Is Shame a Social Emotion?

Abstract

Shame is a psychological state of special relevance for those interested in the nature of the self-evaluative attitudes. It is particularly so in the context of this volume: while shame is experienced by individual people, it is only as members of collectives, many have argued, that individuals may be susceptible to such negative self-evaluations. Indeed, classical and recent philosophical and psychological treatments of shame regard it as an essentially social emotion. This is how advocates of the social nature of shame think that it differs from other negative emotions directed at the self such as, for example, guilt or self-disappointment. This claim is also the foundation for important conclusions about shame and its role. First, the influential distinction between "shame cultures" and "guilt cultures" (e.g. Creighton 1990) is based on it and, second, most discussions of the links of shame to morality are directly concerned with it. For some, the social character of shame disqualifies it from playing a significant ethical role; for others, this same feature is what is ethically important about it. For these reasons, one of the central aims of an account of shame is to assess the claim that it is a social emotion. In this article, we will argue, first, that this claim is potentially confusing since different understandings of "being a social emotion" are possible and, second, that shame is not more "social" than many other emotions. Although therefore modest, the aims of the coming discussion are we believe crucial for establishing the foundations of a full-fledged theory of shame. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)(chapter)