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Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success
A leading psychologist reveals how our most misunderstood emotion—pride—has shaped our minds and our culture, and shows how we can harness its power.
Why did Paul Gauguin abandon middle-class life to follow the path of a starving artist? What explains the massive success of Steve Jobs, a man with great ideas but weak programming skills and a questionable managerial style? How did Dean Karnazes—the famed “Ultramarathon Man”—transform himself from a directionless desk jockey into an extreme athlete who once ran fifty marathons in fifty days?
As the renowned emotion researcher Jessica Tracy reveals in Take Pride , each of these superachievers has been motivated by an often maligned pride. Its dark, hubristic side is well known, but Tracy shows that pride is also essential for helping us become our best, brightest selves. By making us care about how others see us and how we see ourselves, pride makes us strive for excellence. In the right doses and the right contexts, it has been proven to boost creativity, motivate altruism, and confer power and prestige on those who display it. But while pride can inspire feats of genius, Tracy explains, it can also compel acts of apparent insanity and spectacular self-destructiveness, causing some people to seek status not through hard work but through intimidation, deception, and self-aggrandizement. Avoiding the bad kind of pride while nurturing the good kind might just be the secret to success.
In Take Pride, Tracy explains why our species came to feel pride in both its good and bad varieties, and how we can make this double-edged emotion serve us—rather than the other way around.
Why did Paul Gauguin abandon middle-class life to follow the path of a starving artist? What explains the massive success of Steve Jobs, a man with great ideas but weak programming skills and a questionable managerial style? How did Dean Karnazes—the famed “Ultramarathon Man”—transform himself from a directionless desk jockey into an extreme athlete who once ran fifty marathons in fifty days?
As the renowned emotion researcher Jessica Tracy reveals in Take Pride , each of these superachievers has been motivated by an often maligned pride. Its dark, hubristic side is well known, but Tracy shows that pride is also essential for helping us become our best, brightest selves. By making us care about how others see us and how we see ourselves, pride makes us strive for excellence. In the right doses and the right contexts, it has been proven to boost creativity, motivate altruism, and confer power and prestige on those who display it. But while pride can inspire feats of genius, Tracy explains, it can also compel acts of apparent insanity and spectacular self-destructiveness, causing some people to seek status not through hard work but through intimidation, deception, and self-aggrandizement. Avoiding the bad kind of pride while nurturing the good kind might just be the secret to success.
In Take Pride, Tracy explains why our species came to feel pride in both its good and bad varieties, and how we can make this double-edged emotion serve us—rather than the other way around.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published September 20, 2016
39 people are currently reading
459 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Tracy
7 books17 followersJessica Tracy is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she also directs the Emotion and Self Lab. Her research focuses on emotions and emotion expression, and especially on the self-conscious emotions of pride and shame. She has published over 80 journal articles, book chapters, edited volumes, and reviews, and her groundbreaking work on pride has been covered by hundreds of media outlets, including ABC’s Good Morning America, NPR’s All Things Considered, the New York Times, the Economist, and Scientific American. Tracy was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Vancouver with her daughter and her partner.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 14, 2016
The main point of Take Pride is that pride is a complicated, useful, and surprisingly understudied emotion. Author Jessica Tracy argues that there are two kinds of pride: 1) the kind that is self-motivating and makes us want to learn, discover, create, and achieve, and 2) the kind that is arrogant and makes us want to control, manipulate, and deceive in order to attain (and then maintain) power and dominance. (She points out that many other cultures actually have more than one word to describe what we lump into this one, which helps explain why the concept of "pride" can be so tricky and emotionally-charged for English speakers.)
But Tracy claims that both kinds of pride can benefit us. Both help us want to be better (or to be seen as better), and both motivate us to figure out who we are and what gives our lives meaning. In the end, however, Tracy concludes that, though both types of pride will get us some of what we want, feeling the first kind of pride--the more genuine, altruistic one--should be our goal. Be true to yourself and do what feels important to you, she encourages, and the feeling of pride will arise naturally and authentically.
I like the idea of this book, and I certainly enjoyed parts of it. But it didn't wow me. In fact, it kind of irritated me. The subject matter, structure, and conclusions of the book are all fine. But the whole thing reads like a graduate student's dissertation--like here is ALL my research and here is how I structured ALL my research studies, and here is why "my graduate school advisor Rick Robbins and I" felt like this culture would prove our hypothesis perfectly.
