Does Shame Work?

Before we get into whether shame is effective, we should probably talk about the purpose of shame. Shame has less to do with the morality of a behavior and more to do with the social impact of others knowing about it. The arbitrator of morality is guilt. Not a very effective or accurate arbitrator, but that’s its job. Shame is more about conformity. It is less likely to cause a person to change their behavior and more likely to increase a person’s efficacy in hiding it. Not because the behavior is wrong, just socially or economically harmful and its disclosure would provoke the uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment.

So back to the question. Does shame work?

In order for shame to work, three criteria usually need to be met (based on the research I’ve read):

(1) The source of shame (behavior) is generally considered by the individual’s cultural context as immoral or wrong.

(2) The individual experiencing shame feels as if there is a way back- that not everybody knows, that it is not a career or life ending event, and those that know will eventually forgive him or her, or at least let it pass. There is almost always a way back, but that’s not the criteria – a person needs to believe that there is a way back.

(3) The person feels as if the behavior he or she engaged in is in fact wrong – even behaviors we consider immoral or wrong may be justified in a person’s mind given the circumstances surrounding the behavior. In other words, guilt needs to also be experienced.

Public shaming, which appears to be on the rise, is ineffective when it comes to individual behavior change. Most people feel uncomfortable with it because we could easily be put in this position- we all have secrets we don’t want other people to know. Public shaming doesn’t elicit guilt which is necessary for behavior change, only embarrassment or fear which simply compels a person to be more effective at hiding their behavior.

Public shaming also removes incentive, it makes a person feel as if there isn’t a way out and may cause a person or group of people who relate to the person’s behavior to defend and double down on the behavior. It may contribute to normalizing the behavior as a result of a backlash. It may cause a person to seek groups and contexts where the behavior is acceptable versus the hard work of changing behavior.

Substance use is an excellent example of this. A person who uses substances will usually do so among others who also use. As their frequency of substance use and/or the behaviors they engage in to obtain the substance become more taboo, their social circles shrink. Support networks begin to consist primarily of individuals who engage in the same substance with the same frequency and who use similar behaviors to obtain that substance. Early on the shame is effective for the individual. Someone openly discussing their substance use at work, as an example, may lead to bigger problems, but if use progresses to addiction, shame becomes a reinforcing agent for substance use and a barrier to sobriety.

We can also look at this phenomenon through another lens. Spock is half human and half Vulcan. Spock suppressed and hid the human elements of his personality. Acting human on Vulcan would have been ineffective. The fact that others knew he was human already made his life difficult.

There is nothing wrong with being human and feeling shame for who you are can seem pretty illogical. Yet shame worked to protect Spock from the very real consequences of being human. He hid his humanity in order to succeed within his context. If there were a large group of individuals like Spock, that lived on his planet we could reasonably expect Spock to join them and not care so much about behaving like a Vulcan. This group may even form a movement that pushes for greater acceptance.

Many clients I have worked with have felt shame over the reasons they seek therapy. In some cases, the feeling of shame was effective as not everyone is knowledgeable or understanding about mental health. In others, it robbed them of help, causing them to underutilize supports that may have helped accelerate their recovery or mitigate relapse.

So if manufacturing shame really isn’t all that effective in changing behaviors what does work? Empathy and reasonable consequences, usually. Both naturally provoke the right quality of shame at the right intensity without intending to do so.

Empathy can connect to the impact the behavior has on a person. People tend to feel bad when they hurt other people. I would be much more successful in getting a person to change their behavior if I spoke to them one to one and discussed how the behavior affected me. One reason is that most folks don’t want to appear or see themselves as people who want to hurt other people. Another reason is that I am more likely to increase empathy and a feeling of guilt in the other person. If I approached the matter publicly and with judgment on what the behavior means about a person’s character, their focus would be less on changing the behavior and more on hiding the behavior, defending it or revenge.

Consequences are also effective as most people have the capacity to be fair to themselves and others. Consequences, if reasonable, offer both an incentive and structure around changing behavior, whether it be our own or someone else’s.

If you’re interested in reading more about shame, a study that I found very helpful is “Two Faces of Shame: The Roles of Shame and Guilt in Predicting Recidivism” (June P. Tangney et al. Jan. 2014), Psychological Science.