Understanding pride in Turkish context: Dimensions and its outcomes

Pride and hubris are self-conscious emotions intricately connected to an individual's self-assessment of their accomplishments. Despite their significant influence on personal and societal levels, pride and hubris have received relatively limited attention in the existing literature on emotions, especially compared to other self-conscious emotions. This observation highlights notable theoretical and practical gaps in the study of pride and hubris. This thesis consists of comprehensive four-stage research that aims to understand the concepts of pride and hubris, evaluate existing measurement tools, and develop a new pride and hubris scale. In the first phase, scales measuring authentic and hubristic pride, pride display, and status merit were adapted in a Turkish context, utilizing a sample of 506 participants. The analysis demonstrated that these scales are valid and reliable in Turkish. However, due to the significance of cross-cultural equivalence in measurement tools, it was identified that revisions were necessary to assess pride and hubris in collectivist cultures effectively. A notable limitation was the absence of group-level assessments of pride and hubris. Therefore, the second, third and fourth studies were conducted to develop a new scale. In this direction, the second study explored the meanings of pride and hubris within Turkish culture, utilizing a mixed-method approach with 249 participants. The findings indicated that pride is perceived as a positive, motivating, and socially acceptable emotion, whereas hubris is regarded as a negative, maladaptive, and socially unacceptable emotion. In the third phase, a four-dimensional scale was developed to measure pride and hubris at individual and group levels. Initially, a scale pool consisting of 66 items was created, which was subsequently refined to 42 items (individual pride:13, individual hubris:10, group-based pride:12, group-based hubris: 7) through exploratory factor analysis involving 398 participants. The fourth study involved confirmatory factor analysis conducted with 531 participants, which affirmed the four-dimensional structure of the scale. Ultimately, a valid and reliable scale was developed to measure pride and hubris. The results revealed that pride is associated with egalitarian and sharing-oriented values, while hubris is linked to hierarchical and superiority-based values. Furthermore, the study determined that pride is positively associated with shyness, whereas hubris does not. The findings are discussed within universal and cultural interpretations of pride and hubris. Key Words: Pride, hubris, success, superiority, pride and hubris scale