Group-based Shame Research Articles

The effects of compensatory behaviour on group-based guilt, group-based responsibility, and group-based shame in moral transgressors

The effects of compensatory behaviour on group-based guilt, group-based responsibility, and group-based shame in moral transgressors

Cybershaming: Conceptualizing Organizational Shaming in the Digital Age

Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in the cases of Cybershaming of businesses. Social media has enhanced organizational transparency to actors both within and outside, consequently disrupting institutional arrangements and logics. Actors defend the institutional logics they cherish, and any contradiction between competing logics may trigger conflict and uncertainty. In the absence of clear institutional illegality, various actors on social media will amplify competing ideological bases and logics. Outgroup actors may resort to Cybershaming to secure compliance and enforce community prescriptions, thereby ensuring respect for inclusivity and capacity for rich, meaningful lives for everybody. Our conceptual paper seeks to theorize how organizational ingroup actors may choose to respond to Cybershaming from outgroups through the lens of confrontation, disruption, and resettlement of logics on social media. When confronted with disruption from institutional complexity, how will institutional ingroup actors react to restoring or defending cherished logics? Specifically, how will this play out amidst the transparency and visibility afforded by social media? Given the emergent and evolving nature of this phenomenon, we build on the theoretical foundations of institutional logics and complexity while simultaneously drawing from a wide range of empirical sources, including studies on internet policy, cybercrime, activism, business ethics, news articles, popular books, and traditional group-based Shame studies. Ultimately, we seek to contribute to the urgent and opportune discussion on institutional complexity and disruption in the digital age.

Group‐based shame, guilt, and regret across cultures

To date, there has been no systematic examination of cross‐cultural differences in group‐based shame, guilt, and regret following wrongdoing. Using a community sample (N = 1358), we examined people's reported experiences of shame, guilt, and regret following transgressions by themselves and by different identity groups (i.e., family, community, country) in Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States. We assessed whether any variation in this regard can be explained by the relative endorsement of individualistic or collectivistic values at the individual level and at the country level. Our findings suggest that people's reported experience of these emotions mostly depends on the transgression level. We also observe some variation across individuals and countries, which can be partially explained by the endorsement of collectivistic and individualistic values. The results highlight the importance of taking into account individual and cultural values when studying group‐based emotions, as well as the identity groups involved in the transgression.

Collective Emotions in Celebratory, Competitive, and Conflictual Contexts: Exploring the Dynamic Relations between Group-Based and Collective Pride and Shame

Abstract Pride and shame are typically viewed as diametrically opposed but dynamically related personal emotions that also occur in group-based and collective forms. Building upon seminal work by Cooley and Scheff to explain the generation and manifestation of these emotions in the imaginations and everyday realities of people’s social-relational individual and group lives, our analysis addresses contemporary developments in social and psychological science (Collins, Mackie & Smith, Reicher & Neville, Skey, Sullivan, von Scheve & Ismer, Wetherell), by highlighting patterns of complex, dynamic relations between occurrences of group-based pride, group-based shame, collective pride and collective shame in prototypical group contexts of celebration, competition and conflict. Our novel analysis includes underexplored group agency and performative details and we argue that mixtures of negative group pride and anger evident in collective hubris or contempt and some forms of aggression directed towards other groups are not necessarily produced by repression of collective shame.

Er skam en moralsk følelse? En sammenligning af individuel og gruppebaseret skam

Is shame a moral emotion? After the Muhammad cartoons controversy, many Danes argued that freedom of speech should be limited by a sense of decency, that insulting Islam for the sake of insult was shameful. Ten years later, the Danish government’s anti-refugee policy led some to say they were ashamed of being Danish. Here shame is given moral significance as the guardian of decency. However, psychologists like Tangney and Dearing have claimed that shame is morally counter-productive: it makes us react in antisocial ways, covering up our failings, shunning contact with others or lashing out in anger. Some have recently argued that the rise of right-wing populism in many Western nations is fueled by the psychological mechanism of transforming shame into rage. This seems a case of shame backfiring to cause antisocial behavior. In this paper, I seek to illuminate this dilemma by analyzing how self and others relate in shame. I defend that shame is an emotion of social self-consciousness, where one’s own self-assessment is fundamentally mediated by others. It may pull us in moral and immoral directions, but it is anyway part of the sensibilities that make us moral. My central examples, though, are cases of group-based shame. Is shame equally appropriate, and does it have the same significance, when it is group-based? I argue that the conditions of appropriateness change, but the structure of the emotion and its moral significance remains unchanged.

