Thomas J. Scheff

• University of California, Santa Barbara

Great is truth, but still greater…is silence about truth. …simply not mentioning certain subjects… influences opinion much more effectively than …the most eloquent denunciations. (Aldous Huxley). This essay proposes that, like all other mammals, all human groups are built around shame. In the typical idea of shame in modern societies, it is seen as...

This article proposes emotion models of three disorders built upon the sequencing of shame (depression) or anger and shame (aggression and bipolarity). The models are based largely upon a systematic study by Helen Block Lewis of 150 psychotherapy sessions word by word. First described is her use of the Gottschalk method that systematically located...

This article suggests a way of defining emotion on the basis of the work of John Dewey and Nina Bull. Oddly, emotions go undefined in most current emotion research, creating chaos. Unlike Dewey, Bull provided a useful example of the application of her definition to a particular emotion: grief. This step enables the reader to understand her theory,...

This note proposes that social/behavioral studies and the humanities develop a closer relationship. Perhaps system and intuition are equally needed if our knowledge of the human world is to advance, as Pascal suggested 300 years ago. Because modern psychology is particularly dominated by a rigid adherence to system, in my view it has come to a virt...

Specialization is the way to start a discipline, but it must not become a religion. When rigid, it is an impediment to advancing knowledge: the more rigidly specialized, the less relevant to advancing knowledge. Currently this rigidity seems to be the key problem in social and behavioral studies and in the humanities as well. For example, it seems...

The psychiatrist James Gilligan (1997) contended that shame is a key but completely hidden cause of violence, based on his long experience as a prison psychiatrist. He made it a practice of questioning those prisoners who had committed murder. When he asked them why they killed, their answers were often very similar: "He dissed (disrespected) me. W...

This note links three hitherto separate subjects: role-taking, meditation, and theories of emotion, in order to conceptualize the makeup of the self. The idea of role-taking plays a central part in sociological theories of the self. Meditation implies the same process in terms of a deep self able to witness itself. Drama theories also depend upon a...

This essay proposes that shame may be one of the keys to understanding our civilization: shame or its anticipation is virtually ubiquitous, yet, at the same time, usually invisible. Since the vernacular term for shame is wildly ambiguous, a tentative definition is proposed. C.H. Cooley’s idea of the looking-glass self implies that shame and pride c...

This essay proposes that Goffman's basic method was the intuitive recognition of generic examples of social interaction. This focus on examples, when considered from the point of view of two of Cooley's general propositions, helps explain the meaning of Goffman's metaphor of theatrical performance, and his insistence on the risk of shame in all int...

This essay proposes a group of six basic emotions defined as concepts for scholarly use. Such a step seems to be needed because of the present chaos of emotion terminology. The public and most scientific studies use vernacular terms, even though they are extremely ambiguous and misleading. Both the public and scholars also seem to be caught up in a...

This essay outlines some modifications of labeling theory in the light of emotions, especially shame. To clarify the social meaning of pride and shame, I have included my version of the theory of catharsis of emotions. The main focus considers the pride-shame axis as a key part of a major social system. Theoretical work by C. H. Cooley and Erving G...

This article examines the diagnosis of mental illness as part of a process that can be more clearly understood if envisioned as part of a larger system that goes on in most social encounters. These encounters can go in three directions: Labeling, Enabling, and Normalization. Labeling is equivalent to stigmatization, the awarding of a shameful statu...

Most disciplines and subdisciplines consider their particular specialization to be valuable in itself and superior to other disciplines. But compared with the huge leaps in the physical sciences, the social/behavioral sciences and humanities have made little progress. Since many of the physical science advances were the result of the merging of dis...

One reason that theories of mental illness have made little progress may be their focus on individuals, omitting the social/relational and emotional world. Adding these components will be difficult, however: in modern societies they have become virtually invisible, particularly the emotion of shame. The theory outlined here is based on the work of...

This essay outlines a cybernetic theory of violence, supporting and extending earlier studies, particularly Gilligan and Websdale. It spells out recursive, interactive processes of alienation and emotion. The theory proposes that most violence is caused by the interaction between alienation and what Gilligan called secret shame, shame about shame....

This essay is a response to Jasper's essay "Climbing the Scheff Ladder."

This essay is a response to Jasper’s essay “Climbing the Scheff Ladder.”

This essay begins with an outline of the part-whole method, a way of relating particular instances to general concepts or propositions. This method is illustrated by seven propositions extracted from Cooley’s work that seem to be illustrated by concrete examples from Goffman’s writing. This method weds qualitative study with theory in a preliminary...

This article describes two basic aspects of the social-emotional world: degree of connectedness (solidarity/alienation) and six specific emotions. This field needs to be clarified, because of the use of vernacular words rather than clearly defined concepts. Two sets of definitions are proposed. The first involves conceptual and operational definiti...

