It's been a while, so let’s talk emotions once more!
But instead of focusing on more basic emotions like anger or fear, which can be pointed at someone else, let’s look at self-conscious emotions.
Such self-conscious emotions arise when we mentally reflect on how a certain event matters our self-image, i.e. how we represent ourselves internally and towards others. The target of the emotion is nobody but you yourself.
Imagine you have an important meeting or test on Monday, but instead of preparing for it, you go out Friday and Saturday and sleep all day Sunday. How do you feel? Guilty?
Then, after trying to prepare everything very last minute on Sunday night, Monday comes, and - who would have thought - you do poorly in the meeting or fail your test. How do you feel now? Still guilty? Or even a bit ashamed, like a total loser, because you did so poorly?
Guilt and shame both are self-conscious emotions, but there are some important differences - they for example lead to very different behaviors to get rid of the negative emotion.
Experiencing guilt pretty much means that a person feels (different levels of) bad about his or her behavior, i.e. about partying instead of preparing. Contrary to shame though, they don’t feel bad about their whole self. You see the bad behavior, but don’t draw the conclusion that you’re also a bad or incapable person. The behavior that causes the guilt may be seen as objectionable, even reprehensible, but "the self” remains relatively intact and unimpaired (to read more about “the self”, read this article).
The good thing is that the guilty feelings that can include stress and regret actually urge us to repair the situation or its consequences. You most certainly felt an urge to at least read through your stuff for the Monday test/meeting on Sunday night - better than nothing! Other reparative actions could include apologizing after hurting a friend, undoing a decision that may cause others harm, or finally telling the truth after lying to your parents for days about breaking that expensive vase.
On the other hand, we have shame. When feeling ashamed, a person's concern is with the whole self - not just a specific behavior. Your self-worth is harmed. The negative behavior of not preparing in time and/or the failure of not passing the test or delivering in a meeting are interpreted as a lasting defect of the self instead of one specific decision going wrong.
A painful examination and negative evaluation of the entire self lead to corresponding feelings of diminished value as a person - you feel small, worthless and powerless. Your self-image is hurt.
Additionally, shame also involves a sense of exposure - you know you are or would be judged by others. Thus, there is an urge to to sink into the floor and disappear if others were present when the bad event happened, or to hide it if they weren’t.
I myself for example often tell my friends about things I feel guilty about (e.g. partying instead of studying 😜) because I feel like that might actually give me an additional push to start preparing - or they alleviate my guilt by telling me it's okay.
Shame is different, though. You don’t easily tell everyone that you failed a test, didn’t get the promotion you hoped for, did something bad to another friend or lied about being ill when you just didn’t want to visit your parents.
Of course, one action can spark both guilt and shame - in different ways for different people. But depending on what you personally experience, your actions may differ. Numerous empirical studies have indicated that shame is typically a more painful experience than guilt, and the outcomes after shame are also associated with less effective reparative actions than for solely guilted individuals.
Psychological theory as well as some observations and empirical research suggest that shamed individuals have at least two clear routes, one passive and one more active one, for managing their feelings of shame.
One option is interpersonal withdrawal: withdrawing from the situation, hiding (from) it, deflecting from it or oneself in that moment. If you deal with shame this way, you wouldn't tell your friends about failing the test, you wouldn’t look your colleague in the eyes after the gone-wrong meeting, you would try to avoid people who know about the failure and hide it from those who weren’t there.
But there may be another way to react. I mean, come on, why would they schedule such an important meeting or test on a Monday? Seriously?! Don’t they know that people have a life? What the f***?!!
As you can see, the other way to deal with a shame-eliciting event is to repair your hurt self-image by taking away the blame from yourself to others - e.g. by getting angry with people remotely responsible for it. you try to turn the tables and externalize blame onto others, to keep your self-esteem from being harmed too much.
None of these coping mechanisms —active aggression or passive withdrawal—is probably very productive. None of them will solve the issue, repair a damaged relationship, or even make you more prone to study earlier next time.
Guilt may play out differently. Compared to less guilt-prone people, individuals who commonly feel a lot of guilt appear more likely to engage in constructive behaviors. One example we already discussed was to at least try to study Sunday night. Without that, the meeting may have gone even worse.
Other corrective actions may include trying to talk it out when the guilt comes from hurting a friend, apologizing for a mean word, visiting your parents even after you told them you weren’t coming, or finally confessing to the truth.
Guilt may also cause other actions that have not much to do with the guilt-eliciting event, but are engaged in to somewhat “balance the scales”. Once I failed my Monday exam, guilt-prone me will at least participate in the lecture and tutorials the following week that I would have otherwise skipped - even if it's for a different class. It doesn't really help with the situation, but makes me feel a bit less guilty about not putting in much work on the weekend.
Feeling ashamed, on the other hand, may make me skip classes altogether because I’m too ashamed to see anyone, or I don't feel worthy enough of even being a student at my University. Same with the work scenario - while guilt may make me put in extra effort and be very helpful and attentive in the next meeting, shame may make me wonder if I am even good enough to be a part of this team, or at least hold back and not confident enough to speak up at all in the next meeting.
Or I “realize” that it wasn’t my fault because my team didn't back me up on Monday, and could’ve helped me way more than they did - so I get angry at them.
When you notice yourself becoming angry at someone after you did something wrong, or that you are too scared suddenly to engage in normal behaviors - think about whether that’s just an outcome of feeling shame.
And then smile, because it’s normal to feel ashamed sometimes, but it's usually not necessary. Try to make up for it, apologize, do better next time - but don't let it affect your self-worth. One bad action doesn’t make YOU a bad person, a few failures don’t make YOU a failure, and even being responsible for a disastrous situation doesn’t mean that YOU are a disaster.
If you want to read more about shame - I can recommend reading some books by Brene Brown :-)
Until then, I hope this is a first step towards identifying and understanding your feelings better, and maybe even dealing with some negative side-effects.
Stay curious about yourself!
Valli
Sources:
Burmeister, A., Fasbender, U., & Gerpott, F. H. (2019). Consequences of knowledge hiding: The differential compensatory effects of guilt and shame. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 92(2), 281-304.
Slepian, M. L., Kirby, J. N., & Kalokerinos, E. K. (2020). Shame, guilt, and secrets on the mind. Emotion, 20(2), 323-328. Tangney, J.; Wagner, P.; Hill-Barlow, D.; Marschall, D.; Gramzow, R. (1996). Relation of Shame and Guilt to Constructive Versus Destructive Responses to Anger Across the Lifespan. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 70(4), 797-809.