Chapter 21
Pride
People Affected: everyone older than 24 months
Type of Emotion: conceptual reward
Conceptual Trigger: “ my rank has increased ”
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: the larger the increase, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in men
Involuntary Expression: prolonged smiling
Synonym: elation
Type of Emotion: conceptual reward
Conceptual Trigger: “ my rank has increased ”
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: the larger the increase, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in men
Involuntary Expression: prolonged smiling
Synonym: elation
Purpose
Pride encourages everyone to increase their rank.
Your rank reflects your contribution to group happiness. Your rank increases when you are expected to contribute more to your group’s happiness. The unemployed increase their rank when they become employed.
Contributing more to group happiness helps group survival. The fewer unemployed there are, the more efficient a nation is.
Rank reflects expected future contributions to group happiness, not past contributions. Current presidents are higher rank than past presidents.
Rank is usually assigned with money. The more you contribute to group happiness, the more you are paid.
Rank is also assigned with titles, perquisites and trophies. High-ranking people are introduced as the honorable or chief executive. They are given large offices and parking spots near the door. They receive gold medals and statuettes.
Rank and pecking order are different.
Pecking order helps individuals by reducing competition. Pecking order sets a group’s eating order to avoid having a fight before every meal. A pack of dogs avoids fighting before every meal by letting the top dog eat first and so on.
Rank harms individuals by increasing competition. Increasing your rank requires contributing more to group happiness than others. The more you contribute to your group’s happiness, the more you harm yourself.
The harm caused by increasing rank can be seen in the early deaths of early leaders. Analysis of 1672 US governors by Stewart McCann showed that the younger a governor was when first elected, the sooner he died. The results are summarized in Younger Achievement Age Predicts Shorter Life for Governors: Testing the Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis with Artifact Controls. As reported in The New York Times Magazine – The 3rd Annual Year in Ideas: Young Success Means Early Death, the analysis produced the same result for Academy Award winners, Nobel laureates, prime ministers, presidents and pontiffs.
Pride encourages everyone to increase their rank.
Your rank reflects your contribution to group happiness. Your rank increases when you are expected to contribute more to your group’s happiness. The unemployed increase their rank when they become employed.
Contributing more to group happiness helps group survival. The fewer unemployed there are, the more efficient a nation is.
Rank reflects expected future contributions to group happiness, not past contributions. Current presidents are higher rank than past presidents.
Rank is usually assigned with money. The more you contribute to group happiness, the more you are paid.
Rank is also assigned with titles, perquisites and trophies. High-ranking people are introduced as the honorable or chief executive. They are given large offices and parking spots near the door. They receive gold medals and statuettes.
Rank and pecking order are different.
Pecking order helps individuals by reducing competition. Pecking order sets a group’s eating order to avoid having a fight before every meal. A pack of dogs avoids fighting before every meal by letting the top dog eat first and so on.
Rank harms individuals by increasing competition. Increasing your rank requires contributing more to group happiness than others. The more you contribute to your group’s happiness, the more you harm yourself.
The harm caused by increasing rank can be seen in the early deaths of early leaders. Analysis of 1672 US governors by Stewart McCann showed that the younger a governor was when first elected, the sooner he died. The results are summarized in Younger Achievement Age Predicts Shorter Life for Governors: Testing the Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis with Artifact Controls. As reported in The New York Times Magazine – The 3rd Annual Year in Ideas: Young Success Means Early Death, the analysis produced the same result for Academy Award winners, Nobel laureates, prime ministers, presidents and pontiffs.
Rank is increased by learning or
innovating.
Learning increases rank throughout childhood. During the first 20 years of life, your rank keeps increasing as you graduate to the next grade or school. Your rank continues to increase during the next 5 to 10 years of work as you learn new skills.
For most adults, rank plateaus in their thirties and remains unchanged until their seventies, when it declines with health.
For a few adults, innovating increases their rank. Dr. Steven Trokel was not content to run a successful ophthalmology practice in New York City. He went on to develop and patent the use of the Excimer laser for corrective eye surgery in 1992.
People usually regret not recognizing the importance of rank early in life. If they did, they would have invested more to increase their rank. Instead, many people push their children to avoid making the same mistake.
Conceptual Trigger
Pride is usually triggered when you:
Pride is triggered by higher rank, not high rank. Rookies feel pride, but veteran all-stars do not. Recent nursing graduates feel pride, but doctors nearing retirement do not.
Learning increases rank throughout childhood. During the first 20 years of life, your rank keeps increasing as you graduate to the next grade or school. Your rank continues to increase during the next 5 to 10 years of work as you learn new skills.
