… Why do a lot of people think that this is a negative character trait?

I think arrogant people are great. For me there is no worse characteristic than false modesty.

You need a working definition of arrogance, O great Zoo Fighter. 🙂

what about a nice bit of humility then. Thought that was the opposite of arrogance. Agree about false modesty though 'Pride of the worm' we used to call it.

Hubris?

false modesty isnt the opposite of arrogance.

As vinneyh says, it's humility.

Humility has a social conscience.
Arrogance wears vulgar ties.

Cavendish is arrogant as are a lot of sprinters but he also 'alledgedly' needs a lot of shoring-up indicating that arrogance and fragility are inherent bed fellows

How about 'an over-inflated sense of one's own importance & abilities' (obviously that last bit wouldn't apply to Cav).

steelfreak – arrogance needn't mean over-inflated. One could be bloody brilliant at something – to brag about it, wouldn't necessarily be an act of over-inflation, but it would be arrogant 🙂

you related to Hora? 😉

The problem with arrogance is that it's so damned subjective. An arrogant man would by definition think he's ace and always right and better than everyone else. No matter how much evidence you provide to the contrary, he will continue to think he's brilliant. In fact, the more evidence you provide that he's not, the more arrogant he will become.

Which is a pity because it would appear the vast majority of arrogant people are virtually worthless drains on society who do not make the world a better place.

Apart from me obviously, I'm ace.

You need self-belief and an ego made of titanium alloys to succeed in some walks of life. It's not the same as arrogance though.

I've met a couple of Nobel prize winners and numerous world-leading scientists and real arrogance is rare. They all have a mile and a half of self belief at a very fundamental level, but when you're at that level what's the point of arrogance?

'Arrogance' surely describes a general attitude or mind-set, rather than the knowledge that you are excellent at one particular thing.

Might 'arrogance' simply be self-confidence taken too far? (Or would that just be over-confidence?)

You've confused arrogance and confidence. Confidence in someone who is competent is good. Arrogance in someone who is competent is bad. Arrogance in someone who is incompetent is the worst.

Confident – Rick Stein
Arrogant – Gordon Ramsey
Arrogant/incompetent – Masterchef contestants

Confident Supercilious* – Rick Stein

*new word of the day peeps 🙂

Zoolander?

I give you the 'Blue steel' look 😆

Can soneone kill the animation that hora has linked?

It's making me feel quite ill 🙁

Confident – Rick Stein
Arrogant – Gordon Ramsey
Arrogant/incompetent – Masterchef contestants

You missed one

Cock – Jamie Oliver

Confident – Hugh F-W?

Scott Alexander- apperently hes quite famous in Manchester

Hugh F-W = smug.

Back off from Hugh grumm (waves fist with loosely hanging TagF1 from wrist)! 🙂

Strange – a teacher at junior school told my parents I was arrogant. I reckon it killed my confidence for 20 odd years that. Thanks Mr. Jones, you ©nut.

I had a long discussion about this with some mates recently, we came to the conclusion that self-confident people are able to be humble, but insecure people tend towards arrogance.

If someone's happy with themselves generally, they can be happy to admit where they fall short or where others are better. But if they're insecure about where they fall short, they can cling onto and shout about those areas which they think are their strongest points.

Elite athletes in certain sports can be a bit of a special case, where some need to inflate their confidence in their skills to a point where they appear arrogant, especially if their way of staying motivated is to make outrageous claims in public and then have to back them up, e.g Shaun Palmer.

nedrapier is pretty much spot on, I reckon.

Arrogance is a mistaken or false sense of pride.

In Cav's case, there is no false pride. He's just boasting and good on him.

Humility might win him some friends. I don't think it will win many sprints.

Just realised- whats wrong with Cav having self belief and feeling good about winning?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zoo fighter makes me laugh…

Aristotle on the subject of pride, vanity and humility. I am not sure that I follow all of this, but it is hard to argue with the last section. 😉

Now the man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man is foolish or silly. The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud; for pride implies greatness, as beauty implies a goodsized body, and little people may be neat and well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful.

ahahaha, blue steel is a HAM.
what a tool.
arrogance is synonymous with Willy waving, impo.

Mirriam-Webster has: "an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner"

whether the superiority is real or imagined isn't relevant

Cav's not arrogant. He's in the position of being the fastest man in the world on a bike and everyone knows it, including him. That's just a fact. Every post-stage interview I've seen (when the lad has just gotten off his bike and is pumped full of adrenaline) has been; firstly a tribute to his team, an appraisal of why he was faster than everyone else (which he was and is) and a view of his goals and ambitions for the tour (realistic and if anything understated). Such statements coming from a regular cyclist would certainly be arrogant but it's just simple truth from Cav. He doesn't soap it up with false modesty and exaggerated praise of his competitors, which is refreshing. French don't like him? Good. It would bug me if they did like him. No spoilers in this thread please, I've be scurrying home at 7pm for highlights. Best Tour ever, cheers Cav.