Pride

For other uses, see Pride (disambiguation).
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Allegory of pride, from c. 1590–1630, engraving, 22.3 cm × 16.6 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)

Pride is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself".[1] The Oxford dictionary defines it as "the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's own importance."[2] Pride 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,"[3] as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as "the love of one's own excellence",[4] and Meher Baba called it "the specific feeling through which egoism manifests."[5]

Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion that 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.[6] Some social psychologists identify the nonverbal expression of pride as a means of sending a functional, automatically perceived signal of high social status.[7]

Pride may be considered the opposite of shame or of humility,[8] sometimes as proper or as a virtue and sometimes as corrupt or as a vice. 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. Other possible objects of pride are one's ethnicity and one's sex identity (for example, LGBT pride). With a negative connotation, pride refers to a foolishly[9] and irrationally corrupt sense of one's personal value, status, or accomplishments[10] 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[11] a sin, seen 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, greatness of soul, or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice, it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory.

  1. ^ "pride". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 3 September 2022. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  2. ^ The New Oxford Dictionary of English. Clarendon Press. 1998.
  3. ^ Taylor, Richard (1995). Restoring Pride: The Lost Virtue of Our Age. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781573920247.
  4. ^ Augustine of Hippo. De amore (in Latin). Vol. IV. Archived from the original on 5 November 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2008. Est autem superbia amor proprie excellentie, et fuit initium peccati superbia.
  5. ^ Baba, Meher (1967). Discourses. Vol. 2. San Francisco: Sufism Reoriented. p. 72. ISBN 978-1880619094..
  6. ^ Sullivan, G.B. (2007). "Wittgenstein and the grammar of pride: The relevance of philosophy to studies of self-evaluative emotions". New Ideas in Psychology. 25 (3): 233–252. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2007.03.003.
  7. ^ Shariff, Azim F.; Tracy, Jessica L. (2009). "Knowing who's boss: Implicit perceptions of status from the nonverbal expression of pride". Emotion. 9 (5): 631–639. doi:10.1037/a0017089. PMID 19803585.
  8. ^ "PRIDE synonyms". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  9. ^ "hubris". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 6 April 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  10. ^ Steinvorth, Ulrich (2016). Pride and Authenticity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 10. ISBN 9783319341163.
  11. ^ "LGBTQ", Wikipedia, 2024-10-21, retrieved 2024-10-24