THE WIDENING SCOPE OF SHAME by Melvin R. Lansky & Andrew P. Morrison

THE WIDENING SCOPE OF SHAME by Melvin R. Lansky & Andrew P. Morrison

Author:Melvin R. Lansky & Andrew P. Morrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317771371
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-02-03T16:00:00+00:00


Early Studies of Shame

Darwin (1872) devoted a whole chapter, the last substantive one, to "Self-attention—Shame—Shyness—Modesty: Blushing." As his punctuation suggests, his primary interest was the phenomenon of blushing: what evolutionary function could it serve? He proposed that blushing may be universal in the human species, even among the darkest skinned people. He suggested, in passing, by way of comments on the blushing of Australian aborigines, that blushing is caused by shame.

Under the section heading "The Nature of the Mental States which Induce Blushing," he stated his thesis: "These consist of shyness, shame, and modesty, the essential element in all being self-attention." For my purposes, the most essential proposition comes next, where he explains what he means by "self-attention": "It is not the simple act of reflecting on our own appearance, but the thinking what others think of us, which excites a blush" (p. 325). His preliminary discussion suggests that blushing may be caused by perceptions of evaluation of the self whether positive or negative. The bulk of the complete discussion suggests, however, that more frequently than not, the social perceptions of self which cause blushing are negative. Take his summary statement: "Blushing, whether due to shyness, to shame for a real crime ... or a breach of the laws of etiquette ... or humility . . . depends in all cases on . . . a sensitive regard for the opinion, more particularly the depreciation of others ..." (p. 335).

Darwin's argument about the relationship between blushing, emotions, and "self-attention" can be restated as two propositions connecting blushing with emotions, on one hand, and social perception, on the other. First: blushing is caused by shame. "Shyness" and "modesty," Darwin's two other "mental states" that induce blushing, can be considered to be shame variants.1 Second, and more important for my purposes here, shame is caused by the perception of negative evaluations of the self. Blushing is only one of several visible markers of overt shame and therefore is not a primary concept for a theory of social influence. The second statement, however, contains the basic proposition for the whole theory: shame is the social emotion, arising as it does out the monitoring of one's own actions by viewing oneself from the standpoint of others.

Shame as a crucial emotion for adults is prominent in the thought of William McDougall (1908). He considered shame as one of what he called the "self-regarding sentiments," the most important one: "Shame is the emotion second to none in the extent of its influence upon social behavior" (p. 124). Like Darwin, he seems to have understood that shame arises as a result of self-monitoring, although he was not as precise on this point as Darwin or Cooley: "The conduct which excites our shame is that which lowers us in the eyes of our fellows, so that we feel it to be impossible for our positive self-feeling to attain satisfaction" (p. 127, italics added). He seems clear on one important point, that, although shame undoubtedly has a biological basis



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.