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Shame as the master emotion of everyday life
Abstract
This article outlines a social psychology of the basic emotions in social relationships. In our theory, shame and pride are the emotional building blocks of interpersonal relations. But because there is so little empirical evidence about pride, we focus mainly on shame. First we review Mead, Cooley and Goffman's concepts of the self, showing how they imply the centrality of shame and pride. We define shame as a class name for a large family of emotions which includes not only embarrassment and humiliation, but also " discretionary" shame, such as modesty, shyness, and conscience. The common thread in these variants is seeing self negatively in the eyes of the other(s), and therefore perceiving a threat to the bond. To illustrate this idea, we apply it to a single episode, a phone call between two friends. We present this episode in the form of a dialogue with the reader, to help overcome the counter-intuitive nature of our framework. We ask the reader to employ not only analysis, but also introspection. Finally, we propose that shame is the central affect in social relationships, a way of making them visible. © 2000, Thomas J. Scheff, Suzanne M. Retzinger, and Journal of Mundane Behavior. All rights reserved.
- ... They are sceptical of the egalitarian ethic and the shaming practices that use ridicule to discourage use of the language of the out-group, preferring instead to dismiss this as 'an excuse for not actually moving ahead' (Elaine: 244-249). Their inclination to Western individualism makes it difficult for them to understand that 'in a traditional society, there is NOTHING more important than one's relationships' (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000: emphasis in the original). ...You don’t want to be seen as you are trying to differentiate yourself from everyone else by the fact that you speak a different language. But things are changing you know, I speak openly to my kids in English in public. I have a message to deliver to everyone else … but I know, behind my back I know the kind of things people are talking about, you know, I’m trying to be different, I’m trying to be a European, I’m trying to be a white. You know, which in an egalitarian context like Kiribati, those are insults. … One of the most important things in Kiribati life is the avoidance of being shamed … And one of the things that brings shame to you is when you try to be different from the rest. And I think that’s what people are running away from and it’s a pity that it’s affecting the way they speak English and their confidence in speaking in English. (Wanga: A local, Director of a tertiary education institute in Tarawa) The experiences of Wanga, a Kiribati local, of social denigration and ridicule because of his attempts to use English sit uneasily with assumptions that English is a universally desirable commodity (Motha & Lin, 2014) in the context of global mobility and interconnectedness in a supposedly borderless world (Ohmae, 1995; Paasi, 2009). The desirability of English underpins much of the pedagogical orientation of English language teaching (ELT). Resistance to learning and use of the language in order to avoid shaming that follows violation of local community precepts, as is the case in Kiribati, is not just a challenge to ELT practitioners to negotiate more locally amenable pedagogies. It alerts the field more generally to the importance of ongoing interrogation of assumptions about language competence, motivation, and pedagogical practice, and to pursue understanding of the salience of symbolic and social boundaries in English language teaching and learning. In contexts
- ... The impact of poverty on children, young people and families Researchers Hardgrove, Enenajor, and Lee (2011) have found that poverty makes CYP more susceptible to feelings of anxiety about their social acceptance and being stigmatised because of not being able to access normal social activities. Thus, shame and humiliation associated with experiencing poverty may be just as detrimental to CYP's well-being as lack of financial resource (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). ...Poverty can have a detrimental impact on the emotional well-being, educational attainment and future life chances of children and young people (CYP). It is known that poverty can also create several barriers to CYP and families accessing services. Furthermore, structural factors such as spending cuts on public services mean that professionals working with people affected by poverty have to ‘do more with less’. Practitioners could fail to acknowledge the impact of poverty if they have little cultural experience of poverty through their professional discourses and training. This could create a social distance between service-users and practitioners, as well as a misalignment of priorities, which could lead to inappropriate interventions being offered and opportunities missed to tackle the impact of poverty. This study gathered the views of 10 Art Therapists working in areas of multiple deprivation as determined by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) in West Central Scotland. The aim was to examine practitioner’s perspectives on poverty and what they notice about its exploration by CYP in art therapy sessions. The study also considered if art therapists working in areas of multiple deprivation adapted their practice to create a contextualised and flexible service that would address the practical as well as the emotional impact of poverty. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Whilst most participants showed an awareness of the difficulties faced by CYP affected by poverty, there was evidence that there were numerous cultural barriers meaning the indicators of poverty could be missed by some practitioners. Despite this, participants were clear on the various ways poverty is explored in sessions by CYP. Some art therapists adapted their practice on occasions to address the practical impact of poverty. However, several art therapists faced structural barriers to being able to tackle poverty. Therefore, the data suggests that cultural and structural barriers made it difficult for practitioners working in areas of multiple deprivation to consistently adapt their practice to create a contextualised and flexible service that fully addresses the emotional and the practical impact of poverty.
- ... Thus, shame is another prevalent emotion portrayed in two directions: on the one hand, it guides the pride of the "new" Spanish man and woman who have overcome the feeling of inferiority inherited from the past; at the same time, it serves as a warning -in connection to fear-for those who dare to disagree or disobey. In both cases, shame proves to act as a powerful emotion which can control people's actions (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). ...From the Eskimos of the past…who were very intelligent, who had good perception, who had good memory; this has been going on for a long time among the Eskimo, from our ancestors. And today, they are like our books, those kinds of people. The ones very intelligent, the ones with good memories, the ones who are very perceptive, because they are like books to the Eskimos; you can hunt whales, you can hunt today because of this. (Attungana, 1986, 18-20) This quote from an Inuit living in northern Canada raises these questions: What is a text? Whose text? Whose knowledge? We begin with this because we are going to ask you to step back and examine some of our taken-for-granted beliefs about texts, about who they serve, about how they help young people to learn, about what is learned indirectly from them. The theme of this year's conference - caught in the web or lost in the textbook - suggests an either-or dichotomy, with a hint that there may be no way out. Most of us in the Western world feel inextricably caught in the web, while many in the still developing countries (the majority world) are lost and confused by the textbook, if they have one at all. In this presentation we hope to throw some light on the latter situation in particular, focusing on why certain problems persist and what some ways out might be. In doing so, our remarks will be developed from the contributions to our book, Missing the Meaning, as well as from other sources. Textbooks and other materials are undeniably important for learners as well as for teachers, but a word of caution is needed if we are to look to them for too many solutions to educational problems. For instance, we often hear, 'if only' there were better resources (textbooks, writing materials) especially in developing country classrooms, then the quality of instruction would improve, more young people would stay in school, the aims of Education for All (Dakar 2000) would be realized, and literacy rates would approach 100% worldwide. The hypothetical equation looks something like this: Education (with plentiful text materials) ⇒ development ⇒ progress ⇒ equality of educational opportunity ⇒ peace ⇒ a kind of salvation. So the equation comes down to the belief (or is it a myth?), that if there were more and better textbooks, all sorts of problems would go away. To digress a bit further, this sounds like the 'literacy myth' as described by Harvey Graff (1979), David Olson (1990), Brian Street (2001) and others: If everyone were literate, crime rates would fall, poverty would cease to exist, men and women would be empowered, and the world's problems would go away. If only it were so.
- ... Not judged on what we have done but for who we are (Manderson 1997). Rejection by our social peers is a profound threat to our social belonging (Scheff & Retzinger 2000). Given shame's implications for social wellbeing, it is an effective tool for oppression. ...The struggle to change negative responses to asylum seekers is becoming more difficult due to global economic insecurity and increasing numbers of people seeking asylum. Effective and persuasive advocacy and activism to shift these opinions and create better outcomes for asylum seekers is critical. As for all social movements, how advocates engage the wider public, particularly those opposed to asylum seeking, is key to gaining support for this project. In this paper, I use discourse analysis as a method for both identifying current activist discourses and rhetorical strategies, and how these shape the responses of the opposition. Using letters to the editor, online comments and media articles from a 2010/2011 Australian debate over the relocation of asylum seekers to a small South Australian town, I explore a particular strategy for change used in asylum seeker advocacy: eliciting shame. I identify two ways that shaming is ‘done’ – through expressions of contempt and disgust, and through a comparison of privilege and oppression. However, the analysis of the responses to this shaming demonstrates that, rather than provoking the hoped-for change, shaming actually elicits its opposite: flight or fight responses of denial, avoidance and escalating conflict.
