Does pride have a recognizable expression?

In 1872, Darwin speculated that emotion expressions in humans and animals are evolved products of natural selection. He argued that a number of emotion expressions are universal, and he wrote, “Of all the ... complex emotions, pride, perhaps, is the most plainly expressed. A proud man exhibits his sense of superiority over others by holding his head and body erect ... and makes himself appear as large as possible” (p. 263).1 Although contemporary emotion researchers have supported Darwin’s general speculation by identifying discrete, universally recognized facial expressions for a small set of “basic” emotions (e.g., ref. 2), they have not found a distinct nonverbal expression for pride. In fact, because happiness is the only positively valenced emotion thought to have a discrete, nonverbal expression, researchers have concluded that all positive emotions share the same expression.3,4 The finding that pride has a unique, identifiable expression would challenge this assumption, suggest that pride meets a central criterion for biologically based emotions, and imply that pride may have evolved to serve a particular communicative function—possibly to convey success and thereby promote status and dominance. In this paper, we summarize findings from five studies that test whether pride has a distinct, recognizable, behaviorally visible expression (see FIG. 1). In study 1, 56 judges viewed photographs of male and female targets posing expressions of happiness, pride, and surprise and were asked to identify the emotion expressed in each photo. Judges chose from these options: “happiness,” “pride,” “surprise,” and “no emotion.” The results show that