Self-righteousness, also called sanctimoniousness, sententiousness and holier-than-thou attitudes is a feeling or display of (usually smug) moral superiority derived from a sense that one's beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person. Self-righteous individuals are often intolerant of the opinions and behaviors of others. A self-righteous person might also be described as being uninterested in seeking an unselfish or objective standard of right and wrong, independently of how they interact with other people.
The term "self-righteous" is often considered derogatory (see, for example, journalist and essayist
James Fallows' description of self-righteousness in regard to
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
winners)
[Fallows, Jame]
''About self-righteousness and Al Gore''
The Atlantic, Oct 13 2007 particularly because self-righteous individuals are often thought to exhibit
hypocrisy due to the belief that humans are imperfect and can therefore never be
infallible, an idea similar to that of the Freudian
defense mechanism
In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...
of
reaction formation In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation (german: Reaktionsbildung) is a defense mechanism in which emotions and impulses which are anxiety-producing or perceived to be unacceptable are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency ...
. The connection between self-righteousness and hypocrisy predates
Freud's views, however, as evidenced by the 1899 book ''Good Mrs. Hypocrite'' by the pseudonymous author "Rita".
See also
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Elitism
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Mississippi Squirrel Revival
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Sanctimommy
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Signalling theory
Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between individuals, both within species and across species. The central question is when organisms with conflicting interests, such as in se ...
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Superiority complex
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The Mote and the Beam
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The Pharisee and the Publican
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Virtue signalling
Further reading
''Good Mrs. Hypocrite: A Study in Self-Righteousness''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Self-Righteousness
Emotions
Self
Morality
Narcissism
Pejorative terms