- ... When it is not repaired, it produces feelings of isolation and of being unloved. According to Scheff and Retzinger (2000), since all interactions result in emotions of pride or shame, as master emotions, these feelings gives us fundamental information about the quality of our social bonds. Basing their arguments on Lewis (1971), they claim that we experience shame when we understand that we have done something wrong and when the acts are linked to an unchangeable and powerless part of the person, " a bad self. ...
- ... For example, Scheff and Retzinger [12] describe shame makers as rhetorical identifiers to assist 'marking' the hidden emotion of shame in the text (See Figure 1). Scheff and Retzinger [16] used a 'hand crafted' method to identify shame in order to deduct positive or negative sentiment. Affect can be detected 'by hand' or by a fully automated process. ...This paper presents a way to understand the relationship between emotive words or phrases in terrorist/extremist propaganda. The term "relationship" in this paper is defined as the degree of contact that emotional markers have in text. An ontology is used to identify emotional content before being analyzed in text networking software, specifically Automap and ORA (Organizational Risk Analyzer). Automap and ORA developed by CASOS(Computation Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems) involves computational modeling of socio-technical systems, link analysis, and network analysis. In semantic networks, closeness is a measure to understand where individual emotional nodes lie between other nodes in the network. Understanding closeness between emotive words or phrases reveals how propagandists construct their form of propaganda.
- ... Working together they may ensure sufficient, but not over-stimulation and arousal. Shame also works in a similar fashion (Scheff & Retzinger 2001). If we are over stimulated -angry, hurt or over excited, especially if our reaction to these is such as to cause a reaction in others that puts our connections with them at risk, shame is stimulated -and works rapidly, to lower the level of arousal. ...Both academic and vernacular understanding of emotions identifies some as 'positive' and others 'negative'. Seen in this frame, Love and Shame are very different. A consequence of this in working with people seeking to change dysfunctional and especially violent behaviour is a series of unavoidable judgements, preferences and attempts to avoid or 'get rid of' feelings that are fundamental to human nature. Abstract This paper starts from a position that all emotions need to be seen first in terms of their natural, functional, health and well-being promoting functions. It suggests an empirical framework for locating emotions within a broader 'taxonomy' based on ways that people see these emotions – as much in terms of the body language through which the underlying feeling is recognised as how we conceptualise these – and the body of theory that supports this view. It explores the normal and normalising functions of these primary emotions to reveal some surprising and counter-intuitive connections such as those between excitement and fear, and between joy and shame with the latter 'so close to joy it isn't funny!'. From this base it is possible to explore the links between shame (a primary emotion) and love (an evaluation of complex emotional responses to three inter-subjective emotional processes: attachment, attunement and attraction). The paper concludes that love and shame are intimately and intricately linked, and that authenticity in the expression of either is impossible without the other.
- ... Going beyond one's improved cognitive capacity to merely rationalize or psychologise emotions, this involves a deepened embodied awareness of them, both at the time they are occurring and in the reflective re-experiencing of them alone and with others. Furthermore, such a deepened emotional epistemology is associated with an emotional openness to feel what is beneath surface emotions -such as anger -and to embrace and integrate even more challenging emotions such as grief, guilt, fear and shame (Scheff & Retzinger 2000), which when ignored or denied, can cause dysfunction in individuals, relationships and entire organizations. In conserving the energy used to deny and suppress emotional experiences that are inherent in leading teaching and learning, greater energy, confidence and curiosity for creative collaboration can emerge. ...The connections among relational trust, learning and development are implicit in transformational leadership theory. They have also been established empirically in recent studies. Leadership preparation programs often endorse the need for leaders to build effective collaborative relationships that rely on trust. Trust is an emotional phenomenon. However, when consideration of emotions – the cooked and the raw -remains prohibited in professional discourse this can limit the development of trust and directly influence the likelihood of leader success in building collaborative school cultures. For these reasons there is a need to address the emotions of leadership as part of a comprehensive approach to preparing leaders for the challenges in today's schools. In this study, it was of interest to learn if an emotional epistemologies theoretical framework could be helpful to engage aspirant leaders in re-examining emotion's role in their practice. In the context of a Masters in Educational Leadership program, aspiring and practising leaders were invited to read and respond to a written report on an emotional epistemologies theoretical framework. They were also supported in their learning by a variety of classroom activities. Reported on here is an analysis of written responses to the paper, which illustrate the students' engagement with its ideas and their struggles with the tensions among competing perceptions of emotion's place in leadership. 1 Some of the material on the original emotional epistemologies theoretical framework has been previously presented in other places: (Beatty, 2002a, 2002b). A later version of this paper will appear in the Journal of School Leadership and Management, Volume 24, Number 3. The authors can be contacted at the following addresses: brenda.beatty@education.
- ... The quickest way to manage shame is to discuss it with a confidant or someone whom the person trusts. Scheff (2000) has stated that individuals who are in a shame discussion -can help each other learn to identify and acknowledge shame in the self and other, ...
- ... Lewis, 2003;Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007), shame regulates or influences social and interpersonal relationships (Herman, 2007) and regulates social ranking as a submission or appeasement response (Gilbert, 2000;Herman, 2007;Kim et al., 2011) to socially threatening environments (Gilbert, Allan, & Goss, 1996;Irons & Gilbert, 2005). Herman, following in the tradition of others such as Scheff and Retzinger (Retzinger, 1995;Scheff & Retzinger, 2000), further argues that it is a master affect that "generalizes to become an emotion that serves to regulate peer relationships, social hierarchy, and all basic forms of social life" (Herman, 2007, p. 8). ...There is currently no consensus over how best to approach work with gender-nonconforming children and their families. We turn to attachment theory to develop a framework for assessing the impact of two different approaches, suggesting that new understandings of links between shame, shame proneness, depression, and identity might provide key questions to consider in developing services for these children. We outline arguments from both sides of the debate, highlighting the work of 2 leading clinicians. We suggest that supportive approaches are more consistent with an attachment-based framework while approaches aimed at correcting gender-nonconforming behavior risk increasing attachment dysfunction.
- ... Daarnaast weerspiegelt schaamte de bedreiging van de relationele band met de ander. Volgens Scheff (2000) zorgt schaamte voor de regulatie van andere emoties, zoals angst, agressie en liefde. De mate van schaamte over het uiten van deze gevoelens, bepaalt in hoeverre men deze gevoelens vervolgens kan uiten. ...
- ... It has been described as the 'ringmaster' emotion -calling the other affects in and out of play according to the appropriateness of their expression in social situations. 8 Critically, it is the emotion that signals a need to pay attention to the way we are seen by, and the health of our social bonds or connections to significant others in our lives. It is pre-eminently the social emotion. ...This paper outlines the theoretical underpinnings of restorative justice in the social psychology of shame-and shame-avoidance-that are largely ignored in the training provided to conference convenors. It indicates how this shame-avoidance contributes to much of the offending behaviour that brings people into contact with the justice system and how its continuing avoidance in the context of restorative practices leaves them trapped within the prevailing guilt culture. It shows how the pattern of avoidance includes masking shame with other emotions notably: fear anger disgust and distress and indicates how these interfere with the otherwise healthy functioning of shame. It explores how guilt co-assembles and masks shame with fear and how the problem of using " sorry' as an expression of remorse and apology masks shame with distress and can, in some situations lead to expressions of anger. It highlights some of these problems creates with examples of the 2007 Australian National 'Sorry-day' apology and a selection of restorative conference initiatives. It concludes by indicating the scope for restorative processes as the starting point for more transformative justice system-but with a long way to go. Working with emotions in restorative justice Much of the world is stuck with a system of justice that is failing. If we needed any evidence that retributive punishment for offending doesn't act as deterrent to further offending then consider how 50% of people incarcerated in prisons will return there within 12 months of their release. Retributive justice is part of an infantile guilt culture that has outlived its time but hanging on because restorative alternatives either lack acceptance or, unfortunately, fail to live up to the potential because they fail to incorporate an understanding of the underpinning theory and practice for working with emotions-particularly that of shame that is pivotal to the process. Restorative justice is predicated on processes that focus on healing. 1 Healing the hurt caused to those affected, who we call the victims, by actions of another or others, who we call the offender(s). These restorative processes can take many forms. Examples include: the South African 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' attempting to heal effects of years of apartheid; through Native American community 'Sentencing Circles'; to our own Australian 'Youth Justice Conferencing' that was informed by the New Zealand 'Family Group Conferencing' model. What appears to underpin all of these processes is a focus on understanding: what happened; who was hurt and how they were hurt; and what can be done, particularly by offenders, to repair the hurt. Also, sometimes explicit, more often implicit is the aim of helping the offender to move on, tackle deficits that contributed to the offending and prevent further offending. This last, and the effects of the process on those who participate and the impact on the wider community zeitgeist can contribute to a wider transformative justice agenda. Could but often fail to do so!
