Keeping up appearances

Psychologists say expressions of pridea fundamental social emotionhelp people sail through bad times

Look around you. On the train platform,at the bus stop,in the car pool lane: These days someone there is probably faking it,maintaining a job routine without having a job to go to.
I have a new client,a laid-off lawyer,whos commuting in every dayto his Starbucks, said Robert C. Chope,a professor of counselling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division of the American Counseling Association. He gets dressed up,meets with colleagues,networks; he calls it his Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.

The fine art of keeping up appearances may seem shallow and deceitful,the very embodiment of denial. But many psychologists beg to differ. To the extent that it sustains good habits and reflects personal pride,they say,this kind of play-acting can be an effective social strategy. If showing pride in these kinds of situations was always maladaptive,then why would people do it so often? said David DeSteno,a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. But people do,of course,and we are finding that pride is centrally important not just for surviving physical danger but for thriving in difficult social circumstances.

For most of its existence,the field of psychology ignored pride as a fundamental social emotion. It was thought to be too marginal,too individually variable,compared with basic visceral expressions of fear,disgust,sadness or joy. Moreover,it can mean different things in different cultures.

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But recent research by Jessica L. Tracy of the University of British Columbia and Richard W. Robins of the University of California,Davis,has shown that the expressions associated with pride in Western societymost commonly a slight smile and head tilt,with hands on the hips or raised highare nearly identical across cultures. Children first experience pride about age 2 1/2,studies suggest,and recognise it by age 4.

Its not a simple matter of imitation,either. In a 2008 study,Tracy and David Matsumoto,a psychologist at San Francisco State,analysed spontaneous responses to winning or losing a judo match during the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic games. They found that expressions of pride after a victory were similar for athletes from 37 nations,including for 53 blind competitors,many of them blind from birth. Its a self-conscious emotion,reflecting how you feel about yourself,and it has this important social component, Tracy said.

Tracy has also found that people tend to associate an expression of pride with high statuseven when they know that the person wearing it is low on the ladder.

The implications of this are hard to exaggerate. Researchers tend to split pride into at least two broad categories. So-called authentic pride flows from real accomplishments,like raising a difficult child,starting a company or rebuilding an engine. Hubristic pride,as Tracy calls it,is closer to arrogance or narcissism,pride without substantial foundation.
But expressions of pride,whatever their source,look the same. Therapists say that in time,people usually do better when they come clean. But in the short term,projecting pride may do more than help manage others impressions.
_BENEDICT CAREY,NYT

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