TEST POST 2

For an earlier study published in 2017, Sznycer, Cosmides and their co-researchers organised experiments in 16 countries, from the United States to Japan. In each country, a group of participants were given a description of a person with desirable attributes – such as an education or youthful appearance – and asked how positively they’d rate the person. Another group was asked how much pride they’d feel if they had those attributes.

They found that the pride people anticipated feeling closely matched the admiration that other people had for the same attribute. In other words, if we think something will make us proud, it’s because we really will look good to other people – the amount of pride that we feel in an accomplishment is closely calibrated to the amount of value that other people place on it.

“The intensity of the feeling [of pride] is a yardstick of how much the social world is going to value you if you do that thing,” Cosmides says. “These feelings are signals to your decision-making systems. They’re estimating what the social benefits will be.”