- ... At a close interpersonal level, shame is considered a signal of risk to the social bond*a sign that the other might be disapproving of one's actions or self, and that this might culminate in rejection (Scheff & Retzinger, 2001). In a study linking partner emotional support, negative 210 interaction and trauma, Cox, Buhr, Owen, and Davidson (2015) found that emotional support was linked to reduced distress, while negative interaction was strongly linked to increased distress. ...Background: While fear is known to be the dominant affect associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the presence and possible influence of other emotions is less well explored. Recent changes to diagnostic criteria have added anger, guilt and shame alongside fear as significant emotional states associated with the disorder. This article suggests that shame is a frequent, often poorly recognised sequel to trauma, occurring as a result of the meaning the individual places on the traumatic experience and on subsequent interpersonal and environmental events. Methods: The article reviews the literature on the socio-interpersonal aspects of the posttraumatic experience with particular emphasis on the emotion of shame as both primary and secondary emotion, in its intrapersonal and interpersonal contexts, and in adaptive and maladaptive forms. Results: The review suggests that posttrauma shame, and maladaptive shame regulation strategies, often manifesting as anger, substance abuse, social withdrawal or depression, may play an important role in the maintenance or exacerbation of the symptoms of PTSD and the development of co-morbidities. Conclusion: The recognition of shame and maladaptive shame regulation strategies in PTSD treatment and management is critical. However, because shame is frequently considered a painful and discomforting emotion, it may fail to be addressed in the therapeutic setting by both client and therapist. Examination of potential shame-related changes in self-concept, close interpersonal relationships and social inclusion are recommended for individuals who have experienced a range of traumas to identify and address any underlying unacknowledged shame.
- ... Th e contestant displays fear by looking down, she is afraid of being shamed in front of the audience. She is afraid of being rejected as a volunteer and rejection by others is a threat to our social belonging (Scheff and Retzinger, 2000). While the contestant avoids being shamed, the ironic play with her cultural ignorance serves to shame those who might share her ignorance. ...This article studies the Norwegian Students and Academics’ International Assistance Fund’s (SAIH) hoax advocacy campaign, Radi-Aid. The paper distinguishes between advocacy campaigns that are designed as fund- raising and awareness campaigns targeted at changing political attitudes towards humanitarianism. The article argues that Radi-Aid is a mediatized activist awareness campaign that negotiates participatory development ethics. The focus is thus on Radi-Aid’s engagement in an ethics that explores the functionality of celebrities and lifestyle posthumanitarianism and the participation of local communities. While posthumanitarianism might simply be dismissed, for instance, through notions of low engagement participation such as clicktivism and life-style activism, the article argues that Radi-Aid is itself a form of posthumanitarianism. This posthumanitarian- ism is crucial because it works as a form of détournement that simultaneously shames participants and makes existent humanitarian communities present to one another and turns them into political collectives. As such, Radi-Aid can be interpreted as a reconfiguration of posthumanitarianism that offers the shamed a remedy by means of the participatory development ethics.
- ... Thus, an individual who experiences shame will have difficulties in acknowledging emotional reactions such as shame. Shame is considered by Scheff and Retzinger (2000) to be a family of emotions with common aspects, ranging from mild embarrassment, and social discomfort ("ordinary shame") to intense and penetrating shame. Although ordinary shame experiences are highly unpleasant, they are usually a brief experience in everyday life (Retzinger 2002). ...Although previous studies have considered shame to be a significant emotion in making sense of self-injury, the connection is still not fully understood. Drawing on sociological ideas on shame, this communication contributes to a theoretical understanding of actions of self-injury by demonstrating how shame operates and unfolds in social interaction. It argues for how shame and self-injury may reproduce and amplify each other, hence turning into a self-perpetuating cycle of shame and self-injury. It shows how shame is triggered in social interaction, how shame leads to self-injury, and how self-injury may turn into more shame. Self-injury is used to fend off shame by upholding social and cultural commitments and maintaining social bonds with others. However, self-injury may also threaten social order and social bonds and, consequently, trigger more shame. The most important reason that self-injury does not fully work as emotion work, and internalized social control, lies in the interactive cycle of shame, that is, you feel shame and cut, you cut again and are (a)shamed, you are shamed and cut, and so on. It is proposed that people who self-injure do not necessarily lack the ability to self-soothe or regulate emotions or that they suffer from a clinical psychopathology.
- ... Vor allem die Scham ist dabei von zentraler Bedeutung, denn in ihr spiegelt sich stets auch die Perspektive des Sanktionierers und sie bezieht das soziale Selbst des Akteurs in die Bewertung einer Sanktion mit ein (Ketelaar & Au, 2003). Scham weist zudem auf die Gefährdung sozialer Bindungen hin und führt in der Konsequenz zu Angst vor dem Verlust der sozialen Bindungen (Scheff, 1997;Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). ...
- ... Similarly, the suicide of a Target employee has been attributed to being fired and paraded through the store in handcuffs (Business Insider 2015). The theory of unacknowledged shame from the legal literature (Braithwaite 2002) and observations from clinical studies (c.f., Lewis 1971;Scheff 1987;Scheff and Retzinger 2000) also suggest that if shame is not constructively managed, it may manifest in unethical ways. Hence, Fig. 1 shows that shame can also manifest as unethical behaviors directed at other individuals (e.g., rage, aggression, harassment, hostility) and/or the organization/workgroup (e.g., falsehoods, misrepresentation). ...In this article, we review the shame and ethical behavior literature in order to more fully develop theory and testable propositions for organizational scholars focusing on the behavioral implications of this ‘moral’ emotion. We propose a dual pathway multilevel model that incorporates complex relationships between felt and anticipatory shame processes and ethical behavior, both within and between persons and at the collective level. We propose a holistic treatment of shame that includes dispositional and organizational (contextual) influences on the cognitive and emotional forces that shape ethical behavior in organizations. The implications of our review of shame for ethical behavior, organizations, and concrete research action are discussed.
- ... Especially in those cases, where the underlying structural emotion might be shame, the subtle approach is extremely important. Since shame is the emotion that is connected to the evaluation of the self, the coach has to be very sensitive, so that the user is still able to preserve herself (Scheff and Retzinger, 2000;Lewis, 2008). ...The research area of Social Signal Processing paves the way for conversational companions, such as virtual agents or social robots, to become aware of nuances in our behaviours and implicit messages that come along with them. For machines to understand and interpret such behavioural cues, the state-of-the-art procedure is the application of various machine learning techniques. In many ML tasks, statistical models are trained on a large amount of annotated samples and an algorithm aims to match patterns that represent specific classes or values. ML tehniques, such as artificial neural networks, nowadays do pretty well in mapping and even identifying low level features to a specific recognition problem. A large drawback here is that the decisions they are making are not comprehensible and understandable to humans and that their assumptions are often wrong in changing contexts. Therefore a new research direction -"eXplainable Artificial Intelligence" (XAI)- identified the need of AI systems to be able to explain their decisions. In this thesis we investigate strategies to make the recognition and interpretation of complex social signals more transparent and explore ways to empower the human in the machine learning loop. To gain a better understanding of how humans interpret social cues, we first introduce an overview on results of behavioural psychology. We then describe the creation of various multi-person and muli-modal corpora in varying contexts that aim to induce multiple aspects of such behaviours. Next, we briefly introduce common techniques used in the area of social signal processing and machine learning. To successfully annotate and manage large continuous databases, a novel tool, named NOVA is presented. It allows to distribute the annotation task on multiple labellers and supports various types of annotations. NOVA further allows to take advantage of ML techniques already during the annotation process (a concept named cooperative machine learning). By employing CML, data is annotated simultaneously with the machine, which speeds up the annotation process and gives a more transparent idea of a machine's decisions. For inferring more complex behaviours, such as a person's conversational engagement or emotion regulation strategies, an approach is introduced that considers the predictions of multiple social cue recognisers and various types of context information. Finally, an outlook on future research directions is given.
