Jessica L. Tracy

Global self-esteem across the life span

This study provides a comprehensive picture of age differences in self-esteem from age 9 to 90 years using cross-sectional data collected from 326,641 individuals over the Internet. Self-esteem levels were high in childhood, dropped during adolescence, rose gradually throughout adulthood, and declined sharply in old age. This trajectory generally held across gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and nationality (U.S. citizens vs. non-U.S. citizens). Overall, these findings support previous research, help clarify inconsistencies in the literature, and document new trends that require further investigation.

The Psychological Structure of Pride: A Tale of Two Facets

To provide support for the theoretical distinction between 2 facets of pride, authentic and hubristic (J. L. Tracy & R. W. Robins, 2004a), the authors conducted 7 studies. Studies 1-4 demonstrate that the 2 facets (a) emerge in analyses of the semantic meaning of pride-related words, the dispositional tendency to experience pride, and reports of actual pride experiences; (b) have divergent personality correlates and distinct antecedent causal attributions; and (c) do not simply reflect positively and negatively valenced, high- and low-activation, or state versus trait forms of pride. In Studies 5-7, the authors develop and demonstrate the reliability and validity of brief, 7-item scales that can be used to assess the facets of pride in future research.

Two Replicable Suppressor Situations in Personality Research.

Suppressor situations occur when the simultaneous inclusion of two predictors improves one or both validities. A common allegation is that suppressor effects rarely replicate and have little substantive import. We present substantive examples from two established research domains to counter this skepticism. In the first domain, we show how measures of guilt and shame act consistently as mutual suppressors: Adding shame into a regression equation increases the negative association between guilt and aggression, whereas adding guilt increases the positive association between shame and aggression. In the second domain, we show how the effects of self-esteem and narcissism operate consistently as mutual suppressors: That is, adding narcissism into a regression equation increases the negative association between self-esteem and antisocial behavior, whereas adding self-esteem increases the positive association between narcissism and antisocial behavior. Discussion addresses the different implications for suppressors in theoretical and variable selection applications.

Show Your Pride Evidence for a Discrete Emotion Expression

Three experiments provide converging evidence that pride has a distinct, recognizable expression. Experiment 1 showed that judges can agree in identifying a posed expression as showing pride and can reliably distinguish pride expressions from expressions of related emotions such as happiness. Experiment 2 showed that judges can identify the pride expression when the task uses an open-ended response format that does not cue them with the label “pride.” Experiment 3 showed that the pride expression includes a small smile, with head tilted slightly back, visibly expanded posture, and arms raised above the head or hands on hips. Overall, these findings challenge the assumption that all positive emotions share the same expression, and suggest that pride may be added to the pantheon of basic emotions generally viewed as evolved responses.

Appraisal Antecedents of Shame and Guilt: Support for a Theoretical Model

Four studies used experimental and correlational methods to test predictions about the antecedents of shame and guilt derived from an appraisal-based model of self-conscious emotions (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Results were consistent with the predicted relations between appraisals (i.e., causal attributions) and emotions. Specifically, (a) internal attributions were positively related to both shame and guilt; (b) the chronic tendency to make external attributions was positively related to the tendency to experience shame; and (c) internal, stable, uncontrollable attributions for failure were positively related to shame, whereas internal, unstable, controllable attributions for failure were positively related to guilt. Emotions and attributions were assessed using a variety of methods, so converging results across studies indicate the robustness of the findings and provide support for the theoretical model.

The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays

The present research examined whether the recognizable nonverbal expressions associated with pride and shame may be biologically innate behavioral responses to success and failure. Specifically, we tested whether sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals across cultures spontaneously display pride and shame behaviors in response to the same success and failure situations—victory and defeat at the Olympic or Paralympic Games. Results showed that sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals from >30 nations displayed the behaviors associated with the prototypical pride expression in response to success. Sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals from most cultures also displayed behaviors associated with shame in response to failure. However, culture moderated the shame response among sighted athletes: it was less pronounced among individuals from highly individualistic, self-expression-valuing cultures, primarily in North America and West Eurasia. Given that congenitally blind individuals across cultures showed the shame response to failure, findings overall are consistent with the suggestion that the behavioral expressions associated with both shame and pride are likely to be innate, but the shame display may be intentionally inhibited by some sighted individuals in accordance with cultural norms.

Authentic and Hubristic Pride: The Affective Core of Self-esteem and Narcissism

Do individuals with high self-esteem enjoy positive interpersonal relationships, or are they aggressive and antisocial? Does narcissism reflect an abundance of self-worth, or inflated self-views driven by an overcompensation for low self-esteem? The present research addresses the apparently two-sided nature of self-esteem and narcissism by distinguishing between two distinct self-regulatory processes (narcissistic self-aggrandizement and genuine self-esteem), and proposing that two distinct facets of pride—authentic and hubristic—form the affective core of each. Specifically, findings demonstrate that when narcissistic and genuine self-esteem are empirically distinguished, genuine self-esteem (along with authentic pride) is positively related to successful social relationships and mental health, whereas narcissistic self-aggrandizement (along with hubristic pride) is positively related to aggression and other antisocial behaviors.

Emerging Insights Into the Nature and Function of Pride

Pride, a “self-conscious” emotion involving complex self-evaluative processes, is a fundamental human emotion. Recent research provides new insights into its nature and function. Like the “basic” emotions, pride is associated with a distinct, universally recognized, nonverbal expression, which is spontaneously displayed during pride experiences. Yet, pride differs from the basic emotions in its dependency on self-evaluations and in its complex structure, which is comprised of two theoretically and conceptually distinct facets that have divergent personality correlates and cognitive antecedents. In this article, we summarize findings from the growing body of research on pride and highlight the implications of this research for a broader understanding of emotions and social behavior.

The Automaticity of Emotion Recognition

Evolutionary accounts of emotion typically assume that humans evolved to quickly and efficiently recognize emotion expressions because these expressions convey fitness-enhancing messages. The present research tested this assumption in 2 studies. Specifically, the authors examined (a) how quickly perceivers could recognize expressions of anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, fear, happiness, pride, sadness, shame, and surprise; (b) whether accuracy is improved when perceivers deliberate about each expressions meaning (vs. respond as quickly as possible); and (c) whether accurate recognition can occur under cognitive load. Across both studies, perceivers quickly and efficiently (i.e., under cognitive load) recognized most emotion expressions, including the self-conscious emotions of pride, embarrassment, and shame. Deliberation improved accuracy in some cases, but these improvements were relatively small. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for the cognitive processes underlying emotion recognition.

The Nonverbal Expression of Pride: Evidence for Cross-Cultural Recognition

The present research tests whether recognition for the nonverbal expression of pride generalizes across cultures. Study 1 provided the first evidence for cross-cultural recognition of pride, demonstrating that the expression generalizes across Italy and the United States. Study 2 found that the pride expression generalizes beyond Western cultures; individuals from a preliterate, highly isolated tribe in Burkina Faso, West Africa, reliably recognized pride, regardless of whether it was displayed by African or American targets. These Burkinabe participants were unlikely to have learned the pride expression through cross-cultural transmission, so their recognition suggests that pride may be a human universal. Studies 3 and 4 used drawn figures to systematically manipulate the ethnicity and gender of targets showing the expression, and demonstrated that pride recognition generalizes across male and female targets of African, Asian, and Caucasian descent. Discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for the universality of the pride expression.