Shame on me? Shame on you! Emotional reactions to cinematic portrayals of the Holocaust

The media are playing an increasingly important role in teaching the public about the history of the Holocaust. In Germany, however, Holocaust documentaries have been criticized for eliciting unintended, adverse reactions among the viewers, such as distancing from the victims or calling for closing the books on the past. This criticism stems from the concern that such reactions pose an obstacle to critical-constructive engagement and coming to terms with history. This study examines the interplay between cinematic representation of the Holocaust, film-induced defensive strategies, and group-based emotions of shame. Based on a content analysis of six different film excerpts, we investigated the mediating effects of four defensiveness strategies (distancing from victims, victim blaming, closeness to perpetrators, and rejection of the relevance of the Holocaust) on group-based shame in a sample of 224 pupils from Germany’s third post-war generation in a quasi-experimental field study. The results reveal the complexity of film-portrayals which can foster as well as hinder group-based shame and thus, a constructive dealing with past injustice.

The Role of Perceived In-group Moral Superiority in Reparative Intentions and Approach Motivation.

Three studies examined how members of a national group react to in-group wrongdoings. We expected that perceived in-group moral superiority would lead to unwillingness to repair the aggression. We also expected that internal-focused emotions such as group-based guilt and group-based shame would predict specific, misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation toward the victim groups. In Study 1, facing the in-group’s recent aggression, participants who believed that the Hungarians have been more moral throughout their history than members of other nations, used more exonerating cognitions, experienced less in-group critical emotions and showed less willingness to provide reparations for the members of the victim group. Study 2 and Study 3 confirmed most findings of Study 1. Perceived in-group moral superiority directly or indirectly reduced willingness to provide either general or specific reparations, while internally focused in-group critical emotions predicted specific misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation. The role of emotional attachment to the in-group is considered.

Two faces of group-based shame: moral shame and image shame differentially predict positive and negative orientations to ingroup wrongdoing.

This article proposes distinctions between guilt and two forms of shame: Guilt arises from a violated norm and is characterized by a focus on specific behavior; shame can be characterized by a threatened social image (Image Shame) or a threatened moral essence (Moral Shame). Applying this analysis to group-based emotions, three correlational studies are reported, set in the context of atrocities committed by (British) ingroup members during the Iraq war (Ns = 147, 256, 399). Results showed that the two forms of shame could be distinguished. Moreover, once the other form of shame was controlled for, they were differentially related to orientations toward the outgroup: Image Shame was associated with negative orientations, whereas Moral Shame had associations with positive outgroup orientations. These associations were distinct from the associations of guilt and rejection. Study 3 used a longitudinal design and provided evidence suggestive of a causal direction from emotions to outgroup orientation.

When does anticipating group-based shame lead to lower ingroup favoritism? The role of status and status stability

In two studies we examined whether and when anticipated group-based shame leads to less ingroup favoritism on the part of members of high-status groups in stable hierarchies. In Study 1 (n=195) we measured anticipated group-based shame and found that it only negatively predicted ingroup favoritism in stable high-status groups. When anticipated group-based shame was low, members of such groups exhibited the highest levels of ingroup favoritism. However, these groups displayed the lowest levels of ingroup favoritism when shame was high. In Study 2 (n=159) we manipulated anticipated group-based shame using a bogus-pipeline method. Members of stable high-status groups were less likely to discriminate against a low-status group in the high than in the low anticipated group-based shame condition. This may explain discrepancies in previous research regarding the amount of ingroup favoritism exhibited by (stable) high-status groups: Shame only leads to less discrimination when identity was secure.

‘This will bring shame on our nation’: The role of anticipated group-based emotions on collective action

In three studies we examined whether the anticipation of group-based guilt, shame and anger predicts the desire to undertake collective action against a proposed ingroup transgression. In Studies 1 (N=179) and 2 (N=186), the relation between appraising a proposed ingroup transgression as illegitimate and collective action was mediated (or partially mediated) by anticipated group-based shame and anger. In Study 3 (N=128) participants with high self-investment group identification were less willing to engage in collective action against the prospective ingroup transgression when aversive anticipated group-based emotions were made salient. This effect was mediated by anticipated group-based shame. We discuss the implications of these results with regard to collective action and the morality of intergroup behavior.

Atoning for Colonial Injustices: Group-Based Shame and Guilt Motivate Support for Reparation

An investigation of the role of group-based shame and guilt in motivating citizens of ex-colonial countries to support restitution to former colonized groups which were the target of violence and oppression. Study 1 (N = 125) was conducted in Australia during the lead-up to the first official government apology to Aboriginal Australians. Among white Australians, guilt and shame were associated with attitudinal support for intergroup apology and victim compensation. However, only shame was associated with actual political behaviour (signing a petition in support of the apology). Study 2 (N = 181), conducted in Britain, focussed on Britain's violent mistreatment of the Kenyan population during decolonization. It tested a hypothesis that there are two forms of shame-essence shame and image shame-and demonstrated that image shame was associated with support for apology, whereas essence shame was associated with support for more substantial material and financial compensation. The findings are discussed in light of promoting restitution and reconciliation within nations with histories of colonial violence.