- ... Social stigma is incorporated by its victims through shame. This emotion is central to the design of societies (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). It is stimulated by incorporated guilt when, in schools, on the streets, in conviviality, one feels contempt from others. ...Criminal proceedings are socially unequal. But are they discriminatory? The impunity of some corresponds, in fact, to the ruthless condemnation of others, including due to miscarriages of justice or for minor offenses. Sociology, without being able to be definitive as to whether or not there is organized discrimination and how, presents sociographic data of the prison population. A population that is impoverished, young, male, poorly educated. Psychology contributes with likely causes of predisposition to fulfil the role of prisoner: family disruption, school failure, exclusionary cultures. Practitioners on the ground recognize pre-offenders before the age of criminal responsibility. The police demand convictions from an early age, from experience, recognizing in them the new generation of criminals who will soon commit crimes of their own. Will the analytical model most used in social theory, separating the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions, be the most appropriate to explain what the social role of the prisoners might be? What happens to the people living in the negative side of these dimensions? There is a consensus about the influence of the economic situation on the likelihood of someone being incarcerated. But there is no agreement as to how institutional processes with such symbolic and political importance as the criminal courts accept being part of a socially selective process so admittedly unjust: how do these organs of sovereignty offer themselves to fulfil a purpose so patently opposed to their doctrinal aims, and how do they gain political 1 FCT (Financiamento Estratégico: UID/SOC/03126/2013) funded the translation into English. António Pedro Dores 114 Revista Crítica Penal y Poder. 2014, nº 6, marzo (pp. 113-128) OSPDH. Universidad de Barcelona legitimacy by doing so? How is it that they sometimes are used to incarcerate the politically or merely socially inconvenient among us? Given that we are in the presence of a global phenomenon (all states and all powers use sequestration as a form of social control) we ask ourselves whether the typical dimensions used by social theory serve the needs of understanding prisons. Is the social role of prisoners economic, political, cultural, of status? How does this explain the centrality of gender and stigma? How to, in practice, explain the normative inconsistencies and claims of the special dangerousness of young men? Why has torture in the prisons become an internationally recognized fact by the custodial states, to the point of they themselves recognizing their incompetence to abolish such prohibited and disgusting practices? Around the hypothesis that the bulk of prisoners are modern scapegoats unconsciously created by states, according to a traditional formula for appeasing feelings of vindictiveness, we discuss the explanatory relevance of this anthropological hypothesis to the study of prisons.
- ... The crux of understanding emotions is that most, if not all, emotions are regulated internally [25,65]. This is especially the case for emotions, such as shame, that are related to the appraisal of oneself [37,60]. Only a few of the current approaches of emotion models for empathic agents take emotion regulation into account. ...Understanding emotions of others requires a theory of mind ap- proach providing knowledge of internal appraisal and regulation processes of emotions. Multi-modal social signal classification is insufficient for understanding emotional expressions. Mainly, be- cause many communicative, emotional expressions are not directly related to internal emotional states. Moreover, the recognition of the expression’s direction is neglected so far. Even if social signals reveal emotional aspects, the recognition with signal classifiers can- not explain internal appraisal or regulation processes. Using that information is one approach for building cognitive empathic agents with the ability to address observations and motives in an empathic dialogue. In this paper, we introduce a computational model of user emotions for empathic agents. It combines a simulation of appraisal and regulation processes with a social signal interpretation tak- ing directions of expressions into account. Our evaluation shows that social signal sequences can be related to emotion regulation processes. Their recognition and using appraisal and regulation knowledge enables our agent to react empathically.
- ... Empfinden, das in einer negativen Evaluation des Selbst begründet ist, an, dass die soziale Beziehung zu anderen gefährdet ist (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000, S.1). Die Schamempfinden antizipierende Verhaltensweisen, wie etwas das Einhalten sozialer Konventionen oder Schweigen, tragen wesentlich zu gesellschaftlicher Konformität bei (Blumenthal, 2015). ...Diese von der Universität Luxemburg im Auftrag des Ministeriums für Bildung, Kinder und Jugend durchgeführte Studie ist explorativ angelegt. Mit einem Mixed-Methods-Ansatz wurden einerseits internationale Datenerhebungen zu Einstellungen der Gesamtbevölkerung und eine LGBT*-Befragung sekundär für Luxemburg ausgewertet. Zweitens wurde der politische und mediale Diskurs mittels einer qualitativen Dokumentenanalyse untersucht. Den dritten Teil bildet eine Analyse von qualitativen Interviews mit acht Jugendlichen (davon zwei trans* Personen), sowie sieben Expert_innen. Durch die geringe Fallzahl sind die vorgestellten Ergebnisse als Einblick in die Lebenssituationen, jedoch nicht als abschließende Gesamtuntersuchung der Situation von lesbischen, schwulen, bisexuellen und trans* Jugendlichen in Luxemburg einzuordnen.
- ... Sociologists have made valuable contributions to our understanding of the relational and social nature of shame. Scheff and Retzinger (Scheff, 2003;Scheff & Retzinger, 2000), and others (Poulson, 2000), have positioned shame as a master emotion which -could be the glue that holds relationships and societies together, and unacknowledged shame the force that tears them apart‖ (Scheff, 2000, p. 98). Scheff (2000) criticised psychological theories of shame for being individualistic and ignorant of social perspectives. ...The last 40 years has seen shame move from the margin to the mainstream of psychology and psychotherapy research. H. B. Lewis labelled shame the ―sleeper‖ in psychopathology, and her seminal work encouraged many to explore the role of shame in the aetiology and maintenance of various psychological problems and ‗disorders‘ (H. B. Lewis, 1971, 1987b). Despite this, the experience of shame among gay men has received relatively little attention. This is an oversight given that gay men in heterosexist societies like Australia are stigmatised, and stigma is related to shame (Goffman, 1968; M. Lewis, 1998). Qualitative research was conducted with nine gay men living in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, to primarily explore their experiences of shame and embarrassment related to sexuality. The secondary purpose of the study was to explore whether or not psychotherapy had been of assistance in dealing with shame-related issues. Grounded theory methods were employed during data collection and analysis, and seven higher order relational themes emerged which represented processes associated with these men‘s experiences. Research findings are discussed with reference to the corpus of theoretical and research literature on shame, identity development, mental health, and psychological therapies. Relational-cultural theory (Jordan, 2010) provides a useful framework to understand the participants‘ shame and embarrassment experiences, and findings underscore the role of negative attitudes and behaviours of others in these experiences. Many men reported struggling to be themselves in relationships including choosing not to disclose their sexuality for fear of rejection, judgement, and criticism. Adolescent experiences featured strongly in participants‘ accounts. The findings highlight the relational nature of shame and the potential import of relationships in the therapy and amelioration of shame. A relational model of gay men‘s experiences of shame and embarrassment is offered. Strengths and limitations of the current inquiry, opportunities for future research, and implications of findings, are discussed.
