Operations, Information and Decisions Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Psychol Sci. 2022 Aug;33(8):1257-1277. doi: 10.1177/09567976221075303. Epub 2022 Jul 7.
How does shame affect social cohesion? Prior work has drawn divergent conclusions to this question because shame can spur maladaptive behaviors for people who experience it. However, past work has overlooked the interindividual effects of shame-how one's expression of shame affects people who witness it. We investigated these social-learning effects of shame and identified norm transmission as a reliable route by which shame facilitates social cohesion. Across five studies and two supplemental studies with U.S.-based adult participants ( = 3,726), we manipulated whether someone conveys shame, no specific emotion, or other discrete emotions regarding their behavior. We then assessed the effect of this emotional expression on participants' norm inferences and norm-conforming behavior. We found that shame broadcasts particularly strong signals about social norms, and people adjust their behavior to align with these norms. We discuss how these findings challenge common conclusions about shame and generate insights about shame's influence on social life.
羞耻感如何影响社会凝聚力？先前的研究对这个问题得出了不同的结论，因为羞耻感会促使经历它的人产生适应不良的行为。然而，过去的工作忽略了羞耻感的个体间影响——一个人的羞耻感表达如何影响目睹它的人。我们研究了羞耻感的这些社会学习效应，并确定了规范传递是羞耻感促进社会凝聚力的可靠途径。在五项研究和两项补充研究中，我们在美国成年人参与者（= 3726 人）中操纵了某人是否表达了羞耻感、没有特定的情绪还是对其行为表达其他离散的情绪。然后，我们评估了这种情绪表达对参与者规范推断和规范遵从行为的影响。我们发现，羞耻感特别强烈地传达了关于社会规范的信号，人们会调整自己的行为以符合这些规范。我们讨论了这些发现如何挑战关于羞耻感的常见结论，并对羞耻感对社会生活的影响产生了新的认识。
