Let’s talk about excessive pride and psychology

Introduction

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Most of us have surely known one or several people who seem to really believe they are superior to others and that many of their behaviors as well as the things they say are aimed at making people around them feel bad or insecure. Having too much pride is something typical of a person with narcissistic tendencies as well as people who are very egocentric.

Being like this can become very irritating and toxic to the people around them and can affect the emotional well being of their social circle, because at the end of the day, no one likes to spend some time with a person who constantly try to belittle everyone around them.

We like to spend time with people who are full of positive energy, and know how to make everyone feel welcome. This is why cheerful people tend to attract a lot of friends, they have the capacity to uplift others no matter the circumstance.

But today we are speaking about people with excessive pride, and although it may seem contradictory, the arrogance they always show may in fact be a way to hide a deep psychological circumstance related to fear and insecurity.

Excessive proud and arrogance

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Having an arrogant personality full of vanity has been pointed out as one of the deadly sins in Western culture and the Christian religion. This has always been interpreted from a point of view that defined these people as mere selfish individuals who think themselves as superior and more valuable than others. However, the reasons why some people end up being like this can be very different than what we could have originally thought.

The actual cause of a personality with excessive pride can consists in the presence of great insecurity and low self esteem. Although at first this doesn’t seem to have much sense, when a person fears being hurt and feels inferior to others, he can develop an image he can use to show himself to the rest of society in a safe way. These people often express their qualities and strengths in an exaggerated way, probably doing so for fear of showing their weaknesses and being hurt, they can actually be very vulnerable and their worst fears is other people realizing this.

The need for approval is also there under that fake illusion of security. It is possible that, during their early years, these people did not receive the attention and care necessary to develop a proper self esteem and personal trust and, therefore, they need to constantly self assure themselves at every single chance they get that they indeed possess valuable skills and good abilities.

On the other hand, pride and arrogance can be the results of having a narcissistic personality disorder. This imbalance of the personality is characterized by a selfish behavior, with little to no no empathy and a lot of vanity as well as an inability to take into consideration the needs of other people around them.

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (either in fantasy or actual behavior), an overwhelming need for admiration, and usually a complete lack of empathy toward others. People with this disorder often believe they are of primary importance in everybody’s life or to anyone they meet. | Source

They may also need to control absolutely everything that happens around them, which is also related to their own insecurity. They try to control what others think in order to avoid any opinion coming from anyone’s else to hurt them and also to try and change those opinions for another ones closer to their own personal beliefs that has cost them so much time to create and so much energy to maintain.

This beliefs collects the thoughts, values and opinions that a person has about everything that surrounds him, has a very important role in his decision making and, of course, in his self-image.

In simple words, they only care about themselves with no regards whatsoever for the well being of other people, it doesn’t matter if they are family or friends, they are too self centered to put energy into thinking about others, it is always all about them and only them.

Moreover, such narcissists may well feel compelled to attempt things beyond their capacity to achieve them, for they so much require the adulation that comes from doing something others might not even dare attempt. | Source

Identifying a person with excessive pride

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Sometimes, it is hard for us to distinguish these individuals because they do not always have the same attitudes in all contexts and circumstances. However, there are some key characteristics that can easily expose them, and allow us to realize if a person is properly humble, or if he instead if someone full of arrogance and excessive pride.

These people always believe they do everything well, that they make the best decisions and that they never make a mistake. The moment they actually make a mistake it is very likely that they will not admit it, because in order to assume that they have done something wrong, they would have to change the image they have of themselves and recognize that it is not as perfect as they might want to believe.

In the end they will fall into a very unhealthy vicious circle. They camouflage their internal voids with pride, but their arrogance drives them to loneliness, and loneliness leads to resentment. Which continues to fuel their bitterness. | Source

They have the unreasonable notion that they are always right, that their ideas are the only valid ones and if someone is against them, then they automatically think that person is wrong. It seems that they don’t listen to others and find it difficult to integrate new ideas into their belief system.

