The roles of praise and social comparison information in the experience of pride.
The authors examined the roles of social comparisons, publicity of success, and praise on the experience of pride in an experiment in which college students successfully completed a timed intelligence task in private and later received 1 of 4 types of feedback from the experimenter: no feedback (private), mere public acknowledgment of completion, general praise containing both a public and an evaluative component, or praise containing explicit comparison information. Half of the participants also received written normative information suggesting they performed at a high level. Participants then completed a number of dependent measures, including a key measure of pride. Overall, results suggest that the public aspect of a performance, together with the superior standing suggested by any praise accompanying this publicity, is important in the experience of pride.
Webster
J Matthew
JM
Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0350, USA. webster@uky.edu
Duvall
Jamieson
J
Gaines
Leslie M
LM
Smith
Richard H
RH
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001077:Aptitude Tests; D004644:Emotions; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D007629:Kentucky; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012056:Reinforcement, Social; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception