Hubristic pride exacerbates but authentic pride buffers a fall: Relations between pride, self-forgiveness, and clinical symptoms

Introduction: Self-forgiveness has been shown to be an efficacious way for transgressors to deal with their actions. This study makes two new contributions. First, it tests, for the first time, the extent to which individual differences in authentic pride and hubristic pride are differentially related to different components of selfforgiveness. Second, it tests the extent to which relations between the different components of self-forgiveness and clinical outcomes are moderated by authentic pride and hubristic pride. Method: We employed a cross-sectional design in which a sample of N = 206 recalled a negative action they had enacted. Results: We found that authentic pride is positively associated with genuine self-forgiveness and negatively with self-punitiveness and pseudo self-forgiveness, whereas relations occur in the opposite direction for hubristic pride. Further, authentic pride enhances the buffering effect of lower self-punitiveness on clinical symptoms, whereas hubristic pride magnifies the negative effect of self-punitiveness. Discussion: We discuss implications for the role of different facets of pride in the self-forgiveness process, and the clinical outcomes associated with being able to forgive oneself.