How Does Pride Affect Sports Performance?

In the early 2000s, American cyclist, Lance Armstrong, was an ascendant figure in sports. He achieved an unprecedented seven consecutive wins of the Tour de France. In addition to his cycling accomplishments, Armstrong survived cancer and established a thriving charitable foundation, Livestrong, to support cancer research. Many regarded him as a hero.

But, throughout his career, there were allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, even from teammates and friends. In 2012, he was formally sanctioned for doping. He was stripped of all his titles and banned from the sport for life.[1]

It is a tragic legacy—a man who inspired a generation of cyclists, whose advocacy for cancer research will have a lasting impact, yet whose pride and excessive desire for victory have been his undoing.

What is pride?

There is a certain kind of pride that is not a vice. It is a feeling of pleasure in a job well done or satisfaction with one’s good choices. This is not under examination here.

We are examining the vice of pride—an inflated sense of self or excessive desire for excellence, [2] which Aquinas calls the root of all the other vices. [3] There are many reasons to avoid pride. It is damaging to our communities. It crowds out a love of worthier things and makes us less teachable.

But pride also hides in plain sight in sports, where there is often a culture of bragging and self-aggrandizement, sometimes called “marketing” and other times disguised as self-belief. Admittedly, this is probably part of what we enjoy about sports—the boasting and the self-congratulatory brazenness of it all. It is entertaining. [4]

Given that pride is common in sports—and because this is an Olympic year, with many exciting sporting moments ahead—we might wonder about the plausible effects of pride on sports performance.

Three ways pride can affect sports:

(1) Pride might make a sportsperson overestimate her abilities.

Philosopher Craig Boyd describes an epistemic (knowledge) error that pride commits: The proud person perceives herself as greater than she is. She may imagine she is independent and fail to understand “how one’s life is fragile and dependent on many factors beyond one’s control.” [5]

This knowledge error can negatively affect performance. Imagine the runner who assumes he can run faster than he can, who starts a race too quickly and then comes undone before the finish line. Or the basketball player who takes a risky shot well outside of her capabilities, or believes she can carry the game, without the support of her team.

In this way, pride can hurt performance.

(2) Pride might make a sportsperson value herself over others.

Boyd names a second error that pride commits—an error of valuing. [6] The proud person considers herself superior to those who aspire to lesser things. She values herself and her interests more than she values others. [7]

The effect of this error on performance may be mixed. Prioritizing oneself over others seems like a great way to narrow one’s scope of concern to oneself—building a life around maximizing one’s success. But in a team setting, this vice may detract from constructive interactions and making good choices about who gets the ball, and the greater share of performance glory.

(3) Pride can make a sportsperson desperate.

The proud sportsperson deems herself superior—better, faster, stronger, more important. But even the most ascendant athlete will not be for long. There is always another athlete, ready to take their place.

For this reason, pride can make an athlete desperate to win. Pride’s greatest secret is that it is always under threat. [8]

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Final Thoughts

Pride likely has a mixed effect on sports performance. It can serve as a strong motivator for performance, to preserve its sense of superiority and self-importance. It can lead a sportsperson to prioritize training and put herself first. But pride can also cause a sportsperson to overestimate her abilities, and disrupt constructive team dynamics.

There are strong reasons to avoid the vice of pride in general—to see and love the people around us well, to be teachable, and to live within limits. But, even for the sake of sports performance, it is probably best to avoid it.