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Key points
- Studies show that shame is useful, even when it’s painful.
- Shame can motivate people to change certain aspects of themselves.
- Influencers who describe shame as “dangerous” are getting the science wrong.
What’s wrong with shame?
Shame gets a bad rep these days. It appears to be some kind of psychological scapegoat. Allegedly, shame can explain why people feel really bad all the time or have bad relationships. It could be a sign of religious fanaticism. The “walk of shame” is viewed as a consequence of sexual promiscuity. Some influencers go as far as to label shame as “dangerous.”
I’ll zag here and make the opposite claim. Shame is useful. It’s beneficial. And it’s necessary for healthy social development.
But what exactly is shame? Shame stems from our moral conscience. It’s a signal that goes off when we’ve done something wrong in social contexts. When people are caught breaking a rule or violating a norm, they may feel shame as a result.
We go to great lengths to avoid feeling ashamed. It’s painful for a reason—it keeps our dark impulses in check. It’s our mind’s way of letting us know when we’ve done something bad, in part because we care about our social reputations and don’t want others to view us unfavorably. Without shame, people would behave like lunatics. When we describe someone as “shameless,” we mean it as a pejorative.
What makes shame different from guilt?
Some might push back at my claim by noting that guilt (not shame) is actually the emotion that occurs after we’ve done something bad and that shame is different because it’s about one’s feelings of self-worth as a whole person. Others might posit that shame is a more “public” emotion that occurs when others judge us, and we internalize this judgment, whereas guilt is a more “private” emotion that occurs when people feel that they’ve violated their own personal standards.
I disagree with both of these framings.
Research suggests that shame can be experienced internally and externally but that in the majority of cases, people feel these emotions publicly. Private feelings of shame or guilt are less common. Mostly, people experience these feelings in the presence of others that they know well (e.g., significant others, family members), although embarrassment tends to be more common in front of acquaintances or strangers.
Studies show that shame and guilt overlap in substantial ways. People generally rate them as intense and unpleasant feelings that lasted a while and occurred in very serious situations. Participants who described their experiences with each emotion said that they felt personally responsible for their (wrong) actions, a sense of responsibility, and a desire to make amends. They also felt other co-occurring emotions, such as anger and disgust, which were directed inward.
That means people felt high arousal negativity as a result of their own actions, which warranted them to display humbleness and seek forgiveness. People were also harsher on themselves than they believed others felt towards them. Overall, the evidence suggests that psychological experiences of guilt and shame are more similar than different.
Is shame actually useful?
OK, so shame and guilt are comparable emotions, and they mostly occur in the presence of others. But does that mean they’re helpful? What do people want to do with these feelings?
To answer this, researchers asked people about instances where they felt guilt, shame, regret, or embarrassment and also asked participants what they wanted to do in response to those emotions. They found that people reported strong motivations not only for social repair (e.g., to make an apology) but also to improve themselves (e.g., “I felt the urge to be a better person”). This motivation for self-improvement was even stronger following shame than for guilt, embarrassment, or regret.
The researchers noted that, in some cases, guilt can be alleviated by simply apologizing but not necessarily changing one’s behavior moving forward. The reason why shame might feel weightier and more difficult to alleviate is because it doesn’t go away with a mere apology—it requires holistic self-development. Shame causes people to want to be better humans. And that’s not easy! Despite the anguish, shame had the strongest potential to promote growth, compared to other emotions. This makes shame a double-edged sword.
The study authors ended their paper with a quote attributed to Blaise Pascal: “The only shame is to have none.” I suggest we all dwell on this idea.
References
Ferreira, C., Moura-Ramos, M., Matos, M., & Galhardo, A. (2022). A new measure to assess external and internal shame: Development, factor structure and psychometric properties of the external and internal shame scale. Current Psychology, 41(4), 1892-1901.
Lickel, B., Kushlev, K., Savalei, V., Matta, S., & Schmader, T. (2014). Shame and the motivation to change the self. Emotion, 14(6), 1049.
Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1256.