- ... Goffman (2004) O estigma social incorpora-se nas suas vítimas através da vergonha. Esta emoção é central no desenho das sociedades (Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). É estimulada pela culpa incorporada quando, nas escolas, nas ruas, nos convívios, se recebe a repugnância dos outros. ...Quem são os presos? Os processos criminais são socialmente desiguais. Mas são discriminatórios? A impunidade de uns corresponde, de facto, à impiedosa condenação de outros, incluindo por erros judiciais ou por delitos menores. A sociologia, sem conseguir ser definitiva a respeito de se há ou não discriminação organizada e como, apresenta dados sociográficos da população prisional. População empobrecida, jovem, masculina, pouco escolarizada. A psicologia contribui com causas prováveis de predisposição para cumprir papel de recluso: a desestruturação familiar, o insucesso escolar, as culturas de exclusão. Os profissionais no terreno reconhecem pré-delinquentes antes da idade de responsabilidade criminal. As polícias pedem condenações desde tenra idade. Por experiência própria, reconhecessem neles a nova geração de criminosos a quem só falta cometer os crimes. O modelo analítico mais usado pelas teorias sociais, separando as dimensões política, económica, social e cultural, será o mais adequado para dar conta de qual é o papel social dos presos? O que acontece às pessoas a viver nas vertentes negativas dessas dimensões? Há um consenso sobre a influência da situação económica na probabilidade de alguém se encontrar preso. Mas não há nenhum acordo sobre como processos institucionais da importância simbólica e política dos tribunais criminais aceitam fazer parte de um processo de selecção social reconhecidamente injusto. Como esses órgãos de soberania se apresentam a cumprir um destino inverso às intenções doutrinárias? E como ganham, ainda assim, legitimidade política por fazê-lo? Como, por vezes, são utilizados para fazer prisioneiros políticos ou, simplesmente, prendem pessoas incómodas? Tendo em atenção estarmos em presença de um fenómeno global, todos os Estados e todos os poderes usam o sequestro como forma de controlo social, pergunta-se se as dimensões típicas usadas pelas teorias sociais servem as necessidades de compreensão das prisões? O papel social dos presos é económico? Político? Cultural? De status? Como isso explica a centralidade do sexo e do estigma? Como explicar as inconsistências normativas e as alegações da periculosidade especial dos homens jovens, na prática? Porque é que a tortura nas prisões se tornou um facto reconhecido internacionalmente pelos Estados que tutelam as prisões, a ponto de reconhecerem mutuamente a sua incompetência para abolir essas práticas proibidas e repugnantes? Em torno da hipótese de o grosso dos presos ser modernos bodes expiatórios criados inconscientemente pelos Estados, segundo uma fórmula tradicional de apaziguamento de sentimentos de vingança, discute-se a pertinência explicativa de esta hipótese antropológica para ser o estudo das prisões. Palavras-chave: estigma, estado de espírito, teoria social, prisões
- ... Anticipation of condemnation and shame, often well-founded from prior experience, awareness of societal norms and taboos, or because of actions or words of the perpetrator, results in survivors concealing their abuse experiences to avoid shame. Imagining disclosure and seeking help can propel a survivor into shame feelingtraps, what Kaufman (1996) and Lewis (1971) refer to as recurrent shame spirals where the person becomes caught in the experience of shame and their own responses, such as shame-shame (Kaufman, 1996), shame-anger ( Lewis, 1971) shame-fear or shame-rage (Scheff, 1990, p.88;Scheff & Retzinger, 2000). To protect the self from further shame, survivors take steps to avoid exposure of their shame or the shame they anticipate that they and others will have (Dorahy & Clearwater, 2012). ...Shame following childhood sexual abuse (CSA) can be intensely painful and destructive to one's sense of self and place in the world. Organised around an internalised core belief of worthlessness, extreme shame presents as a major therapeutic challenge in therapy with many CSA survivors. A range of clinical and empirical literature, alongside recounts of survivors lived experience, shows that shame is an effect of CSA for many survivors. Yet research has rarely focused specifically on survivors’ qualitative or lived experiences of shame. This article reports the results of a scoping review of the empirical research investigating adult survivors’ experiences of shame following sexual abuse in their childhood. Conducted in March 2018, the search strategy involved on‐line searches of English language, peer review and select grey literature repositories for articles published up to the end of 2017. Of the 28 peer reviewed studies included in the review, only three studies specifically investigate adult survivors lived experiences of shame. The synthesised findings from the studies identify five themes demonstrating the pervasive and detrimental influence of shame following CSA: (1) Psychological effects and trauma symptoms; (2) Relationships and social connections and disconnections; (3) Disclosure; (4) Self concept; and, (5) The process of recovery. These findings resonate with conceptual literature and broader research on the influence of shame following violence and highlight areas for future research and clinical practice. This scoping review identifies three key gaps: a need for further research across specific populations and groups; research evaluating therapeutic interventions responding to shame; and research that specifically investigates adult survivors’ lived experiences of shame following CSA.
- ... Do key people influence smoking initiation? To answer these questions, we examine concepts from the interactionist tradition that are helpful in understanding smoking initiation and identity change, ranging from classic writings by Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934) to recent studies on reflected appraisals (Milkie 1999), non-becoming (Scott, McDonnell, and Dawson 2016), and embarrassment and shame (Goffman 1963;Scheff and Retzinger 2000). 1 Also, on the social performative elements of becoming a smoker, we consider Goffman's (1959Goffman's ( , 1967 dramaturgical model to analyze how and why young people presented smoking-related images of themselves to their peers, the kinds of interaction involved in identity performances, and how they were collectively managed. ...In this study, we analyzed identity construction among young smokers in China, with three interconnected objectives: to theorize the turning points and career trajectory of smoking initiation; to account for their characteristics with interactionist processes; and to critically evaluate the applicability of classic typologies of identity change by Becker and Strauss. In‐depth interviews with 24 late adolescents (ages 18–19) revealed a smoking initiation career path of four interconnected turning points, each characterized by interactionist processes. Smoker peers played a key role in facilitating overall career progression, and shame avoidance was crucial to their social dynamics. We also conclude that classic studies of turning points in general, and substance use specifically, are sufficiently broad and flexible to elucidate tobacco smoker identity construction in China, and facilitate a comparison of commonality and divergence among different “becoming” identities. The implications of these findings for tobacco control in China are discussed.
- ... 17), the total absence or mention of other positive affective bonds is not easily comprehensible. In general, the choice of focusing on specific emotions raises analogous concerns of previous and current scholarship on emotions which makes use of a similar approach (see, for instance, Scheff 2000, 2003and Scheff and Retzinger 2000. The affective experience is made of more emotions at the same time, mutable emotions, and human beings do not experience emotions in an isolated manner, one at the time. ...This article is in Section (Point of view) not peer reviewed, to leave freedom of style and content to the authors, when the particular nature of the writing requires it, however always under the responsibility of the editorial staff
- The role of emotion in leading change is readily noted but as yet, not fully explored as a central focus in leadership preparation programs (Beatty & Brew, 2004). This study assists us in conceptualising the changes experienced by students in the new Monash (Australia) Master in School Leadership and in understanding the transformational effects of the program. The course integrates emotional meaning making (Beatty, 2002) as core to developing transformational leaders. Course content and experiential delivery modalities engage students in opportunities for moving through a theorised series of emotional epistemological stances, located along a proposed continuum from emotional silence through to resilient emotional relativity. Reported on in this second phase of the larger study are participants' responses to the framework's concepts relative to their experiences in the course and to their work in substantive leadership positions in schools. A summary of results from phase one interviews is followed by the presentation of findings from the survey responses. Under review in this part of the study was the utility of the framework for conceptualising emotion focused learning and changes in perceptions of self and leadership. The course positions emotional meaning making as foundational to leader well being and transformational success. The process for developing emotional meaning making confidence and experience begins with a scaffolded set of steps within which students learn to lean into fears and create intra and interpersonally secure spaces for themselves and others. 1 Portions of this paper are in press for publication in the International Journal of Knowledge Culture and Change Management, Volume 6, as part of an article entitled Becoming Emotionally Prepared For Leadership which reported on phase one of this study. The paper reports on phase two and a different primary data set.
