Arrogance is a fascinating emotion. No body likes it and yet all of us are guilty of it to some degree. What is interesting about this emotion are the reasons people are arrogant about. Almost inevitably, the main cause of arrogance for any one has nothing to do with any personal achievement. Indeed people who have actually achieved something are usually not arrogant. Root causes of arrogance largely stem from family lineage or family wealth or looks. All of these things are essentially luck of the genetic lottery. Someone born to a rich family could just as easily have been born on the other end of the social spectrum. If you are blessed with good looks, you personally had nothing to do with it. So in cases of obvious arrogance, there is no firm foundation for this emotion. The reason for which a person is arrogant is completely outside that person's control.
There is also a form of arrogance that emerges in the work place. The most common reasons for this arrogance stem from one's vast network of connections or from one's qualifications vis-a-vis co-workers or from too rapid promotions or from a hugely inflated sense of self worth: a feeling that you are God's gift to the company. This is also an overt form of arrogance. Such persons are generally extremely unpleasant to work with and morale inevitably suffers with a consequence of a higher turnover. Such persons also tend to get shunned and attempts are made to block them off into a silo.
There is a much more subtle form of arrogance than these though. Almost all of us suffer from this form regardless of how we view ourselves. The basic definition of arrogance is an offensive display of superiority or self importance or overbearing pride. The vast majority of people consider themselves superior in some respect to others. Consider the behavior of drivers on the road. At some point, most of us have accelerated just enough to prevent somebody from overtaking us. A primary feeling in such cases is why should this driver get ahead of me. Does he think himself better than me? This is an example of arrogance. Or consider this: you are at a traffic light (or going about in the market) and a beggar approaches. How do you feel? Again arrogance. This form is extremely difficult, almost impossible to control. It also betrays us in our decision making. All too often we decide not to pursue a course of action because it is "beneath" us even if said course would have been beneficial either financially or otherwise. As soon as we think like this, we exhibit a subtle form of arrogance.
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