In modern societies we often make judgements of certain kinds of behaviour that are virtually automatic: delusions show that one is crazy, wrong answers show that one is ignorant, and so on. The theory of labelling/normalization suggests caution in making these judgements because of the effect they are likely to have on the social relationship, fee...

We often make judgments of certain kinds of behavior that are virtually automatic: delusions show that one is crazy, wrong answers show that one is ignorant, and so on. The theory of labeling/normalization suggests caution in making these judgments because of the effect they are likely to have on social relationships, such as feelings of rejection...

Reviews the book, Familicidal hearts: The emotional styles of 211 killers by Neil Websdale (see record 2010-02071-000). Familicidal Hearts: The Emotional Styles of 211 Killers is an important book for anyone interested in the roots of violence, and not just violence in the family. For one thing, it represents the largest and most systematic of t...

Emotions are little favored in current explanations of the causes of war. If they are referred to at all, it is only indirectly and casually. Frequently used concepts such as prestige, honor, and morale are directly linked to emotions, but this link is seldom investigated. Even if emotions are mentioned directly, they are unlikely to be indexed or...

This article outlines a theory of depression and the rudiments of a treatment plan. It builds upon my earlier study of interviews in a mental hospital and the work of the psychologist Helen Block Lewis. Theory: Recursive shame-based spirals may be the basic mechanism of both clinical depression and extreme violence. Shame–fear, shame–shame, and sha...

This paper seeks to define alienation and solidarity as concepts that have a single, clear and researchable meaning. For this purpose, a recursive (I know that you know…) model of levels of awareness can be applied to both individuals and groups. Solidarity in the moment is defined as an agreement or disagreement mutually shared by two parties, and...

Reviews the book, Dignity for all: How to create a world without rankism by Robert W. Fuller and Pamela A. Gerloff (see record 2008-08046-000 ). The reviewer believes that Fuller has made a powerful contribution to our understanding of some of the enigmas of our time, one that has the potential to help us surmount them. His assessment of the proble...

Clear definitions of alienation and solidarity are needed as a step toward an explicit theory of social integration. The idea of alienation has played a key role in the development of sociology, but it's meaning has never been clear. Both theories and empirical studies confound relational-dispositional, cognitive-emotional and/or interpersonal-soci...

This article first discusses the development of concepts then reviews the literature on catharsis. A new theory is proposed to integrate social, psychological, and neurological components. It builds upon a socio-biological model of emotions by John Dewey and G. H. Mead who proposed that the initiation and climax of bodily emotion process are instin...

This account describes the author's strong initial reaction to a local Iraq War Memorial, and subsequent observations of many similar reactions in others who visited it. He analyzes his experiences in terms of social/behavioral science, and their relevance to conflict resolution.

“It can be of no importance to me of what religion my physician or my lawyer is; this consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendship which they owe me.”—Montaigne Not so, says the author of this article: the moral code of a physician or a lawyer has a great deal to do with the professional services which he supplies to his clien...

This article explores the role of emotion and alienation in protracted conflict and makes suggestions as to how they might be managed. First we note the scant attention given to these topics in the mediation and negotiation literature. Then we show how emotional and relational issues are related to theories of economic and political interests, on t...

Current theories of conflict fail to develop an adequate model of the causation of violence. Greed for power is often invoked, but how greed itself develops is seldom considered. Particularly absent are models explaining the vast energy that propels violence and destruction. This essay will consider bases of greed and violence unleashed by alienati...

This article proposes that Goffman's Frame Analysis can be interpreted as a step toward unpacking the idea of context. His analysis implies a recursive model involving frames within frames. The key problem is that neither Goffman nor anyone else has clearly defined what is meant by a frame. I propose that it can be represented by a word, phrase, or...

My thesis is that for most of his career, Erving Goffman was a symbolic interactionist in the Cooley line. The only sustained theoretical structure in Goffman's work before 1974 follows Cooley's conjecture of the looking-glass self. Cooley assumed shared awareness, that we “live in the minds of others.” He also realized that shared awareness is vir...

After a brief review of the origins of this work, a theory of the emotional/relational origins of male violence is outlined, and illustrated by episodes in Hitler’s life. Drawing on earlier work on aggression and violence, I propose that three conditions lead to rage and violence: (1) No affectional attachments. (2) A single overarching obsession....

This article suggests that studies of self-esteem using scales have reached a dead end, and suggest alternative directions. First we show how significance tests have obscured meager results. According to reviews, this huge body of research has yielded no substantial findings. Some sub-fields show consistent, but trivially small, effects; reviews of...

