A story of emotion (IV)

They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds their blame.

William Shakespeare

Shame, guilt, and embarrassment – what difference?

Within social-moral emotion, three raised most interest through time: shame, guilt, and embarrassment; the question that arises from the study of those emotions is inevitable how to differentiate them and how do they contribute to our social life?

Embarrassment is said to be the first trace of the emergence of self and morality, whereas shame and guilt are seen as more complex self-conscious emotions and thus emerging later in development. If embarrassment could emerge within the second year of life, shame and guilt could surface as late as the end of the third year. Embarrassment is related to hierarchical interactions, as it is more often felt when surrounded by people of higher social status then when around people of lower social status. It is also associated with the violation of a social convention and argued to be a phylogenetically older and simpler version of shame, or ‘protoshame’.Cultural style can be defined on the relative importance of guilt and shame in the society; Western cultures tend to be defined as guilt-culture whereas East-Asian cultures would be shame-cultures. Protoshame may have thus evolved differently in East-Asian and Western societies, based on the very different concepts of self and sense of community specific to each culture. Embarrassment/protoshame in East-Asians might be simply triggered by being in the presence of someone higher in the hierarchy and shame will be the central emotion of moral regulation. In modern Western societies, there is a partial separation between the social order and the moral order, resulting in a clear distinction between embarrassment, often reported when one violates social conventions, and shame, more related to violation of moral norms. Embarrassment is thus perceived as not as unpleasant as shame, uncomfortable smile or laughter are usually associated with embarrassment episodes, whereas shame cuts deep.

So embarrassment is associated with violation of social norms; what about shame and guilt? If those two emotions seem to be confused, they appear to results from different psychological systems, with different elicitors and action tendencies, but both relate to the sense of violation of moral norms. How do we then differentiate them?

Differentiate shame, guilt, remorse and regret

Let us consider the following statement: “I have done something wrong”; there are two focus in it, the agent (who did it) and the action (what has been done). Looking at the agent, the statement refer to the self “I”, falling under the self-conscious category. The difference between shame and guilt will be made based on the answer to this question: does this action define who I am as a person? If the answer is “yes”, it means the wrong you did is part of who you are, the action makes you a bad person and you tend to feel shameful about this action. If the answer is “no”, the action was an isolated act that does not define you as a person and you would rather feel guilty about the wrong done. The results of such feelings differ as well; in shame, the person will rather try to find a hole to hide, whereas in guilt, the person will try to repair the wrong done. Now looking at the action “something”, a new question arise: do I wish I could change it? If you feel bad about what you did but you have no wish to change it, regret kicks in; if you feel bad and you wish you could erase what you did, guilt could turn into remorse. Both guilt and remorse are action-oriented, motivating reparation by making amend or thinking you deserve to be punished.

Having a clearer idea of what makes shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions, what could be the function of guilt? Why is it important to try and repair a damaged relationship?

The function of guilt

Guilt is often experienced as a negative emotion, but can have positive interpersonal consequences. Because one feels guilty over an action directed toward another person, the agent may try to make amends and repair the potentially broken relationship with this other person. The experience of guilt is inextricably linked to the interests of another person, and the goal of maintaining, mending or assessing relationships with others. Early accounts cast guilt primarily as a self-regulatory emotion prompting individuals to reflect on their mistakes and ultimately feel better about themselves. More recently, experiments have shown that guilt can prompt people to specific actions towards others, such as helping behaviours and anti-prejudicial behaviours. Interestingly, guilt does not prompt general behaviours to repair one’s reputation, but instead promotes actions towards those who have been wronged specifically. So when people feel guilty, they perform pro-social actions to repair that specific relationship and correct social transgressions. The intensity of the guilty feelings directly depends on the nature of the relationship with the person wronged; the closer people are to the victim, the more intense their feelings. However, although guilt can be experienced automatically after committing a social transgression (self-induced guilt), it can also be induced by others as a method of control to gain power within relationships (other-induced guilt). Thus, although guilt is unpleasant to feel, it can be a complex and powerful phenomenon within social negotiations and function positively within relationship. Emotion, thus, communicates us how we feel, what we are experiencing on the physiological level in response to the situation at hand. Emotional states prepare us to a specific set of actions; but they also have a communicative function, informing others about our internal states and feelings...

To be continued...