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Pride displays communicate self-interest and support for meritocracy.
E J Horberg1, Michael W Kraus, Dacher Keltner
1Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. horberg@stanford.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|May 30, 2013
Summary
Nonverbal pride displays lead observers to infer greater self-interest and support for meritocracy over egalitarianism. These findings reveal how emotional expressions shape perceptions of moral and political beliefs.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Moral Psychology
- Nonverbal Communication
Background:
- Pride is a self-focused emotion linked to success and competence.
- Nonverbal displays of emotion can influence social perception and judgment.
- Understanding how pride expressions impact inferred beliefs is crucial for social cognition research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether nonverbal pride displays lead observers to infer greater self-interest.
- To examine if pride displays predict endorsement of meritocracy versus egalitarianism.
- To explore the mediating role of self-interest in the link between pride and ideological endorsement.
Main Methods:
- Experimental manipulation of pride displays (static images, thin slices) and naturalistic expressions.
- Comparison of pride displays with joy or neutral emotional expressions.
- Participant inference of target's self-interest and support for meritocracy/egalitarianism.
Main Results:
- Pride displays consistently led observers to infer heightened support for meritocracy over egalitarianism.
- Self-interest was intuitively associated with meritocratic beliefs.
- Inferred self-interest mediated the effect of pride displays on ideological inferences.
Conclusions:
- Nonverbal pride expressions signal self-interest, influencing perceptions of ideological leanings.
- Pride displays are linked to a preference for meritocratic resource distribution.
- These findings highlight the role of emotional displays in shaping social and political judgments.
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