There's just too much play-by-play and not enough insight. The information is nicely organized and presented well, and I appreciate that. But I never stopped feeling like Tracy was just regurgitating facts, like she never made this information her own or put her own twist on it. Ultimately, I wanted a wow factor that just wasn't there.
But Tracy claims that both kinds of pride can benefit us. Both help us want to be better (or to be seen as better), and both motivate us to figure out who we are and what gives our lives meaning. In the end, however, Tracy concludes that, though both types of pride will get us some of what we want, feeling the first kind of pride--the more genuine, altruistic one--should be our goal. Be true to yourself and do what feels important to you, she encourages, and the feeling of pride will arise naturally and authentically.
I like the idea of this book, and I certainly enjoyed parts of it. But it didn't wow me. In fact, it kind of irritated me. The subject matter, structure, and conclusions of the book are all fine. But the whole thing reads like a graduate student's dissertation--like here is ALL my research and here is how I structured ALL my research studies, and here is why "my graduate school advisor Rick Robbins and I" felt like this culture would prove our hypothesis perfectly.
There's just too much play-by-play and not enough insight. The information is nicely organized and presented well, and I appreciate that. But I never stopped feeling like Tracy was just regurgitating facts, like she never made this information her own or put her own twist on it. Ultimately, I wanted a wow factor that just wasn't there.
April 21, 2018
Bad science. I don't remember another book where I noticed so many flaws in reasoning or so much cherrypicked data expecially when it comes to comparing humans with other apes and/or our extinct homo ancestors/cousins. We/Humans are not as different as claimed in the book and my familiarity with the work of Frans de Waal made this book extremely annoying for me...
August 26, 2016
Jessica Tracy’s TAKE PRIDE: WHY THE DEADLILEST SIN HOLDS THE SECRET TO HUMAN SUCCESS (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) is a well-written, very interesting, and often humorous look at that mysterious aspect of our personality, pride. What is pride? How and why did human beings develop pride? What crucial role does pride play in shaping our lives? These are among the questions Ms. Tracy attempts to answer.
Before getting into a review of TAKE PRIDE, let me first admit to a brief love affair with the study of psychology. I took a two-semester course in general psychology as a sophomore in college way back in 1964-65, when literacy was still a requirement for admission to college. The first semester was a great experience. We studied theories by Freud, etc., learned what abnormal was in contrast to normal, and all sorts of interesting things about people’s behavior.
That abnormal vs. normal thing still eludes me, however. How can you classify some behavior as abnormal when no one seems to be able to define normal? Think about that for awhile.
I almost decided to major in psychology, but then came the second semester. It was all about the parts of eyes and ears, testing, and statistics. I was so bored. But I made it through the course having learned two lasting lessons. First, psychology is NOT a science. It is more like a group of late night patrons in a bar passionately expressing their personal opinions on subjects about which they know little. Second, having been taught by a practicing psychologist with a patch over one eye and an addiction to cigarettes, I am convinced that every psychologist is in need of a psychiatrist. But I wander. Back to Ms. Tracy’s TAKE PRIDE.
The French philosopher René Descartes is famous for saying, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes was pointing out the simple truth that in order to reason one must begin with some assumption. In his case, his starting assumption was the fact that he could not doubt that he was sitting there thinking (i.e., doubting).
What the thinker must remember, however, is that the starting assumption determines the path one’s reasoning takes as well as the end or conclusion of the journey. I think it is important for the reader keep this in mind while reading TAKE PRIDE.
Ms. Tracy’s beginning assumption is the evolutionary theory of the origin and development of life. Human beings are but one animal species. What distinguishes a human from the other animal species that arose from the evolutionary process of, as one individual has put, “from ooze to you by way of the zoo,” is what Ms. Tracy calls “our uniquely human sense of self.” “Without the human self,” writes Tracy, “our species would not have been able to do or become all the things that make us different from other animals.”
Pride is the emotion that enabled we of the human species “to do and become” all that we can as humans. Pride provides the “motivational kick” that enables human beings to be human. “Pride and self,” concludes Tracy, “are mutually reinforcing psychological phenomena, two adaptations that go hand in hand and whose joint evolutionary development has allowed our species to become what it is today.” Pride is not a negative emotion. It is rather a positive emotion. It leads to greatness, but can also lead to tragedy.
