There are people who interpret life as if it were all a struggle of egos. This has always happened, but in a context like the present one, where both rivalry and appearances are highly valued elements, it is very frequent that this kind of individuals appear, educated to become this way.

Proud people, in short , are easily rewarded by society, and this reinforces that style of behaviour and personality.

Typical characteristics of proud people

Next, we will see which are the characteristics and features of proud people that define them and distinguish them from the rest.

1. they are deluding themselves

The haughty character of proud people has several costs, and one of the clearest is the need to maintain a false, inflated self-image . As a consequence, these individuals may end up taking risks that are too high, or directly unbearable, and thus go through a series of hardships and difficulties that are totally avoidable.

For example, a father who meets this psychological characteristic may agree to his daughter’s request to build her a life-size wooden boat in a couple of weeks, even though he has never done anything like this before.

They have to say the last word

Both on and off the Internet’s social networks, proud people feel the need to make it clear that they win every discussion they participate in. Sometimes this will be true, and the use they will make of their arguments will be adequate to dialectically disarm their opponent… however, on other occasions they will have no choice but to stage a supposed victory that has never happened .

And what’s the best way to make it look like you’ve won an argument when you really haven’t? Easy: by saying the last word. This pattern of behavior typical of proud people can give rise to surreal situations in which those who have begun to argue lengthen the conversation by adding short, unhelpful phrases, trying to make their contribution the one that closes the discussion.

This is not only a clearly unsympathetic attitude, but also one that greatly hinders the progress of any exchange of opinions. In other words, it destroys the constructive potential of this kind of dialogue.

3. They find it hard to apologize

Offering an apology to others can be a challenge for proud people. It is not a simple problem of showing one’s imperfections to others, with the strategic risk and imbalance that this implies in some conflicts. It is something that goes beyond the objective consequences of asking for forgiveness.

The issue is rather the discomfort caused by the recognition of mistakes due to a very idealized self-image. This is because the incongruence between an inflated self-concept and the recognition that an error has been made are ideas that clash with each other, producing what in psychology is known as cognitive dissonance.

So, when the circumstances arise that a proud person has to apologize, he does it through a staging, making it clear that it is not something spontaneous and honest, but something similar to a little theatre.

4. Feel threatened by their ego easily

For someone who attaches great importance to keeping his or her ego intact, life is a constant competition in which possible rivals constantly appear… even if they do not present themselves as such or are not in an explicitly competitive context.

For example, as soon as they detect a person who excels in some quality in a way that someone may think is more skilled than them in a domain of life, this type of personality leads them to adopt a defensive attitude (not always openly hostile) and try to display their own gifts and aptitudes.

5. They often talk about their past achievements

Proud people maintain their great self-image, in part, by remembering those experiences from the past in which they showed off their skills or made their special talents evident. This can be seen, for example, by forcing a change of topic in conversations so that the dialogue shifts to what happened at certain times in their past.

6. They try never to ask for help

The myth of “the self-made person” is very strong in the mentality of proud people, who consider themselves as something similar to a force independent from the rest of the things that happen in nature, as if they were disconnected from the rest and everything they had achieved was only on their own merits.

Thus, when the situation requires that others collaborate with their projects, they feel invaded and questioned , something that often leads them to adopt a defensive attitude.

7. They feel the will to be in control

For people who are very proud, the social circles they influence are like an extension of their own body, a place where they must try to maintain a certain order and harmony in their functioning.

It is because of this logic of thought that, when something is detected that could threaten that stability, it is viewed with suspicion whenever there is the possibility that the power that one has over part of those people (friends, family, etc.) will fade or weaken.