For most adults, rank plateaus in their thirties and remains unchanged until their seventies, when it declines with health.
For a few adults, innovating increases their rank. Dr. Steven Trokel was not content to run a successful ophthalmology practice in New York City. He went on to develop and patent the use of the Excimer laser for corrective eye surgery in 1992.
People usually regret not recognizing the importance of rank early in life. If they did, they would have invested more to increase their rank. Instead, many people push their children to avoid making the same mistake.
Conceptual Trigger
Pride is usually triggered when you:
- graduate from school
- win an award or contest
- are complimented by others
- receive a job offer, promotion or raise
- are the underdog and win
- are the favorite and win by more than the spread
- are treated as an equal by a higher-ranking person
- are first asked for your autograph
- buy or receive new possessions
Pride is triggered by higher rank, not high rank. Rookies feel pride, but veteran all-stars do not. Recent nursing graduates feel pride, but doctors nearing retirement do not.
If pride was triggered by high rank, it would only motivate the nearly-top ranked. The top rank would not be motivated to increase their rank. They would feel pride just by maintaining their rank. The nearly-top ranked would be motivated. They would feel pride if they increased their rank. Ranks below the nearly-top rank would not be motivated. They would not feel pride if they increased their rank to the next level.
Because pride is triggered by higher rank, it motivates everyone below the top rank. Everyone below the top rank feels pride when they increase their rank. Vice-presidents feel pride when they are promoted to president. The unemployed feel pride when they become janitors.
By definition, pride is temporary. Pride is only triggered while you conclude that your rank is higher. Eventually, your higher rank is not higher anymore. A new car triggers pride for less than a year.
Pride is not triggered by slower growth. You will not feel pride if you receive a 5% salary increase and others receive a 10% salary increase. Pride only rewards improvements in relative contribution, which requires learning or innovation.
Pride is triggered by slower decline. You will feel pride if you receive a 5% salary rollback and others receive a 10% salary rollback. Rewarding slower decline encourages innovation during bad times.
Underdogs always feel pride when they win. Underdogs are not expected to win. Winning increases their rank.
Underdogs can also trigger pride if they lose by less than the spread. Underdogs are expected to lose by the spread. Losing by less than the spread increases their rank.
Favorites only feel pride if they win by more than the spread. Favorites are expected to win by the spread. They only increase their rank if they win by more than the spread.
Pride is triggered more frequently in growing companies. Their employees feel more pride because they are promoted more frequently than stagnant companies. Growing companies are more profitable because their employees feel more pride.
Because pride is triggered by higher rank, it motivates everyone below the top rank. Everyone below the top rank feels pride when they increase their rank. Vice-presidents feel pride when they are promoted to president. The unemployed feel pride when they become janitors.
By definition, pride is temporary. Pride is only triggered while you conclude that your rank is higher. Eventually, your higher rank is not higher anymore. A new car triggers pride for less than a year.
Pride is not triggered by slower growth. You will not feel pride if you receive a 5% salary increase and others receive a 10% salary increase. Pride only rewards improvements in relative contribution, which requires learning or innovation.
Pride is triggered by slower decline. You will feel pride if you receive a 5% salary rollback and others receive a 10% salary rollback. Rewarding slower decline encourages innovation during bad times.
Underdogs always feel pride when they win. Underdogs are not expected to win. Winning increases their rank.
Underdogs can also trigger pride if they lose by less than the spread. Underdogs are expected to lose by the spread. Losing by less than the spread increases their rank.
Favorites only feel pride if they win by more than the spread. Favorites are expected to win by the spread. They only increase their rank if they win by more than the spread.
Pride is triggered more frequently in growing companies. Their employees feel more pride because they are promoted more frequently than stagnant companies. Growing companies are more profitable because their employees feel more pride.
Being treated as an equal by a higher-ranking person triggers pride. If a higher-ranking person treats you as an equal, it feels like your rank has risen to their higher level. This happens when you meet a famous person.
High-ranking people, like royalty, know they have this effect on lower-ranking people. They know that investing a few minutes being down-to-earth with ordinary people leaves them with a strong positive memory. Afterwards, those ordinary people tell many friends and family how likeable the high-ranking person is.
Being complimented triggers pride. You feel pride the first few times someone says you are attractive or intelligent. Eventually, compliments from that person do not increase your rank further and therefore stop triggering pride.
Being asked for your autograph triggers pride for the first few months. People feel pride when strangers first ask for their autograph. The requests increase their rank to that of a famous person. After a few months, the requests stop triggering pride because they no longer increase the rank of the now-famous person.