All of this is mere theory or speculative reasoning based upon theoretical assumptions. Ms. Tracy uses words and phrases like “self-evident,” “obviously,” “must be the result of,” etc. to give the appearance of scientific fact to what remains only speculation. Various scholars have tried to explain what makes a human being different from other animals using the theory of evolution. All have failed. Beginning with the assumption that matter is the ultimate reality, one cannot arrive at a satisfactory explanation of what makes a human being human. Creationists beginning with the assumption that the ultimate reality is a personal, infinite creator do have an explanation for the mannishness of man. But both evolution and creation are theories, neither one of which can be tested and proven wrong.
A discussion among psychologists is much like a group of children playing in a sand box discussing their feelings about sand. The scene may be interesting, even entertaining, for the adults looking on, but little more than that. Because psychologists are trying to understand people, their books will always be, depending upon how well written they are, interesting. “People,” said Art Linklleter, “are interesting.”
I found Jessica Tracy’s TAKE PRIDE interesting and thought provoking. It was a welcome break from the lighter reading I have been doing of late. If you are considering reading it, I encourage you to do so. Just keep in mind that your response to what she is saying will depend upon your answer to the question of what is the ultimate reality. All inquire must begin with the answer that question.
Before getting into a review of TAKE PRIDE, let me first admit to a brief love affair with the study of psychology. I took a two-semester course in general psychology as a sophomore in college way back in 1964-65, when literacy was still a requirement for admission to college. The first semester was a great experience. We studied theories by Freud, etc., learned what abnormal was in contrast to normal, and all sorts of interesting things about people’s behavior.
That abnormal vs. normal thing still eludes me, however. How can you classify some behavior as abnormal when no one seems to be able to define normal? Think about that for awhile.
I almost decided to major in psychology, but then came the second semester. It was all about the parts of eyes and ears, testing, and statistics. I was so bored. But I made it through the course having learned two lasting lessons. First, psychology is NOT a science. It is more like a group of late night patrons in a bar passionately expressing their personal opinions on subjects about which they know little. Second, having been taught by a practicing psychologist with a patch over one eye and an addiction to cigarettes, I am convinced that every psychologist is in need of a psychiatrist. But I wander. Back to Ms. Tracy’s TAKE PRIDE.
The French philosopher René Descartes is famous for saying, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes was pointing out the simple truth that in order to reason one must begin with some assumption. In his case, his starting assumption was the fact that he could not doubt that he was sitting there thinking (i.e., doubting).
What the thinker must remember, however, is that the starting assumption determines the path one’s reasoning takes as well as the end or conclusion of the journey. I think it is important for the reader keep this in mind while reading TAKE PRIDE.
Ms. Tracy’s beginning assumption is the evolutionary theory of the origin and development of life. Human beings are but one animal species. What distinguishes a human from the other animal species that arose from the evolutionary process of, as one individual has put, “from ooze to you by way of the zoo,” is what Ms. Tracy calls “our uniquely human sense of self.” “Without the human self,” writes Tracy, “our species would not have been able to do or become all the things that make us different from other animals.”
Pride is the emotion that enabled we of the human species “to do and become” all that we can as humans. Pride provides the “motivational kick” that enables human beings to be human. “Pride and self,” concludes Tracy, “are mutually reinforcing psychological phenomena, two adaptations that go hand in hand and whose joint evolutionary development has allowed our species to become what it is today.” Pride is not a negative emotion. It is rather a positive emotion. It leads to greatness, but can also lead to tragedy.
All of this is mere theory or speculative reasoning based upon theoretical assumptions. Ms. Tracy uses words and phrases like “self-evident,” “obviously,” “must be the result of,” etc. to give the appearance of scientific fact to what remains only speculation. Various scholars have tried to explain what makes a human being different from other animals using the theory of evolution. All have failed. Beginning with the assumption that matter is the ultimate reality, one cannot arrive at a satisfactory explanation of what makes a human being human. Creationists beginning with the assumption that the ultimate reality is a personal, infinite creator do have an explanation for the mannishness of man. But both evolution and creation are theories, neither one of which can be tested and proven wrong.
A discussion among psychologists is much like a group of children playing in a sand box discussing their feelings about sand. The scene may be interesting, even entertaining, for the adults looking on, but little more than that. Because psychologists are trying to understand people, their books will always be, depending upon how well written they are, interesting. “People,” said Art Linklleter, “are interesting.”
I found Jessica Tracy’s TAKE PRIDE interesting and thought provoking. It was a welcome break from the lighter reading I have been doing of late. If you are considering reading it, I encourage you to do so. Just keep in mind that your response to what she is saying will depend upon your answer to the question of what is the ultimate reality. All inquire must begin with the answer that question.
