Aristotle's virtue or Dante's deadliest sin? The influence of authentic and hubristic pride on creative achievement

This study (N = 589) investigated the link between the disposition to experience pride and real-world creative achievement, as well as the mediating role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, we disentangled the effects of two forms of pride: authentic and hubristic. We hypothesized that: (a) authentic pride should correlate positively with creativity; (b) intrinsic motivation should mediate the relation between authentic pride and creativity; (c) hubristic pride should correlate negatively with creativity; and (d) extrinsic motivation should mediate the relation between hubristic pride and creativity. Consistent with our hypotheses, authentic pride was positively related to intrinsic motivation and creativity, and intrinsic motivation mediated the pride-creativity link. Hubristic pride did not correlate with creativity although it was positively related to extrinsic motivation. These results support the idea that authentic and hubristic pride are differentially related to creative achievement, and provide preliminary evidence of the mediating role of motivation.

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► We disentangled the effects of authentic and hubristic pride on creativity.
► We investigated the mediating role of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation.
► Authentic pride was positively related to intrinsic motivation and creativity.
► Intrinsic motivation mediated the authentic pride–creativity link.
► Hubristic pride related positively to extrinsic motivation, but not to creativity.