- Research Framework : Over the thirty years before World War I, expansion of the world economy occasioned new opportunities and new constraints for children and adolescents as well as adults; but experiences and responses of minors are understated in print sources. Objectives : To discover what societal changes young people noticed and talked about, we examined the « children's page » of a weekly newspaper available for a rural setting in the South Island of New Zealand. The perspective of youth is essential to interpret trajectories inferred from the more conventional sources available in a North American urban setting (Montreal, Quebec). Methodology : From the internet archive PapersPast we collected 12,000 letters of young people aged six through nineteen years, 1886-1909, and extracted their comments on two popular topics : the work they reported (paid or unpaid) and their accounts of toothache. Results : The letters inform us about tasks of young people by age, gender, season, daily routine and household structure. Changes in work assignments at ages 12 to 14, coincident with a spurt of growth and, for most, the end of formal schooling, evoked discussion among them about gender roles and, among girls, protest of the scheduling of their growing up. Conclusion : The seasonality of tasks assigned to children still in school indicates an unrecognized contribution to the elasticity of the rural economy on a global frontier of the industrial food supply. Reallocation of the labour of young people was an ongoing process, subject to negotiation. Contribution : The wealth of information and opinion accessed in the letters invites further experiment with newspaper content analysis for recognizing the participation of segments of the population whose contributions to economic growth have been underestimated.
- This is an attempt to capture some insights that came from reading and discussing the effects of early childhood experiences with David, a member of one of my men’s groups, who has encouraged me to write and share them. David and I share some early childhood patterns which might be characterised as ‘insecure’ attachment to our primary caregivers. We are both aware that these patterns have significantly influenced our lives, particularly our ways of relating to various partners, and still to some extent today, affect how we cope with situations that arouse strong emotions. There is theoretical academic underpinning to this which brings together some of the work on: • Attachment - the early childhood patterns of secure and insecure attachment to parents • Neurobiology - the way the brain develops particularly in the first years of life • Affects - how feelings are shown by the body • Behaviourism – the behaviours, thoughts and feelings we have in response to situations but the ideas, if they are relevant to you, should speak to common-sense rather than rely on academic references. If you would like to know more a list of sources for further reading is included at the end and I’d welcome an opportunity to correspond and discuss any aspect of this if you are interested..
- The current research was developed as a response to the lack of psychological interventions aimed to reduce shame – proneness. Shame itself belongs to the family of self – conscious emotions. The study argues that shame – proneness can be successfully reduced by increasing the level of guilt – proneness. On the other hand, guilt – proneness can be prevented from taking characteristics of shame – proneness by increasing the levels of empathy and self – esteem as well. Thus, the aim of this research is the development of an intervention model based on the combination of humanistic and behavioural perspectives. Additionally, the internalization of the personal responsibility concept which is endorsed by the increase of guilt – proneness is a major objective of this research. This is a quasi – experimental design that used a quantitative method. 21 institutionalized children in the orphanage of Shkoder took part in the study. The sample was comprised of 8 to 12 year old children. They were divided in three groups that replaced each other in the roles of both experimental and control groups. Due to the characteristics of the switching replications design the intervention was applied twice. The shame – proneness administration program served as the independent variable of the study. Assessments were made three times using the following measures: TOSCA – C of Tangney et al (1990) BEI (Bryant, 1982), CSEI – School Version (Coopersmith, 1967), and CASQ – R (Kaslow& Noel – Hoeksema, 1991). In order for their validity to be established, the researcher conducted the psychometric evaluation of the main measure TOSCA – C, the reliability analyses of all of them, and the explorative factor analyses of TOSCA – C, BEI, and CSEI – School Version prior to their application in this work. The findings met the initial expectations of the researcher, therefore proving this model of intervention as valuable. Particularly, the levels of shame – proneness, guilt – proneness and the externalization of blame moved toward the expected direction reaching an effect size that in Cohen‟s terms is considered as big. The levels of empathy and self – esteem showed a moderate increase in the post – test phase, though stable. The researcher has commented on these findings in the discussion section listing several explanations she considers as most accurate. Finally, several recommendations for future research, as well as for future interventions, and necessary changes in the institution‟s organigramme were highlighted. In addition the researcher has briefly expressed her idea that it would be more beneficial for children‟s wellbeing to be placed in adoptive families, or other family – like environments. Key words: shame – proneness; externalization of blame; guilt – proneness; empathy; self – esteem; attributional style; institutionalized children; middle childhood.
- An Explorative Single Case Study of the Therapist’s... Perspectives on Power, Emotions and Identity Changes in Cognitive Behavior Therapy against Men’s Violence in Sweden Abstract This study starts from Retzinger (1995), Retzinger & Scheff (2000) and Scheff & Retzinger’s (2000, 2001) micro-sociological perspective on social bonds. The general aim is to test a new model of operationalized sub-indicators that allows for a simplified ability to analyze the relationship between power relations and the social bond between therapist and clients in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for violent men. CBT-therapy often achieves positive effects by giving clients the knowledge and ability to talk about their problems instead of using aggression and drugs as defenses. The therapists make in this case much effort to balance the relationship between them and the clients, but there is still a tendency that therapy alienates them from each other and prevents the development of a solidarity social bond, which, assuming that the theoretical premise is true, is the prerequisite for a client to build a positive self-image and become reintegrated into society. Key words: social bond, shame, violence, therapy, alienation, solidarity
- The struggle to change negative responses to asylum seekers is becoming more difficult due to global economic insecurity and increasing numbers of people seeking asylum. Effective and persuasive advocacy and activism to shift these opinions and create better outcomes for asylum seekers are critical. As for all social movements, how advocates engage the wider public, particularly those opposed to asylum seeking, is key to gaining support for this project. In this article, I use discourse analysis as a method for identifying both current activist discourses and rhetorical strategies, and how these shape the responses of the opposition. Using letters to the editor, online comments and media articles from a 2010-2011 Australian debate on the relocation of asylum seekers to a small South Australian town, I explore a particular strategy for change used in asylum seeker advocacy: eliciting shame. I identify two ways that shaming is done' - through expressions of contempt and disgust, and through a comparison of privilege and oppression. However, the analysis of the responses to this shaming demonstrates that, rather than provoking the hoped-for change, shaming actually elicits its opposite: flight or fight responses of denial, avoidance and escalating conflict.
- The call for the integration of ethical considerations in the teaching of science is now firmly on the agenda. Taking as illustrative a science lesson in a pre-service teacher class, the authors consider the roles of STSE (science, technology, society and environment) and the increasingly influential heavily funded STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education initiatives. The origins and foci of both initiatives are discussed, as are their disparate ontological foundations. The use of Habermas' knowledge theories in conjunction with ethical frameworks is posited as a way of considering both STSE and STEM perspectives and their implications for strengthening science pedagogy.
- This study explored the impact of internalized shame in predicting proactive aggression (PA) and reactive aggression (RA) among adolescents with a history of maltreatment (N=101). More importantly, the study determined whether self-compassion would be a protective factor in the indirect relationship between internalized shame and aggression through mindfulness. Data were obtained from residential clients from five residential centers in Rizal, Cavite, Laguna and Metro Manila. Moderated mediation analysis was utilized for the study. Findings indicate that those who were maltreated who reported high levels of internalized shame tend to display proactive and reactive aggressive behaviors. Mindfulness was also found to be negatively correlated with RA but not with PA. Those who reported high levels of mindfulness were less likely to experience shame and to exhibit reactive aggression. Despite a nonsignificant relationship of self-compassion with the mediation model, the potential psychotherapeutic benefits of both self-compassion and mindfulness for adolescents were discussed. Clinical implications, limitations and future directions of research were elucidated.
- It is argued that shame has become increasingly important as a mechanism of social control in Western societies while our awareness of shame has simultaneously decreased. This paper explores the functions of the lexemes shame , disgrace and ignominy in the eighteenth-century section of the Corpus of Early English Correspondence and investigates how shame-inducing situations were discussed in letter-writing. Direct expressions of shame emerge particularly as formulaic apologies and reflect breached social conventions, honour, inadequacy and immorality. Shame discourse in the two case studies, however, proved to be context-dependent, evasive and euphemistic, and shame was expressed through a range of negative emotions. An element of discomfort in eighteenth-century shame discourse indicates that shame had taboo connotations, but the formulaic presence of shame and its connection to the cultural keyword of honour underlines its role as a mechanism of social control.