New possessions usually trigger pride. New possessions are one of the ways we signal higher rank to others. The more your possessions cost, the higher your rank. Men often use cars to signal higher rank. Women often use clothes or jewelry.
People buy lottery tickets to help trigger imagined pride. People buy $10 lottery tickets despite knowing that the expected payoff is $6, for a net loss of $4 a ticket. However, that payoff does not include the benefit of imagined pride. Ticketholders can more credibly imagine winning than non-ticketholders. Their imagined pride is worth more than $4 a ticket.
Video games have many levels to trigger continuous pride. Each time a player reaches a new level or rank, they feel a burst of pride. Higher rank is recognized with audio/visual effects and awards, such as new weapons or privileges. Gamers become addicted to those bursts of pride, like drug users to heroin or gamblers to slot machines.
People seek challenges to trigger pride. A challenge is something which is a stretch for someone, meaning it requires increasing their rank. People usually seek alternative challenges when their career rank plateaus in their thirties. They start to collect things, run marathons or become politically active.
A sense of accomplishment is pride. If you had a particularly good week at work, you believe that your rank has increased.
High-ranking people, like royalty, know they have this effect on lower-ranking people. They know that investing a few minutes being down-to-earth with ordinary people leaves them with a strong positive memory. Afterwards, those ordinary people tell many friends and family how likeable the high-ranking person is.
Being complimented triggers pride. You feel pride the first few times someone says you are attractive or intelligent. Eventually, compliments from that person do not increase your rank further and therefore stop triggering pride.
Being asked for your autograph triggers pride for the first few months. People feel pride when strangers first ask for their autograph. The requests increase their rank to that of a famous person. After a few months, the requests stop triggering pride because they no longer increase the rank of the now-famous person.
New possessions usually trigger pride. New possessions are one of the ways we signal higher rank to others. The more your possessions cost, the higher your rank. Men often use cars to signal higher rank. Women often use clothes or jewelry.
People buy lottery tickets to help trigger imagined pride. People buy $10 lottery tickets despite knowing that the expected payoff is $6, for a net loss of $4 a ticket. However, that payoff does not include the benefit of imagined pride. Ticketholders can more credibly imagine winning than non-ticketholders. Their imagined pride is worth more than $4 a ticket.
Video games have many levels to trigger continuous pride. Each time a player reaches a new level or rank, they feel a burst of pride. Higher rank is recognized with audio/visual effects and awards, such as new weapons or privileges. Gamers become addicted to those bursts of pride, like drug users to heroin or gamblers to slot machines.
People seek challenges to trigger pride. A challenge is something which is a stretch for someone, meaning it requires increasing their rank. People usually seek alternative challenges when their career rank plateaus in their thirties. They start to collect things, run marathons or become politically active.
A sense of accomplishment is pride. If you had a particularly good week at work, you believe that your rank has increased.
Rich children rarely feel pride. Rich children are born high rank and usually stay that way until their seventies. Because they start high rank, they rarely increase their rank. Their inability to feel pride makes them more dysfunctional than average.
A rags-to-riches story is the best life plan. A continuous climb triggers continuous pride. Continuously increasing your rank for a lifetime requires starting at the bottom. If you start higher than the bottom, your rank will hit a plateau before death.
People trigger imagined pride to achieve rank increases that require long-term investment. To remain motivated through a project which only increases rank after many years, people often imagine the pride they will feel when the project is completed. To stay motivated while writing this book, I frequently imagined the pride I would feel when it was completed.
Imagined pride motivates people more than actual pride. Actual pride is triggered after someone increases their rank. Imagined pride is triggered when people are considering making the extra effort required to increase their rank. The prolonged smiling triggered by pride helps others imagine pride’s positive effect.
Mental Effect
People trigger imagined pride to achieve rank increases that require long-term investment. To remain motivated through a project which only increases rank after many years, people often imagine the pride they will feel when the project is completed. To stay motivated while writing this book, I frequently imagined the pride I would feel when it was completed.
Imagined pride motivates people more than actual pride. Actual pride is triggered after someone increases their rank. Imagined pride is triggered when people are considering making the extra effort required to increase their rank. The prolonged smiling triggered by pride helps others imagine pride’s positive effect.
Mental Effect
Pride varies with the rank increase. The larger the increase, the stronger the positive effect. Winning a million dollars triggers more pride in a beggar than a billionaire.
Pride varies with the rank increase to focus you where you can best contribute to group happiness. You pursue the career path that offers the greatest potential to increase your rank and therefore group happiness. Most lawyers become lawyers for the potential increase in rank, not to be stuck inside office buildings for long hours.