December 29, 2016
Husband and I both read this and found it utterly fascinating. Groundbreaking, insightful work in a very interesting area of evolutionary psychology. The implications are endless!
July 18, 2018
Take Pride, Jessica Tracy, 2016.
Las ideas que obtuve de este libro fueron:
- El orgullo es un sentimiento que nos impulsa a salir de un estado actual de cosas que juzgamos como insuficiente, no digno del concepto que tenemos de nosotros mismos.
- El orgullo es una emoción con efectos positivos, a saber, creatividad e innovación. Los resultados negativos del orgullo son actitudes agresivas y engañosas.
- La creatividad e innovación surgen por una inconformidad que nos impulsa a trabajar para alcanzar metas de las que nos sintamos auténticamente satisfechos.
- El sentimiento de orgullo es comunicado a nuestros semejantes a través de señales no verbales, es decir, con postura corporal, inconsciente, que tendemos a adoptar: cuerpo erguido, mentón expuesto, hombros hacia atrás, pecho salido, expresión confiada. Esta postura comunica a nuestros semejantes el mensaje de que hemos ascendido, por competencia personal, a los escalones más altos de la jerarquía social del área dominada, y eso nos gana estima pública, ascendencia sobre otros, y confianza.
Las ideas que obtuve de este libro fueron:
- El orgullo es un sentimiento que nos impulsa a salir de un estado actual de cosas que juzgamos como insuficiente, no digno del concepto que tenemos de nosotros mismos.
- El orgullo es una emoción con efectos positivos, a saber, creatividad e innovación. Los resultados negativos del orgullo son actitudes agresivas y engañosas.
- La creatividad e innovación surgen por una inconformidad que nos impulsa a trabajar para alcanzar metas de las que nos sintamos auténticamente satisfechos.
- El sentimiento de orgullo es comunicado a nuestros semejantes a través de señales no verbales, es decir, con postura corporal, inconsciente, que tendemos a adoptar: cuerpo erguido, mentón expuesto, hombros hacia atrás, pecho salido, expresión confiada. Esta postura comunica a nuestros semejantes el mensaje de que hemos ascendido, por competencia personal, a los escalones más altos de la jerarquía social del área dominada, y eso nos gana estima pública, ascendencia sobre otros, y confianza.
October 23, 2024
chose this book for my psych class. did so many fact-checks (by checking the primary articles) and still need to do a long book report and a presentation about it. and i can say that she for sure leaves a lot of limitations out from the conducted studies and doesn't mention anything that contradicts her claim. however, overall the empirical articles given pretty much support what she is saying so it's not totally wrong, just awkwardly executed.
February 10, 2025
This was an exceptional book on emotional intelligence, strongly backed by research and logic. Very similar to How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett, just more particularly focused on the emotion of pride itself. If you've ever wondered how pride gets both strong negative and positive social judgements, and how to shine in ways that don't cause relational strife, how to genuinely regard yourself well, this book is very helpful.
May 1, 2025
Un libro excepcional
La autora te lleva en cada capitulo a cada descubrimiento que hay en esta emoción del orgullo, respondiendo a preguntas bastante intrigantes en relación a esta emoción. Entender cómo los seres humanos hemos evolucionado para sentir y expresar orgullo es simplemente fascinante. Recomiendo esta obra a cualquier psicólogo, personas de relaciones publicas, y el público en general interesado en saber más sobre nuestro mundo emocional.
La autora te lleva en cada capitulo a cada descubrimiento que hay en esta emoción del orgullo, respondiendo a preguntas bastante intrigantes en relación a esta emoción. Entender cómo los seres humanos hemos evolucionado para sentir y expresar orgullo es simplemente fascinante. Recomiendo esta obra a cualquier psicólogo, personas de relaciones publicas, y el público en general interesado en saber más sobre nuestro mundo emocional.
January 1, 2024
Good book about the emotion of pride. Written by a psychologist and heavy on data and experimental methodology. Better than I expected, was thinking it was going to be more of a self help book. Correctly identifies good pride that is positive and productive, and hubris that is damaging to self and others.
November 7, 2016
This was an excellent book. It broadly covers the duality of human pridefulness. It contains unique first-hand research and integrates 2nd hand research in a way that broadened my understanding. The conclusions are practical and helpful.
