A Comparative Study On The Difference Between Authentic Pride And Hubristic Pride Among Chinese College Students

This study evaluated Tracy and Robbins'two facets structure(Tracy & Robins,2007a) of pride (authentic pride & hubristic pride)and attribution hypotheses in Mainland China through the subjects of Chinese college students, indicated that there was generally no cultural differences in the structure of pride and the process model of pride. In study 1, we tried to examine the structure of pride on the level of semantic meanings in Chinese culture. In the preliminary study of Study 1, we collected over 100 pride-related words through showing the picture and word of "pride" to subjects. Then we took 18 words which are most prototypical of pride from the 60 most frequent words. In Study 1, we paired the 18 words, and required the subjects to rate the similarity between each pair of pride-related words, then analyzed the similarity ratings using hierarchical cluster analysis, the result suggested the pride-related words can be organized into 2 conceptual clusters, which proved the two-facet structure of pride on the semantic level. There are three aims In Study 2:(a) test whether the two-facets structure of pride also exists in the tendency of Chinese participants toward experiencing a large group of pride-related states; (b) test whether the distinction of two-facets structure of pride was accounted for the distinction in evaluative valence or activation level; (c) examine the Chinese personality profile of the authentic pride and hubristic pride-prone person. Participants rated the extent to which they "generally feel this way " for each of 63 pride-related words(which comes from the pre-study of Study 1), and each of valence and activation words. Secondly, participants were asked to complete the questionnaire of personality ("10-item Rosenberg Self-esteem scale", "The 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory" "the 44-item Big Five inventory", "the 16-item Shame-proneness Scale from the TOSCA-3", "the 16-item Guilty-proneness Scale from the TOSCA-3"). Thirdly, we conducted both the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to analysis the data, a two-factor solution provided the best and most coherent fit of data. Then we separately regressed rating of valence words and activation words onto rating of each pride-related word, saved the standardized residuals for each word, then conducted factor analysis to test whether the two factor were accounted by valence or activation. The result turned out to be not like that. At last, we conducted correlations between the two factors and the other personality variance, Result showed that the authentic pride was positively correlated with self-esteem, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness and stability, but negatively correlated with shame-proneness, neuroticism. And the result of hubristic pride was almost on the contrary. Those result suggested authentic pride prone to be a more adaptive and positive emotion. In Study 3, there is also 3 aims:(a) Verify whether there are still two-facets of pride From the perspective of specific pride experience; (b) examine whether the distinction of pride is distinguished by the causal attribution of the participants to the pride-related events; (c) test whether the authentic pride and hubristic pride would be distinguished by the social comparison. Firstly, we instructed subjects to recall and write down a event which make them felt very proud, then asked them to rate the extent of the 63 pride-related words, valence and activation words. The result also suggested the two facets of pride, and their differences were not result from the differences of valence and activation, which in line with the result of Study 3. Secondly, we required trained judges to code all open-ended responses on the causal attributions, social comparison and types of event that elicited pride for pride-descriptions. What's more, we correlated the two pride factors with participants'causal attributions, the social comparison for pride-eliciting events, proved people who tended to attribute the pride-eliciting event to ability factors of themselves tended to experience more hubristic and less authentic pride, while people who tended to attribute the pride-eliciting event to effort factors of themselves tended to experience more authentic and less hubristic pride. And the social comparison had a significant positive correlation with hubristic pride. In study 4, we manipulated participants'attributions and experienced social comparison for a hypothetical event and assessed the extent they felt authentic and hubristic pride in response. We manipulated attributions and social comparison in the hypothetical events which would arouse their pride, asked subjects read and imagine the two vignettes about the hypothetical event, and rated the extent to which they expected to feel of a set of pride-related words in response to the event(the pride-related words was come from Study 1,2). Then we conducted a Repeated Measure ANOVA with attributions and compare conditions as between-subject factors, while emotion as within-subject factors. Effort attribution led to greater authentic pride than the ability attribution; in contrast, ability attribution led to greater hubristic pride. And the effect of social comparison is not significant. In all, our study proved, that the two facets of pride—authentic pride and hubristic pride did exist in the Chinese culture, and the attribution hypotheses—the two facets have distinct attributions through reports of actual pride experience and experimental manipulation.