Proud to Belong or Proudly Different? Contrasting Effects of Incidental Pride on Conformity

Pride is as an emotional response to success or achievement (Lazarus 1991; MacInnis and Patrick 2006; Mukhopadhyay and Johar 2007), in which the self is attributed as having achieved an important goal (Tracy and Robins 2004). It is a common response to important life events (e.g., graduation) as well as everyday occurrences (e.g., get praised by teacher). Previous research on pride has mainly focused on how incidental pride influences one’s own behavior in a personal setting. For example, pride can influence consumers’ self-control (Wilcox, Kramer, and Sen 2011), and is linked to self-efficacy (Passyn and Sujan 2012), and motivation for future achievement (Fredrickson 2001; Louro, Pieters, and Zeelenberg 2005). In contrast, the current research aims to explore whether and how incidental pride can influence consumers’ preferences given social influence, specifically, their tendency to conform. We propose that the effect of pride in such situations depends on the lay theories that consumers hold about their achievements. Lay theories influence how people interpret and predict their social worlds (Wyer 2004). Given that our domain of interest is the pride that people feel in response to achievement, we draw on Dweck and Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 41) / 121 Leggett’s (1988) seminal concepts of lay theories of achievement. In this model, “entity theorists” believe that intelligence and ability are fixed quantities and cannot be changed, whereas “incremental theorists” believe that intelligence and ability are malleable resources and thus can be improved through effort. Hence success is attributed differently depending on one’s lay theories – either to traits (for entity theorists), or to efforts (for incremental theorists; Molden and Dweck 2006).