December 23, 2024
This book was easy to read, but I found it quite shallow. "Good pride" can fuel high performance and progress, while "bad pride" is the opposite. I got it. This could have been a short blog rather than a book.
June 11, 2025
Some good perspectives, but also some that felt a little weak. And it was but so very (very, very) redundant. Also caution: there is a lot of politics in the book. It’s not that I even disagreed with all of it, I just didn’t like the book as a vehicle for political opinions.
December 27, 2018
If you want to learn about pride, this is your book.
August 28, 2023
Good book on the evolutionary psychology of pride and how it related to social hierarchy
August 6, 2017
Take Pride is a very well-written and interesting insight to both pride and psychology research. The author Jessica Tracy gradually develops her theory about pride being one of the universal emotions of human beings with research evidence of its manifestation existing in various cultures and its evolutionary benefits. Then, she proves the existence of two types of pride, a genuine one and vain one, and the evolutionary background to why people experience two enormously different types of pride. She sums up the book by suggesting how to utilize this knowledge of two different prides for the "human success." While I was puzzled at first for her declaration of the two distinct prides, as I imagined more nuanced variations of pride, her close step by step research of them and many examples including Trump created a clear picture of how two prides interact with each other and with the society to produce the nuanced pride. Honestly, I can't find a single thing to complain about this book and can't wait for her next book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2017
A really great book for readers of Angela Duckworth's Grit. It gets five stars because it had all of the qualities that make me want to keep reading Psychology books: engaging writing, interesting and applicable research, and a trustworthy author who has contributed significantly to the field.
The big idea in this book is that there are two ways that people gain positions of status or leadership roles in society—through prestige (obtaining status because people see you as wise, generous, and hardworking) and through dominance (obtaining status by forceful behaviour, assertiveness, and aggression). She discusses many interesting studies, answering questions like, is dominance a more effective method of attaining power? How are dominant vs. prestigious leaders perceived by their group? Which kind of leader is more effective at motivating a group to get tasks done (the answer to this is somewhat surprising!)?
Tracy argues that if dominance and prestige are both viable means of obtaining power or social influence, it makes sense that humans would have evolved distinct emotions to motivate the behaviours needed to orchestrate each. Thus she argues that there are two kinds of pride—hubristic pride (the kind of pride that makes people feel superior and motivates them to do whatever they need to—cheat, manipulate, and derogate others—to impress) and authentic pride (the kind that makes people compassionate and hardworking).
I found this book especially enjoyable because of the surprisingly unique message in it. There’s a famous Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy on how faking pride expressions can make you more likely to get a job. I also recently read an article in New Scientist magazine about how people who are narcissistic are often more successful in the workplace. So, this book’s subtitle, “Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success,” made me think that this would be another book with a tired message about faking pride to become successful. However, that is not what the book is about at all.
Interestingly, Tracy actually mentions the Cuddy Ted Talk in her book and says that Cuddy is right, study after study shows that faking pride will help you get a job (in fact, participants who were put in a hiring role were more likely to hire candidates who displayed pride expressions even when they thought that the non-prideful candidates were smarter and more qualified!) But while Tracy admits that faking pride has some benefits, she actually steers her reader away from doing so. There is a really interesting discussion about the link between hubristic pride and narcissism and the dangers of attributing successes to internal causes (‘I did well because I’m so smart’) rather than controllable causes (‘I did well because I studied really hard’). She presents evidence for how feeling hubristic pride and faking pride can make you see yourself as superior to others and can be detrimental to your motivation and happiness as well as to the way that others perceive you.
Tracy’s final message is that pride is a tool that can be used for great good or great evil. She encourages her reader to overlook the short-term gains that faking pride expressions or acting aggressive can get you and to foster experiences of authentic pride. This is really a very inspiring, thoughtful, and important book. I love how it ultimately debunks the “fake it til’ you make it” argument and gives concrete, motivating evidence for hard work, compassion, and empathy.
The big idea in this book is that there are two ways that people gain positions of status or leadership roles in society—through prestige (obtaining status because people see you as wise, generous, and hardworking) and through dominance (obtaining status by forceful behaviour, assertiveness, and aggression). She discusses many interesting studies, answering questions like, is dominance a more effective method of attaining power? How are dominant vs. prestigious leaders perceived by their group? Which kind of leader is more effective at motivating a group to get tasks done (the answer to this is somewhat surprising!)?