- Abstract: This study attempts to explain the Deliquency throuth Braithwaite Reintegrative Shaming Theory. Braithwaite central thesis on crime and control of crime is kind of shaming: Reintegrative Shaming or Disintegrative Shaming. This research has been carried out through a survey using questionnaire distributed among the third high school students from Tabriz city in the academic year of 1393-94. Stratified random sampling were used. Some 835 subjects were selected as the sample. Validity of the study is determined using method of construct validity and content validity. The reliability of the study is assessed through through the Cronbach s coefficient Alpha. The results of structural equation modeling show that shaming has not direct effect on delinquency, but has indirect effect on delinquency. Reintegration has not effect on delinquency. Stigmatization has indirect effect on delinquency, but has not direct effect on delinquency. Interdependency has direct effect on delinquency, but has not indirect effect on delinquency. Also delinquent peer has both direct and indirect effect on delinquency.
- Research Framework : Over the thirty years before World War I, expansion of the world economy occasioned new opportunities and new constraints for children and adolescents as well as adults; but experiences and responses of minors are understated in print sources. Objectives : To discover what societal changes young people noticed and talked about, we examined the « children's page » of a weekly newspaper available for a rural setting in the South Island of New Zealand. The perspective of youth is essential to interpret trajectories inferred from the more conventional sources available in a North American urban setting (Montreal, Quebec). Methodology : From the internet archive PapersPast we collected 12,000 letters of young people aged six through nineteen years, 1886-1909, and extracted their comments on two popular topics : the work they reported (paid or unpaid) and their accounts of toothache. Results : The letters inform us about tasks of young people by age, gender, season, daily routine and household structure. Changes in work assignments at ages 12 to 14, coincident with a spurt of growth and, for most, the end of formal schooling, evoked discussion among them about gender roles and, among girls, protest of the scheduling of their growing up. Conclusion : The seasonality of tasks assigned to children still in school indicates an unrecognized contribution to the elasticity of the rural economy on a global frontier of the industrial food supply. Reallocation of the labour of young people was an ongoing process, subject to negotiation. Contribution : The wealth of information and opinion accessed in the letters invites further experiment with newspaper content analysis for recognizing the participation of segments of the population whose contributions to economic growth have been underestimated.
- The financial crisis that started in 2007 is a concern for the world. Some countries are in depression and governments are desperately trying to find solutions. In the absence of thorough debate on the emotions of money, bitter disputes, hatred and 'moralizing' can be misunderstood. New Perspectives on Emotions in Finance carefully considers emotions often left unacknowledged, in order to explain the socially useful versus de-civilising, destructive, nature of money. This book offers an understanding of money that includes the possible civilising sentiments. This interdisciplinary volume examines what is seemingly an uncontrollable, fragile world of finance and explains the 'panics' of traders and 'immoral panics' in banking, 'confidence' of government and commercial decision makers, 'shame' or 'cynicism' of investors and asymmetries of 'impersonal trust' between finance corporations and their many publics. Money is shown to rely on this abstract trust or 'faith', but such motivations are in crisis with 'angry' conflicts over the 'power of disposition'. Restraining influences - on 'uncivilised emotions' and rule breaking - need democratic consensus, due to enduring national differences in economic 'sentiments' even in ostensibly similar countries. Promising ideas for global reform are assessed from these cautionary interpretations. Instead of one 'correct' vision, sociologists in this book argue that corporations and global dependencies are driven by fears and normless sentiments which foster betrayal. This book is not about individuals, but habitus and market crudities. Human 'nature' or 'greed' cannot describe banks, which do not 'feel' because their motivations are not from personal psyches but organisational pressures, and are liable to switch under money's inevitable uncertainties. This more inclusive social science studies emotions as a crucial factor among others, to expand the informed public debate among policy makers, bankers, academics, students and the public. © 2012 selection and editorial material, Jocelyn Pixley; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.
- Many North American cities trace their population booms to the nineteenth century when immigrants and migrants flooded emerging industrializing urban centres in search of better lives. Peopling the North American City examines this phenomenon in Montreal through the eyes of a thousand couples to construct both an intimate portrait and a compelling overview of life in a nineteenth-century metropolis. Benefiting from Montreal's remarkable archival records, Sherry Olson and Patricia Thornton use an ingenious sampling of twelve surnames to track the comings and goings, births, deaths, and marriages of the city's inhabitants. The book demonstrates the importance of individual decisions by outlining the circumstances in which people decided where to move, when to marry, and what work to do. Integrating social and spatial analysis, the authors provide insights into the relationships among the city's three cultural communities, show how inequalities of voice, purchasing power, and access to real property were maintained, and provide first-hand evidence of the impact of city living and poverty on families, health, and futures. The findings challenge presumptions about the cultural "assimilation" of migrants as well as our understanding of urban life in nineteenth-century North America. The culmination of twenty-five years of work, Peopling the North American City is an illuminating look at the humanity of cities and the elements that determine whether their citizens will thrive or merely survive.
- Sociologists Émile Durkheim, Erving Goffman and Randall Collins broadly suppose that ritual is foundational for social life. By contrast, this book argues that ritual is merely surface, beneath which lie status and power, the behavioral dimensions that drive all social interaction. Status, Power and Ritual Interaction identifies status and power as the twin forces that structure social relations, determine emotions and link individuals to the reference groups that deliver culture and administer preferences, actions, beliefs and ideas. An especially important contention is that allegiance to ideas, even those as fundamental as the belief that 1 + 1 = 2, is primarily faithfulness to the reference groups that foster the ideas and not to the ideas themselves. This triggers the counter-intuitive deduction that the self, a concept many sociologists, social psychologists and therapists prize so highly, is feckless and irrelevant. Status-power theory leads also to derivations about motivation, play, humor, sacred symbols, social bonding, creative thought, love and sex and other social involvements now either obscure or misunderstood. Engaging with Durkheim (on collective effervescence), Goffman (on ritual-cum-public order) and Collins (on interaction ritual), this book is richly illustrated with instances of how to examine many central questions about society and social interaction from the status-power perspective. It speaks not only to sociologists, but also to anthropologists, behavioral economists and social and clinical psychologists - to all disciplines that examine or treat of social life.
- Decision making about where to live is becoming a salient part of many couple's lives, with geographical mobility on the rise and increasing numbers of dual career couples. This article examines how couples decide where to live, using data from thirty-seven semi-structured interviews with individuals hi cross-national relationships, living in a city in the Western United States. The data reveal that emotions are important in decision making, that decision making tends to be on-going, and that there are numerous parties to the decision making process.
- This article focuses on the different roles and expressions the Christian faith has been given in narratives of recovery from substance abuse. The article is intended to advance discussion about the spiritual and religious aspects of recovery by introducing a narrative point of view. Four different story types are presented, each expressing a unique relationship between sobriety and the Christian faith: (1) “Third Time Lucky,” (2) “First Be Rid of Wickedness, Then Be Rid of Holiness,” (3) “A License to Live,” and (4) “Out of the Blue.” In the first story type, only the third conversion effected a permanent change. In the second, gaining and maintaining sobriety happened in two phases. In the third story type, the major achievement was accepting oneself. And in the fourth, a complete change took place surprisingly and suddenly. The findings show how the Christian faith can contribute to recovery in various ways and that no specific type of Christian faith is universally helpful. Faith appeared in many forms, even within the same narrative. This study is part of a larger research project based on qualitative data collected in 2010 in Finland. The data consists of in-depth interviews of 21 former substance abusers.
- Some 140,000 Jewish refugees from war-devastated Europe arrived on American shores after the defeat of the Nazis. Generally between the ages of 15 and 35, they spent years in concentration camps, hiding in forests, passing as gentiles in Warsaw or Berlin, or exiled in Russia. Many were the sole survivors of their families, or nearly so (Dinnerstein, 1982). They spoke a variety of different languages—Russian, Polish, German, Greek, Yiddish, and more—and had as many different conceptions of what it meant to be a Jew. What they shared was the experience of destruction, of having their once-familiar worlds ripped apart, and the challenge of reconstituting their lives.
