Seminars and Panels
The Nature of Pride:
Professor Jessica L. Tracy
|
Jan 23 2017
|
Why do people respond to their most impressive and apparent successes by engaging in verbal and nonverbal displays of self-celebration, superiority, and even arrogance? In this talk, I will argue that humans have an evolved tendency to respond to success by displaying pride, a distinct and universally recognized emotion expression. This expression may have evolved to serve a fundamental social function: communicating to others an individual’s deservedness of high status or social rank. As I will show, the pride expression is a powerful status signal, sending a message that is distinct from other emotions, implicitly perceived, and strong enough to counteract contradictory contextual information in shaping status-based decision-making. Furthermore, findings from a separate line of research on the psychological structure of pride support this account. Individuals subjectively experience and think about pride in two distinct ways, consistent with a theoretical distinction between a confident and effort-based “authentic” pride, and a more grandiose and self-aggrandizing “hubristic” pride. These findings explain how the experience of pride may serve a complementary function to its expression. Specifically, each form of pride is linked to a distinct rank-attainment strategy (i.e., “dominance” vs. “prestige”), suggesting that each motivates a divergent set of behaviors needed to attain each of these two forms of rank. Overall, this research suggests that pride is a complex and multifaceted social emotion that is closely linked to self-esteem, narcissism, achievement, and status, and may be an evolved part of human nature.
About Professor Jessica L. Tracy
Jessica Tracy is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she is also a Canadian Institute for Health Research New Investigator. She completed her undergraduate degree at Amherst College in 1996, and her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, in 2005. Dr. Tracy’s research focuses on emotions and emotion expressions, and, in particular, on the self-conscious emotions of pride, shame, and guilt. She is author of the book Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and has published over 80 academic journal articles, book chapters, and theoretical reviews, many of which appeared in the leading psychology (e.g., Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) and cross-disciplinary science (e.g., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science) journals. In 2005 she won the James McKeen Cattell Award from the New York Academy of Sciences; in 2010, the International Society for Self and Identity Outstanding Early Career Award; and in 2011, a University of British Columbia Killam Research Prize. Her research has been covered by hundreds of media outlets, including ABC’s “Good Morning America”, NPR’s “All Things Considered”, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The New Scientist, and Scientific American. Dr. Tracy is currently an associate editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Click here to view the presentation. |
Click here to view the webcast. |
||
Audience Feedback |
n = 64 |
Question 1 - How interesting was the topic to you?
Question 2 - Did you learn anything useful?
Question 3 - How would you rate the quality of the presentation?
Question 4 - How would you rate the quality of the audience's interaction with the speaker?
Selective Comments
"Engaging and smooth presentation"
"A timely and thought provoking seminar"
"Awesome presentation - fascinating and well presented"
"We need more seminars"
- 2017 - 2018
- 2016 - 2017
- Behavioral Concepts and the Sciences of Human Behavior
H. Longino Apr 21, 2017 - Insane Asylums and Genetics: How Human Heredity Became a Data Science
T. Porter Feb 17, 2017 - The Nature of Pride: The Emotional Origins of Social Rank
J. Tracy Jan 23, 2017
- Behavioral Concepts and the Sciences of Human Behavior
- 2015 - 2016
-
Public Ethics, Politics and Sociobiology
M. P. Sheldon Mar 11, 2016 -
Classifying People by Color: How Racial Categories Change Over Time
A. A. Martinez Feb 29, 2016 -
The Origin of Social Impulse: E.O. Wilson's Recent and Controversial Rejection of Kin Selection in Historical Context
A. Gibson Dec 4, 2015
-
Public Ethics, Politics and Sociobiology
- 2014 - 2015
-
Special Event: Lone Star History of Science Meeting Writing the Origin with Burned Fingers: Darwin's Penance for the "Sin of Speculation"A. Sponsel Apr 3, 2015 - Welfare, Work, and Witness: Why Clinical Research Can Survive the Death of a Healthy Human Subject
L. Stark Apr 3, 2015 - The Distinctive Significance of Systemic Risk
A. James Mar 6, 2015 - The Devil's Heritage: Masuo Kodani, the "Nisei Problem," and Social Stratification at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan (1946-1954)
V.B. Smocovitis Jan 28, 2015 - Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact
B. Uzzi Dec 8, 2014 - Psychology of Science and Technology
M. Gorman Nov 17, 2014 - How Economics Shapes Science
P. Stephan Sep 10, 2014
-
- 2013 - 2014
- The Decision to Put David Vetter in the Bubble
J. H. Jones Apr 16, 2014 - Ethical Paradoxes of
Control: Science, Engineering, and the Expansion of Moral ResponsibilityR. Hollander Mar 3, 2014 - 'Broken Symmetry': Humanism, Militarism, and the Dilemmas of Scientific Identity in Nuclear Age America.
J. Wang Feb 17, 2014 - Using Creative Non-Fiction in Teaching Research Ethics
C.M. Klugman Dec 2, 2013 - Does Neuroscience Undermine Responsibility?
W. Sinnott-Armstrong Nov 15, 2013 - Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism
J. Hamblin Oct 18, 2013
- The Decision to Put David Vetter in the Bubble
- 2012 - 2013
- Lead Wars: the Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children
D. Rosner Mar 25, 2013 - Identifying potential pitfalls in the quantitative appraisal system for scientific careers
A.M. Petersen Dec 3, 2012 - Keeping Secrets: Scientists' strategic management of militarization, 1945-1980
S. Lindee Nov 12, 2012 - Evolutionary Theory as Methodological Anesthesia: Methodological and Philosophical Lessons from Evolutionary Psychology
R.N. Boyd Oct 19, 2012 - Panel on Peer-Review Issues
Oct 11, 2012
- Can technology enable cities to cope with the economic winter?
A. Hampapur Sep 21, 2012
- Lead Wars: the Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children
- 2011 - 2012
- Engineering Success and Failure on 9/11
S.K.A. Pfatteicher Apr 27, 2012 - Regulating Ionizing Radiation: Flawed Standard, Flawed Ethics
K.S. Frechette Mar 5, 2012 - Do fish feel pain?
C. Allen Jan 25, 2012 - The Ethics of Relevancy
J. Levine Dec 13, 2011 - ORI Cases and How to Protect Yourself from Research Misconduct in Your Labratory
A.R. Price Nov 7, 2011
- Engineering Success and Failure on 9/11