Mindcoolness

A Cool Mind for a Full Life

  • Blog
  • Book
  • Glossary
  • About
  • Contact

Study Shows That Pride Fuels Discipline

May 25, 2016 Dominic Reichl

As you know, I’m a strong proponent of the idea that the mind is powerless, insofar as emotions drive actions. Willpower, for example, is not based directly on mental strength, but on the emotion of pride. Pride is what really fuels your discipline.

Lisa Williams and David DeSteno from the Northeastern University tested this idea and found that pride mediates perseverance, a major component of willpower.

In their first experiment, 87 participants first had to estimate the number of red dots contained in various images that disappeared after 2 seconds. Afterwards they received either

  • a good bogus score with praise (“You received a score of 124 out of 147, which is the 94th percentile. Great job on that! That’s one of the highest scores we’ve seen so far!”), or
  • a good bogus score without praise, or
  • no feedback.

In the third step, they all had to do a tedious mental rotation task for as long as they pleased.

The results: Those who received the bogus score with praise did not only feel the most pride, they also persevered the longest at the boring task—they were the most self-disciplined. Those who received a bogus score without praise didn’t do better than those who didn’t get any feedback, which suggests that self-efficacy (positive belief in one’s own abilities due to knowledge of previous success) lacked the motivating force that was unique to pride.

But wait a minute: Why pride? What if the praise simply put the participants in a better mood so that they persevered longer? To exclude this possibility, the second experiment was altered a bit. The 78 participants now either

  • received a good bogus score with praise, or
  • received no score, but looked at positive images (e.g., tropical landscapes), or
  • solely looked at neutral images (e.g, a chair or a pen).

Again, those who received praise felt the most intense pride and persevered the longest. Thus, feeling positive emotions wasn’t enough to increase willpower—only pride could achieve that.

In summary, both studies showed that pride leads to greater perseverance on an onerous task and that this increase in willpower was a result neither of believing in one’s abilities nor of feeling good, but a result of the emotion of pride.

These findings, together with mediational analyses, support the motivational hypothesis of pride: When you feel proud after an accomplishment, you want to accomplish even more—due to your pride. This is why your willpower doesn’t necessarily get depleted when you use it.

But you, sitting here reading this article: How can you apply this information? Well, you don’t necessarily need to feel accomplished to get motivated by pride. Just imagine how you’ll feel once you’ve taken action, once you’ve gotten after it, once you’ve achieved something great! Just imagine your pride, and get to work!

pride discipline

Reference

  • Williams, L. A. & DeSteno, D. (2008). Pride and perseverance: the motivational role of pride. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(6), pp. 1007-1017, doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.1007.

Further Reading

  • The Truth about Pride and Humility
  • Why Pride Will Never Die

Blog discipline, emotions, psychology, willpower

Latest Post

Newsletter

Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Copyright © 2022 • Content Disclaimer • Privacy Policy • Affiliate Disclosure • About
Dear reader, this website uses cookies for analytical purposes. We'll assume you're ok with it, but you can opt-out if you wish.
OK Give me more information.
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Posting....