Feeling proud is probably a sign that people think you’re great

An encouraging garbage can. (credit: Ryan Mickle - Flickr)

Too often, science news extrapolates wildly from the science in question. Take, for example, that time a small study done in mice mutated into diet advice for humans. Press releases are sometimes the origin of the hype; other times, the hype might be added by reporters and editors for some extra juice in the story.

But sometimes, the extrapolation is embedded in the science itself. Researchers are not immune to bias, and sometimes they make unsupported claims based on their data. A paper in PNAS this week takes a big leap from its evidence to claim that the emotion of pride “evolved to guide behavior to elicit valuation and respect from others.” The paper itself has some nifty findings, but getting from the data to the conclusions requires the mental equivalent of an Olympic long jump.

You think humor is just as important as the next guy

What the researchers found—and this is the neat part—is that we think highly of other people who have traits that we ourselves would be proud of. More than 1,300 people from 16 different countries answered a survey about traits like sense of humor, generosity, athletic skill, popularity, and responsibility.