Pride is generally stronger in men. For the same increase in rank, men feel a stronger positive effect than women. The gender difference is evident in recreational choices. When men have recreational time, they compete or produce visible achievement. When women have recreational time, they socialize. Women prefer socializing because it triggers affection, which is stronger in women.
All four rank conceptions are stronger in men: pride, humiliation, humor and envy.
Rank emotions are stronger in men because lost male reproduction harms a group less. The higher your rank, the more you are contributing to your group. The more you contribute to your group, the less time you spend on reproduction. Lost male reproduction is offset by giving men courtship advantage through infatuation’s group preference component and by increasing other men’s reproduction. Lost female reproduction cannot be offset with courtship advantages or by increasing other women’s reproduction.
Women cooperate more than men because their rank emotions are weaker. They are better team players because they seek pride and humor less than men. They enjoy the spotlight and humiliating others less than men. Women also seek humiliation and envy less. They are less likely to be offended by others or by unequal treatment.
Men compete more than women because their rank emotions are stronger.
All four rank emotions seem to grow stronger with age. They seem to play a more dominant role in your thoughts as you age. However, the strength of their mental effects does not change as you age. What changes is your awareness of their importance to your happiness.
Pride varies with the rank increase to focus you where you can best contribute to group happiness. You pursue the career path that offers the greatest potential to increase your rank and therefore group happiness. Most lawyers become lawyers for the potential increase in rank, not to be stuck inside office buildings for long hours.
Pride is generally stronger in men. For the same increase in rank, men feel a stronger positive effect than women. The gender difference is evident in recreational choices. When men have recreational time, they compete or produce visible achievement. When women have recreational time, they socialize. Women prefer socializing because it triggers affection, which is stronger in women.
All four rank conceptions are stronger in men: pride, humiliation, humor and envy.
Rank emotions are stronger in men because lost male reproduction harms a group less. The higher your rank, the more you are contributing to your group. The more you contribute to your group, the less time you spend on reproduction. Lost male reproduction is offset by giving men courtship advantage through infatuation’s group preference component and by increasing other men’s reproduction. Lost female reproduction cannot be offset with courtship advantages or by increasing other women’s reproduction.
Women cooperate more than men because their rank emotions are weaker. They are better team players because they seek pride and humor less than men. They enjoy the spotlight and humiliating others less than men. Women also seek humiliation and envy less. They are less likely to be offended by others or by unequal treatment.
Men compete more than women because their rank emotions are stronger.
All four rank emotions seem to grow stronger with age. They seem to play a more dominant role in your thoughts as you age. However, the strength of their mental effects does not change as you age. What changes is your awareness of their importance to your happiness.
Gambling triggers very strong pride for a short time.
Winning a jackpot gives winners a large and sudden increase in rank. The probability of winning a jackpot is close to 0% moments before it happens. Winning causes the probability to instantly hit 100% and the gambler’s rank to skyrocket. As their rank skyrockets, gamblers feel very strong pride for a short time.
Buying a larger house also causes a large increase in rank, but not as suddenly. The probability of the purchase slowly approaches 100% over a few years. As the probability approaches 100%, so does the imagined rank of the homeowners. As their imagined rank continually increases over a few years, they continually feel weak pride.
Other Species
Rhesus monkeys feel pride. A study was conducted in which rhesus monkeys were paid cherry juice to view pictures of other monkeys. They were willing to be paid less juice to view higher-ranking monkeys. Viewing higher-ranking monkeys triggered their pride, just like being treated as an equal by a higher-ranking individual triggers pride in humans. The study, Monkey Pay Per View: Adaptive Valuation of Social Images by Rhesus Macaques, was conducted at Duke University by Robert Deaner.
Winning a jackpot gives winners a large and sudden increase in rank. The probability of winning a jackpot is close to 0% moments before it happens. Winning causes the probability to instantly hit 100% and the gambler’s rank to skyrocket. As their rank skyrockets, gamblers feel very strong pride for a short time.
Buying a larger house also causes a large increase in rank, but not as suddenly. The probability of the purchase slowly approaches 100% over a few years. As the probability approaches 100%, so does the imagined rank of the homeowners. As their imagined rank continually increases over a few years, they continually feel weak pride.
Other Species
Rhesus monkeys feel pride. A study was conducted in which rhesus monkeys were paid cherry juice to view pictures of other monkeys. They were willing to be paid less juice to view higher-ranking monkeys. Viewing higher-ranking monkeys triggered their pride, just like being treated as an equal by a higher-ranking individual triggers pride in humans. The study, Monkey Pay Per View: Adaptive Valuation of Social Images by Rhesus Macaques, was conducted at Duke University by Robert Deaner.
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.