Proud people display their pride

The emotion of pride has its own distinct facial expression and body language, adding it to the short list of recognizable human emotions that have been identified scientifically, report professor of psychology Richard Robins and doctoral student Jessica Tracy, University of California, Davis. They maintain that pride has a nonverbal expression that can be distinguished from other positive emotions such as happiness and excitement.

People exhibiting pride show a small smile, tilt their head slightly back, visibly expand their posture, and either raise their arms above their head or put their hands on their hips, explains Robins and Tracy.

"This ... challenges the assumption that all positive emotions share the same nonverbal expression." The researchers believe that the pride expression might be a form of nonverbal communication that evolved in humans so that, after a success, an individual might boost his or her social status within the group by conveying the success to others. The pair also speculate the expanded posture in the expression creates the impression of largeness, conveying dominance, and the slight head tilt may allow the individual to gaze above the crowd, emanating superiority.

Among the other emotions that have distinct, recognizable expressions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and possibly contempt and embarrassment.

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