Tracy argues that if dominance and prestige are both viable means of obtaining power or social influence, it makes sense that humans would have evolved distinct emotions to motivate the behaviours needed to orchestrate each. Thus she argues that there are two kinds of pride—hubristic pride (the kind of pride that makes people feel superior and motivates them to do whatever they need to—cheat, manipulate, and derogate others—to impress) and authentic pride (the kind that makes people compassionate and hardworking).
I found this book especially enjoyable because of the surprisingly unique message in it. There’s a famous Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy on how faking pride expressions can make you more likely to get a job. I also recently read an article in New Scientist magazine about how people who are narcissistic are often more successful in the workplace. So, this book’s subtitle, “Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success,” made me think that this would be another book with a tired message about faking pride to become successful. However, that is not what the book is about at all.
Interestingly, Tracy actually mentions the Cuddy Ted Talk in her book and says that Cuddy is right, study after study shows that faking pride will help you get a job (in fact, participants who were put in a hiring role were more likely to hire candidates who displayed pride expressions even when they thought that the non-prideful candidates were smarter and more qualified!) But while Tracy admits that faking pride has some benefits, she actually steers her reader away from doing so. There is a really interesting discussion about the link between hubristic pride and narcissism and the dangers of attributing successes to internal causes (‘I did well because I’m so smart’) rather than controllable causes (‘I did well because I studied really hard’). She presents evidence for how feeling hubristic pride and faking pride can make you see yourself as superior to others and can be detrimental to your motivation and happiness as well as to the way that others perceive you.
Tracy’s final message is that pride is a tool that can be used for great good or great evil. She encourages her reader to overlook the short-term gains that faking pride expressions or acting aggressive can get you and to foster experiences of authentic pride. This is really a very inspiring, thoughtful, and important book. I love how it ultimately debunks the “fake it til’ you make it” argument and gives concrete, motivating evidence for hard work, compassion, and empathy.
December 11, 2016
Good subject matter but not particularly captivating. Read this quickly on my new Kindle.
A few notes from the book:
-Listening to your pride is one of the best ways to figure out who you are, what you want out of life, and how you can get there.
-The self is not a single, simple entity. (There are) two major components of self: “Self as Knower” [the subjective I self] and the “Self who is Known” [the objective me self]. The subjective I self does the acting, while the objective me self is more likely to be acted upon. Pride is what you feel when the I recognizes that the me is doing what society wants of it.
-Allowing yourself to benefit from what others have already learned is a far more expedient way to develop skills and an understanding of one’s world than going at it on your own. Social learning is the single best way to acquire knowledge and to make advances on the basis of that knowledge. As a result, social learning is the process that underpins humans’ cumulative cultural evolution; without it, we would have gotten no further than our ape cousins. And the emotion that enables social learning—and therefore makes cultural evolution possible—is pride. Pride is the emotional reason for our species’ success.
A few notes from the book:
-Listening to your pride is one of the best ways to figure out who you are, what you want out of life, and how you can get there.
-The self is not a single, simple entity. (There are) two major components of self: “Self as Knower” [the subjective I self] and the “Self who is Known” [the objective me self]. The subjective I self does the acting, while the objective me self is more likely to be acted upon. Pride is what you feel when the I recognizes that the me is doing what society wants of it.
-Allowing yourself to benefit from what others have already learned is a far more expedient way to develop skills and an understanding of one’s world than going at it on your own. Social learning is the single best way to acquire knowledge and to make advances on the basis of that knowledge. As a result, social learning is the process that underpins humans’ cumulative cultural evolution; without it, we would have gotten no further than our ape cousins. And the emotion that enables social learning—and therefore makes cultural evolution possible—is pride. Pride is the emotional reason for our species’ success.
October 31, 2016
Although I think there is a tad bit too much repetition, the book compares the two types of pride that most people can possess. Key take-away is how people will imitate those with the good pride. This is especially prevalent in the case when relating to parenting. Another keen observation is that people can succeed with both types of pride- the example of Donald Trump being used.
November 26, 2016
Very relevant. Brings up some good points about Trump that we maybe wish the general public had read before this book was too lately released in November. It has also made me reflect on pride on my own life.
February 18, 2023
Insightful writing covering relevant grounds related to pride. An enjoyable reading journey starting from understanding the 'origin' of pride to how it 'infiltrates' into our daily lives, affecting our decision making. The author definitely nailed it!
October 5, 2016
An eye-opening book for anyone who wrongfully thought like me that it is important to stay humble.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews