Shame

[floppit]

I don't believe shame is anything but an instilled attitude. Young children happily run around naked until they get enough shocked attitudes thrown at them.

I remember when my dad told me never to be ashamed of my body. He said, "Look at me, my body sure isn't beautiful, but hey-- it's what I've got." Said with a sense of "Life goes on-- don't miss out because you don't think you look right."

I don't think shame about bodies is ever a good thing. ( Of course, it's a hard standard to keep, when my middle currently looks like a loaf of uncooked bread. )

Feeling ashamed for hurting someone, though-- or treating someone poorly, or acting negligently and causing an accident-- that sort of thing... I think a little shame in those circumstances is appropriate.

I would call that remorse, not shame.

Ah. There's a lot of subtle gradations in these negative feelings, huh?

Well, I tend to group them into "native" and "installed". Shame is not native, but remorse is.

I suppose I don't view shame at all in terms of body image (embarrassment maybe... but not shame), with that aside why do you believe it's installed rather than native? We are very much group animals, most group animals have structure and some emotional connection to that structure. I'd find it less plausible that we had no native emotion serving a shame purpose (if there is one...?). You use remorse - I can't separate these at all, except by audience, but then, a bit like Hades describes I can do shame all on my own anyway!

Thinking again, perhaps shame reflects a past audience but requires an audience where as remorse does not? I'd still find it a stretch to see us evolving to live in groups with complex social structure without equally evolving some emotion to back that structure up.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Thinking again, perhaps shame reflects a past audience but requires an audience where as remorse does not? I'd still find it a stretch to see us evolving to live in groups with complex social structure without equally evolving some emotion to back that structure up.

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To me, "shame" is an emotion that is brought on by training. Remorse is instinctual. You don't see "shame" in chimps, but you do see "remorse". So "shame", as I noted above, is a societal construct that varies from society to society and is really not valid until it's forced upon someone.

[floppit]

Remorse is instinctual. You don't see "shame" in chimps, but you do see "remorse".

Any links re evidence? just curious.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Remorse is instinctual. You don't see "shame" in chimps, but you do see "remorse".

Any links re evidence? just curious.

Hardcopy journal articles from my "Soc. 101" days, I'm afraid. Sowwy.

[floppit]

This mentions shame in chimps:
Chimpanzee Biology & Human Origin and Evolution
http://www.rmmj.org.il/userimages/10/0/ ... rticle.pdf
But perhaps it's a moot point if we have evolved to install shame...

Sanctioning.
The taking of food out of turn can result in slaps from other community members and therefore elicits crying and feelings of shame
from the accused.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This mentions shame in chimps:
Chimpanzee Biology & Human Origin and Evolution
http://www.rmmj.org.il/userimages/10/0/ ... rticle.pdf
But perhaps it's a moot point if we have evolved to install shame...

Sanctioning.
The taking of food out of turn can result in slaps from other community members and therefore elicits crying and feelings of shame
from the accused.

"feelings of shame"? How do they know it was shame?

[apophenia]

I have a lot of social anxiety, which often amounts to immense amounts of shame, for no good reason. Oddly, I often feel fine in the moment, but experience a lot of shame in my inevitable post-game analysis. I can even feel shame all anew for something stupid I said fifteen years ago-- and it can hit me out of nowhere.

Daniel Kahneman has done some interesting work in which he compares how people describe their general satisfaction with life in the past, versus asking them how they feel "right now". He found that, for the same period of time, the way the "historical self" rates its happiness is different from the moment-to-moment rating of happiness. (I believe biasing the historical self towards the positive, but don't quote me on that. The work is mentioned in Sam Harris' book, "The Moral Landscape".)

[apophenia]

From my days as a feminist, the distinction I was taught was that guilt is something you feel about bad things you've done, shame is feeling bad about who you are -- and no one should feel bad about who they are.

I no longer think in that framework, but it's a useful distinction. (My current ideas lead me to suspect the cognitive structures which undergird moral judgements are enough alike those which form our sense of self that transplanting moralistic judgements onto the sense of self is inevitable.)

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I think that shame is a perfectly natural emotion that (like other emotions) can be hijacked by conditioning.

Feeling shame because you have hurt another human being is natural (unless you are a psychopath) but feeling shame for nakedness, or wanking, or sex, or any of a plethora of sexual 'deviations' is simply the result of conditioning.

Similarly, feeling hatred is natural, given adequate reason, but feeling hatred for an entire race based upon what you have been taught to believe as a child is simply conditioning.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think that shame is a perfectly natural emotion that (like other emotions) can be hijacked by conditioning.

Feeling shame because you have hurt another human being is natural (unless you are a psychopath) but feeling shame for nakedness, or wanking, or sex, or any of a plethora of sexual 'deviations' is simply the result of conditioning.

Similarly, feeling hatred is natural, given adequate reason, but feeling hatred for an entire race based upon what you have been taught to believe as a child is simply conditioning.

Take your statement and replace shame with remorse (in the places were it's not an artificiality like "nakedness"). It still works and it's not an externally sourced emotion.

[charlou]

hades scenarios I was referring to:

Feeling ashamed for hurting someone, though-- or treating someone poorly, or acting negligently and causing an accident-- that sort of thing... I think a little shame in those circumstances is appropriate.

I still think "remorse" works better there. "Shame" requires other people be involved in the self-criticism. Remorse doesn't.

good point ... yes.

that said, many people seem to need a reminder of what others think before feeling any of those things


eta quote I was replying to as a page had gone by in the meantime

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I think that shame is a perfectly natural emotion that (like other emotions) can be hijacked by conditioning.

Feeling shame because you have hurt another human being is natural (unless you are a psychopath) but feeling shame for nakedness, or wanking, or sex, or any of a plethora of sexual 'deviations' is simply the result of conditioning.

Similarly, feeling hatred is natural, given adequate reason, but feeling hatred for an entire race based upon what you have been taught to believe as a child is simply conditioning.

Take your statement and replace shame with remorse (in the places were it's not an artificiality like "nakedness"). It still works and it's not an externally sourced emotion.

Remorse is feeling sorry for past actions. Shame is feeling guilty for what you are doing at the time. I see them as distinct. You can lack remorse until given added facts that make your action seem more callous than it seemed to you at the time. Shame is more immediate.

Although the two are closely linked and BOTH are subject to societal conditioning.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't see shame as anything but other people's opinions forced on a person when they're impressionable. Remorse can be immediate.

[charlou]

remorse is not spontaneous .. but then .. none of the other feelings raised are either.


empathy ... and how that impacts on this ... and vice versa, actually ... I have some thoughts on that. Will maybe post them later.

[floppit]

This is interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame

Boringly I think at some point definitions would have to rear their head. Zilla, you define shame as forced on a person (or appear to) so as that's your definition, for you, there is no other meaning but that standpoint is very different to my own where I have appreciated shame as an emotion.

An example:

I worked in children's rights, my job, I got it, I got that they are people, so got it!

On my lunch break, dashing back to let dogs out with little time to eat I stop at the chippy but almost left again due to a huge queue of school kids. The guy behind the counter calls me to come to the front (to push in and I fecking know it!), I take him up and order. He offers the same privilege to the next adult customer - she says, 'There's a queue, I'll wait.' SHAME - I would not want to be who I'd have to become to not feel rightfully stung by that. Whatever remorse I might have gone onto to feel, the clear difference in my greedy behaviour and her honourable behaviour, that she saw me, that all those teens saw me - that (to me) is rightful and valuable shame. You'd not catch me doing it again!