Originally posted by Palynka
Ok, let me step back.
You're obviously more knowledgeable than me in psychology issues (as shown by a previous discussion). Still, you're just asserting stuff and I'm not convinced.
Since I'm a newbie, I google. I try to go to relatively serious places like Google Scholar and pick published articles and all I find about pride are published articles tal ...[text shortened]... e share common resources, goals and affection (my family). Why is this being delusional?
I agree that inspiring positive emotions in people is a good thing, however pride is more like a drug that sets you up to experience even more negative emotions in the future when things aren't going well.
Extreme example: "I used to be the best guitarist ever, then I lost my hand in a tragic sewing machine accident and now my life is ruined so I'm going to drink myself to death."
Also take into account that a lot of these published psychologists are also American and I don't mean to be critical of Americans but they have a crazily intimate relationship with pride, so the definitions get blurred, like you noticed.
As for the example of the grandmother and the thief. You have a perception of what she did that differs from her perception of what she did, and the thief has yet another perception of the events. To find the absolute reality of what occurred you would need to strip away all emotion from all of the players. You might be proud that your elderly relative stood up for herself. She might be proud that she handled the situation better than she expected. The thief might be embarrassed that he lost to an old lady. All of these emotions cloud the simplicity, and possibly the real truth of what occurred. <insert unlimited possibilities>
It's difficult to actually live by these high standards and constant unemotional thinking. I couldn't do it myself, but I am very wary of feeling pride, which I consider to be one of the worst things about people. It's a timebomb.