If they are not able to admit the fact they make mistakes and always believe they are right, it will be difficult for them to ask for forgiveness at some point. Therefore, we should not have high expectations regarding their behavior during a discussion or disagreement. Asking for forgiveness involves assuming they have done something that is clearly wrong and that, in addition, they must admit it to someone else, which is not something they would do.

Although they do not say it directly, these people need praise and compliments so their self esteem is not affected and they don’t feel insecure. Therefore, they will ask for external approval of everything they do, in a constant but subtle way because they don’t want to admit that they need the opinion of other individuals in order to feel good about themselves.

When pride substitutes for our human dignity, it disconnects us. Affirming our dignity and allowing others their dignity, we become more available to honor ourselves and connect with others as equals. Pride is a burden we don’t need. Living with dignity allows us to move more freely through life. | Source

If we expose something bad they have done or something they think that could be incorrect, they are likely to feel attacked and consequently have a not so gentle respond towards us. This type of people can have very strong reactions when facing criticism they do not tolerate from others, even if the criticism is constructive. They can get to do a lot of damage with their words in order to make others feel inferior to them, especially in difficult situations.

They will often reinforce their own self image by constantly expressing how good they are at everything they do and talking about their successes. We all have skills and talents, however, we do not have the urgency to repeatedly talk about them, to the point of bothering others.

Handling our interactions with them

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If we happen to find a person with excessive pride, the smartest thing we should do is avoid arguing with that person, because starting a discussion with someone like that means to directly enter into a very complicated conflict. It is likely that during this discussion the person adopts a harsh attitude towards us while always trying to stay in a position of superiority, so there is no point in getting into such a situation.

Nevertheless, no one should let his self esteem being affected by having an encounter with this type of people, by understanding their behaviors will always be directed to their personal benefit, it will be easier to be prepared to ignore any type of attack coming to us. If they have to damage someone's self esteem so they can feel good, they will do it in the blink of an eye. That is why we must be very clear about their intentions so their potentially mean comments have no effect in us.

Instead of relating to us as equals, they display an obnoxious superiority that makes us feel small. They have the knack of making us feel the shame that they refuse to face within themselves. | Source

In any case, if we feel that our dignity is being attacked, we should not hesitate to communicate it, when dealing with a person with excessive pride or arrogance we have to develop a certain level of courage, a passive attitude is not the best way to deal with them. If we feel that they treat us badly, they hurt us and intent to damage our dignity, we must say it without any fear, and clearly communicate the fact that we understand what is going on, and express our total rejection.

Which is why being capable of expressing ourselves assertively is probably the best thing we can do when dealing with them, because it is an effective way to share our emotions and needs without the need to communicate passively or aggressively.

However, when doing that, we should be patient, it is true that we must also understand that their attitude is due to personal insecurities and the goal of their behavior is to feel better with themselves, that is why we must have a certain level of patience and understand their behavior (or at least try to) from an empathetic point of view.

Even knowing all of this, engaging with these people might not easy, since they will use all the means at their disposal to impose their criteria. It may be that if they are in a very toxic moment they can try to manipulate us and make us feel bad as a result of their aggressive reaction making them get carried away by their frustration.

Conclusion

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When people have a deep personal insecurity they don't want others to know, adopting an attitude with a disproportional amount of pride can be a strategy to disguise themselves as people with no problems whatsoever, but what can end up happening is that they don't measure that pride they are artificially developing in a proper way, and eventually they might not be able to control it, which results in their complete personality being conditioned by that.

The impact something like this can have is quite clear, for example if someone tells us that he does not like something we do (such as defending a particular political movement), we ask ourselves why he thinks that and we consider whether or not to integrate it into our belief system. On the other hand, if we give that same information to a person with excessive pride, he will not listen and will always impose his arguments because he need to protect whatever it is that he believes.

Deep down these are people that even though they might look incredibly strong, they are actually quite fragile and do whatever they can to avoid others noticing it.