
information about her work at ubc-emotionlab.ca slash take dash pride. Uh, we'll have a link to
00:49:58.860
that on our, the show notes. Speaking of the show notes, you can check out the show notes at
00:50:02.320
aom.is slash take pride for links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.
00:50:09.620
Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:50:14.040
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com. Our show is
00:50:17.540
edited by Creative Audio Lab here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you have any audio editing needs or audio
00:50:21.680
production needs, check them out at creativeaudiolab.com. As always, I appreciate the
00:50:25.920
continued support. Until next time, this is Brad McKay telling you to stay manly.