Not so ugly after all: when shame acts as a commitment device.

Most psychological theories and research on shame focus on the ugly aspects and negative consequences of this emotion. Theories on moral emotions, however, assume that shame acts as a commitment device motivating prosocial behavior. To solve this apparent paradox, the authors studied the effects of shame on prosocial behavior. Shame was hypothesized to motivate prosocial behavior when it was relevant for the decision at hand (endogenous). In contrast, shame that was not relevant for the decision at hand (exogenous) was hypothesized to have no such effects. Four experiments with three different shame inductions and two different measures of prosocial behavior confirmed that endogenous shame motivated prosocial behavior for proselfs but that exogenous shame did not. Shame is shown to have a clear interpersonal function in the sense that it acts as a commitment device.

[1]  D. Ausubel,et al.  Relationships between shame and guilt in the socializing process. , 1955, Psychological review.

[2]  J. Stainer,et al.  The Emotions , 1922, Nature.

[3]  N. Frijda,et al.  Appraisal: What is the dependent? , 2001 .

[4]  M. Schlossberg.  Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions. , 1990 .

[5]  Agneta H. Fischer,et al.  Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium , 2004 .

[6]  N. Frijda,et al.  Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness , 1989 .

[7]  Karen Caplovitz Barrett,et al.  A functionalist approach to shame and guilt. , 1995 .

[8]  Daniel M. T. Fessler,et al.  The strategy of affect: Emotions in human cooperation. , 2003 .

[9]  A. Guedeney,et al.  La honte, la culpabilité et le drame œdipien : considérations développementales à propos de la moralité et de la référence aux autres , 2002 .

[10]  G. Mason,et al.  Are Shame , Guilt , and Embarrassment Distinct Emotions ? , 2001 .

[11]  Rowland S. Miller.  Embarrassment and social behavior. , 1995 .

[12]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Prosocial behavior: multilevel perspectives. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[13]  K. Scherer,et al.  Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research. , 2001 .

[14]  B. Tabachnick,et al.  Using Multivariate Statistics , 1983 .

[15]  Nitika Garg,et al.  Incidental and Task-Related Affect: A Re-Inquiry and Extension of the Influence of Affect on Choice , 2005 .

[16]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  The Ego and the Id , 1923 .

[17]  Robert H. Frank,et al.  Feelings and Emotions: Introducing Moral Emotions into Models of Rational Choice , 2004 .

[18]  J. Fontaine,et al.  Untying the Gordian Knot of Guilt and Shame , 2006 .

[19]  P. Shaver.  Emotions, Relationships, and Health , 1984 .

[20]  T. Ketelaar,et al.  The effects of feelings of guilt on the behaviour of uncooperative individuals in repeated social bargaining games: An affect-as-information interpretation of the role of emotion in social interaction , 2003, Cognition & emotion.

[21]  Y. Poortinga,et al.  Emotion without a word: shame and guilt among Rarámuri Indians and rural Javanese. , 2006, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  C. Salmon,et al.  Evolutionary psychology, public policy and personal decisions , 2004 .

[23]  P. Gilbert,et al.  The phenomenology of shame and guilt: an empirical investigation. , 1994, The British journal of medical psychology.

[24]  E. Higgins.  Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. , 1996 .

[25]  JANICE LINDSAY-HARTZ,et al.  Contrasting Experiences of Shame and Guilt , 1984 .

[26]  H. Lewis.  Shame and guilt in neurosis. , 1971, Psychoanalytic review.

[27]  E. Leonard,et al.  Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride , 1996 .

[28]  N. Rüsch,et al.  Measuring shame and guilt by self-report questionnaires: A validation study , 2007, Psychiatry Research.

[29]  R. Grigg.  Shame and Guilt , 2005 .

[30]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Guilt: an interpersonal approach. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[31]  K. Scherer,et al.  Handbook of affective sciences. , 2003 .

[32]  J. Tangney,et al.  Moral affect: the good, the bad, and the ugly. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  J. Rivera,et al.  Differentiating guilt and shame and their effects on motivation. , 1995 .

[34]  F. W. Wicker,et al.  Participant descriptions of guilt and shame , 1983 .

[35]  J. Haidt,et al.  The Moral Emotions , 2009 .

[36]  Marcel Zeelenberg,et al.  Feeling Is for Doing: A Pragmatic Approach to the Study of Emotions in Economic Behavior , 2006 .

[37]  D. Messick,et al.  Motivational bases of choice in experimental games , 1968 .

[38]  J. Tangney,et al.  The self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride. , 2005 .

[39]  E. Erikson.  Childhood and Society , 1965 .

[40]  C. Rusbult,et al.  Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientations: theory and preliminary evidence. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  D. Raphael,et al.  I: The Theory of Moral Sentiments , 1976 .

[42]  Nico H. Frijda,et al.  Emotions and Action , 2004 .

[43]  Nancy Eisenberg,et al.  The Development of Prosocial Behavior , 1984 .

[44]  J P Tangney.  Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: development of the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[45]  Marcel Zeelenberg,et al.  Social animals and economic beings : On unifying social psychology and economics , 2006 .

[46]  D. Harder,et al.  Assessment of shame and guilt and their relationships to psychopathology. , 1992, Journal of personality assessment.

[47]  J. Lerner,et al.  Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgement and choice , 2000 .

[48]  P. Gilbert,et al.  An exploration of shame measures—II: psychopathology , 1994 .

[49]  Matthias Berking,et al.  Self-Conscious Emotions and Depression: Rumination Explains Why Shame But Not Guilt is Maladaptive , 2006, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[50]  Rob M. A. Nelissen,et al.  How to turn a hawk into a dove and vice versa: Interactions between emotions and goals in a give-some dilemma game , 2007 .

[51]  Marcel Zeelenberg,et al.  Moral sentiments and cooperation: Differential influences of shame and guilt , 2007 .

[52]  James M. Weyant.  Effects of mood states, costs, and benefits on helping. , 1978 .

[53]  S. Freud.  The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , 1953 .

[54]  Paul A. M. Van Lange,et al.  Social Value Orientations and Impressions of Partner's Honesty and Intelligence: A Test of the Might Versus Morality Effect , 1994 .

[55]  T. Dalgleish,et al.  Handbook of cognition and emotion , 1999 .

[56]  E. Higgins,et al.  Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles. , 1996 .

[57]  W. Parrott.  Implications of dysfunctional emotions for understanding how emotions function. , 2001 .

[58]  B. Tabachnick,et al.  Using multivariate statistics, 5th ed. , 2007 .

[59]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[60]  The relativity of bad decisions: social comparison as a means to alleviate regret. , 2008, The British journal of social psychology.

[61]  Zara Ambadar,et al.  Body sensations associated with emotions in Rarámuri Indians, rural Javanese, and three student samples. , 2005, Emotion.

[62]  Peter Hammerstein,et al.  Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation , 2003 .

[63]  D. Keltner,et al.  Functional Accounts of Emotions , 1999 .