The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. Put a number on pride and it becomes a target; put a target on it and the number stops meaning what it meant. The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes.
Where the model breaks
Consider the polite refusal. It is a small thing, and small things are where habits live. A pattern this consistent is not a character flaw. It is a design feature, and design features can be worked with. Understanding people turns out to be a more urgent task than changing them, and a great deal harder. Put a number on pride and it becomes a target; put a target on it and the number stops meaning what it meant.
The evidence here is thinner than the confident commentary suggests, and the honest position is a shrug with a direction of travel. Nobody sets out to be governed by the polite refusal, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day. The measure that matters is not what people say about pride but what they do when nobody is scoring. The lesson is modest. Build for the person who exists, not the one in the model.