Contemporary research on emotions has been increasingly demarcated into four self-contained segments: the cultural, biological, inner, and outer aspects of emotional processes. A parallel trend is the increasing hegemony of the perspective of those who study only the cultural and outside segments. Research on cultural variation, the causation of em...

In this article, a theory of the emotional/relational origins of male violence is outlined, and illustrated by episodes in Hitler's life. Drawing on earlier work on aggression and violence, it is proposed that three conditions lead to rage and violence: (i) no affectional attachments, (ii) a single overarching obsession, and (iii) the complete repr...

This article proposes that shame is the master emotion of everyday life but is usually invisible in modern societies because of taboo. A review of shame studies suggests a taboo that results in denial and silence. The studies by Cooley, Freud, Elias, Lynd, Goffman, Lewis, and Tomkins have been largely ignored. Their work suggests a vital connection...

This article reviews Cooley's idea of the looking glass self, and Goffman's elaboration. It can be formulated as a conjecture that links two concepts: shared awareness and the social emotions. Cooley named pride and shame as the social emotions, and Goffman added embarrassment and humiliation as shame variants. Word counts comparing Goffman's emoti...

Emotion has long been recognized in sociology as crucially important, but most references to it are generalized and vague. In this essay, I nominate shame, specifically, as the premier social emotion. First I review the individualized treatment of shame in psychoanalysis and psychology, and the absence of social context. Then I consider the contrib...

Although there are many theories of the causes of depression, they all assume that some cases are primarily endogenous; that is, they are largely independent of situational influences. This article proposes that most cases of depression have a social component that is closely tied to the immediate situation. During 5 months in 1965 I observed nearl...

The classic sociologists believed that emotions and the social bond are crucially involved in the structure and change of whole societies. The authors reviewed here suggest that shame is the premier social emotion. Lynd’s work particularly suggests how acknowledgment of shame can strengthen bonds and by implication lack of acknowledgment can create...

Emotion has long been recognized in sociology as crucially important, but most references to it are generalized and vague. In this essay, I nominate shame, specifically, as the premier social emotion. First I review the individualized treatment of shame in psychoanalysis and psychology, and the absence of social context. Then I consider the contrib...

Here I suggest that Virginia Woolf was a great artist who has provided descriptions of concrete sequences of events in consciousness and perhaps insights into its nature. Of course, we can never be completely sure of the accuracy of her descriptions. But they at least offer instances with which theories of consciousness can be grounded, and inspira...

There is a tradition in this association that the president's address should review the past, or set trends for the future. I will try to do both, first reviewing the main themes in sociological research, then sketching my own vision of sociology and the human sciences. I offer these thoughts with the hope of enlisting your cooperation toward the b...

In this article, I describe the morphological method as a new stage of inquiry, between the first stage, qualitative methods, and the third, quantitative methods. The proposed second stage involves microscopic examination of single instances, and, if more than one instance is available, comparisons with each other. This method is particularly usefu...

Suppose that in your next conversation with a stranger, instead of looking at his eyes or mouth, you scrutinize his ear. Although the deviation from ordinary behavior is slight (involving only a shifting of the direction of gaze a few degrees, from the eyes to an ear), its effects are explosive. The conversation is disrupted almost instantaneously....

With many years of experience and refinement, the arts of self-defense against physical assault are highly developed. Without an effective theory and and a useful practice, there is little in the way of self-defense against verbal assault. For THEORY, I draw upon ideas from aikido, family systems theory, and the sociology of emotions. Since unackno...

Thomas Scheff argues that the roots of protracted conflict lie in unacknowledged feelings of shame and rage. Scheff builds from the assumption that the social bond is a real and palpable phenomenon and that in every type of human contact the bond is either built, maintained, repaired, or damaged. He then demonstrates how damaged bonds are the bas...

This essay describes a new approach to single-case analysis, the morphological study of verbatim texts. Such studies are designed to open up facets of human behaviour to systematic investigation, especially emotions and social relationships, that have been ignored in scientific studies up to this point. Examples of the relevant single-cases studies...

Moving beyond the traditional boundaries of sociological investigation, Thomas J. Scheff brings together the study of communication and the social psychology of emotions to explore the microworld of thoughts, feelings, and moods. Drawing on strikingly diverse and rich sources—the findings of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and exam...

In order to explore the relation between love and war, I apply a theory showing the affinity between romance, shame, and anger in a classic text. Shakespeare's plays present an exceedingly grim portrait of the relationship between men and women. Even his lighthearted treatment of this theme in "Much Ado about Nothing" suggests that love between a m...

This text examines the causes of violence and destructive conflict through an exploration of human interaction in situations ranging from a psychotherapy session and marital quarrels to television game shows.