- An explorative investigation of the relationship between men’s childhood experiences, masculinities, emotions and their violence and therapeutic interventions against violence. The overarching purpose of the study is to explore the potential for an integrated research perspective on male violence and to exemplify how such research could be conducted. The specific objective is to increase awareness about how childhood experiences, socialization, constructions of masculinity and emotions among violent men relate to their violence against other men, women and themselves, as well as how to analyze and further develop therapeutic interventions aimed at violence in light of such knowledge. Using theoretical scientific points of departure taken from critical realism and ecological methodology, this study compares research from various schools of thought: a) psychological: childhood experiences and socialization, b) social psychological: emotions and interactions and c) sociological: social class, gender power structures and hegemonic masculinity. This approach will provide access to knowledge about the interaction between various factors associated with male violence. Studies I and II explore the potential to examine the social bonds between therapist/therapy and clients within therapeutic treatment of violence. Study I operationalizes indicators of emotions such as pride and shame, while study II tests these on therapists in a CBT-oriented therapy setting. Study III examines men in different masculinity positions, where one group is selected from the population of men sentenced to therapy for violence and abuse, and the other from the population of men who are organized and actively working for gender equality and against violence toward women. The study compares the attitudes of the two groups toward factors that earlier research has related to violence and to violence against women. Study IV examines the pathways taken by men convicted for violence up to the point of their current standing as violent criminals, in order to gain knowledge concerning the interactions between factors that in various situations lead to such violence against other men, women and themselves. All empirical studies use qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. Study IV uses individual interviews and biographical analysis, while studies II and III use group interviews as well as deductive content analysis. Prior sociological and social psychological theory formation serve as the empirical basis of the theoretical review article explored in study I. The thesis shows both the advantages and disadvantages of an overarching perspective compared with perspectives primarily based on a psychological, relational or structural level. Studies that transcend levels are complicated by more complex methodology that must address interactions between factors at different levels. However, the results show that an integrative perspective can reduce the risk of ecological fallacies, while augmenting understanding of the complex interaction between factors underlying male violence, thereby promoting further understanding of violence therapies. The theoretical review article (study I) exemplifies how theoretically and methodologically driven research on social bonds can be translated into pragmatic application that can be used by therapists for treatment of male violence. The applied study of CBT (study II) exemplifies how operationalized indicators of pride and shame can be used in practice to determine the quality of the social bond between therapist and client. As expected, the CBT that was examined encompasses elements that generate both shame and pride, providing examples of the type of data that the method produces in its present form. The comparison between men from diametrically opposed masculinity positions (study III) shows that both the group that works against violence toward women and the men who were sentenced to treatment for committing violent acts harbor ambivalent attitudes toward violence and violence against women. The comparison also shows that the constructions of masculinity and attitudes of these groups toward violence correspond to differences in access to socioeconomic, social, political and cultural resources. The biographically focused qualitative study of men under treatment for violence (study IV) explores their pathways to criminal violence and the symbiotic interactions between childhood experiences, socialization, masculinity and emotions among individual perpetrators of violence. The results show that men who relate they have been subjected to serious violence in childhood are more prone to feeling shame and when violated tend to unconsciously, and without preceding feelings of shame, react more directly with aggression toward both sexes. While other men are still prone to feeling shame, they describe their violent reaction as more controlled. Two men who were brutally bullied in childhood show greater control over violence, which is assumed to be associated with learning to control their emotions in order to avoid further bullying. The personal problems of parents, along with their inadequate social conduct and parenting skills, are assumed to be related to some of the problems experienced by this group of men in school, and those men’s socializing with deviant personalities and later difficulties supporting themselves through conventional means.
- Zahlenspiele bezüglich sexueller Diversität sind aus einer sozialkonstruktivistischen Perspektive, wie auch mangels verlässlicher Statistiken, mit Vorsicht zu betrachten (vgl. Fuge 2008, S. 8). Konservativ geschätzt sind von den etwa 25 Jugendlichen einer Schulklasse ein bis drei sexuell gleichgeschlechtlich orientiert oder werden sich gleichgeschlechtlich orientieren. Hinzu kommt eine noch höhere Anzahl von Jugendlichen, welche gleichgeschlechtliche sexuelle Erfahrungen gemacht hat oder noch machen wird (vgl. ebd.). Zudem wird, statistisch gesehen, jede Schule von eine_r Schüler_in besucht, die aus medizinischen Gesichtspunkten nicht als typisch männlich oder weiblich aufgefasst wird oder wurde (vgl. Pschyrembel in Timmermann 2008, S. 261).
- The rise of the new radical populist right has been linked to fundamental socioeconomic changes fueled by globalization and economic deregulation. Yet, socioeconomic factors can hardly fully explain the rise of new right. We suggest that emotional processes that affect people’s identities provide an additional explanation for the current popularity of the radical right, not only among low- and medium-skilled workers, but also among the middle classes whose insecurities manifest as fears of not being able to live up to salient social identities and their constitutive values, and as shame about this anticipated or actual inability. This link between fear and shame becomes particularly salient in competitive market societies where responsibility for success and failure is increasingly individualized. Failure implies stigmatization through unemployment, being on welfare benefits, or forced migration to find work. Under these conditions, many tend to emotionally distance themselves from social identities that inflict shame and other negative emotions, instead seeking meaning and self-esteem from those aspects of identity that are perceived to be stable and to some extent exclusive, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, language, and traditional gender roles. At the same time, repressed shame can manifest as anger and resentment against immigrants, refugees, gays, and other minorities as well as liberal cultural elites who appear as enemies of these more stable social identities.
- Succes heb je zelf in de hand; falen is je ei-gen schuld. ' Dat is het ideaalbeeld van de prestatiesamenleving, waar alleen talent en inzet tellen. Winnaars in de competitie om maatschappelijk succes hebben een goed-betaalde baan die hun status en waardering verschaft. Maar waaraan ontlenen werklozen in activeringsprogramma's waardering als ze er ondanks al hun pogingen niet in slagen een betaalde baan te vinden? Hoe schermen ze zich af tegen het negatieve stereotype beeld van de 'luie profiteur', en hoe besten-digen zij hun zelfrespect? Judith Elshout laat in een rijke empirische stu-die zien dat dat voor hen een hele worsteling is. Ze onderschrijven de meritocratische waarden als ze hun falen wijten aan gebrek aan inzet in het verleden of als ze een scherpe scheidslijn trekken tussen actieve en inactieve werklozen. Maar ze verwerpen die waarden ook door aan onbetaald (vrijwilligers)werk een hogere mo-rele waarde toe te kennen. Toch is ook voor hen een 'echte' baan een betaalde baan. Niet alleen vanwege de geldelijke beloning, maar vooral ook door de symbolische betekenissen die aan 'loon' verbonden zijn. Kennis van die betekenissen helpt om de gevoelshuishou-ding van werklozen beter te begrijpen. Judith Elshout is socio-loog.
- In this paper, I problematize the suicides out of despair (hereafter sod) as statements of unfreedom. The paper is divided into six sections. The first section introduces the problem and situates it within the existing scholarship. The second section puts forward the first of the two arguments the paper engages: suicide as unfreedom. In this section, the situational and essential ontology of suicide is briefly discussed and then I proceed to classify two major forms of unfreedoms emergent from the historical ontology of human social life: slavery and bare life. The third section of the paper problematizes unfreedom as freedom corrupted both from the perspectives of Heideggerian essent’ial ontology and Badiouian situational ontology through set theoretical models of freedom/unfreedom. Subsequently three sets of unfreedom: heteronomy, atomy and bare life and one set of freedom vis-à-vis autonomy is logically derived and discussed. Freedom is presented as a directive idea helpful in doing away with unfreedoms. Then the second of the two problems – unfreedom as suicidal- is briefly discussed. The concluding section draws that despite the emergent historical reality having framed human social life as unfree, we could still be hopeful in recovering freedom as the essential ontology of the human species and the eventual (événementiel) potential of the situational ontology of life is not fundamentally unfree.
- 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 betterment of our discipline and our society. In keeping with the theme of this meeting, the sociological imagination, I will be brief in order to leave room for lively and imaginative discussion. /// [Spanish] Para el entendimiento de la conducta humana se necesitan relacionar las partes más pequeñas con las más profundas de un todo. Por lo que propongo que las ciencias humanas integren un nuevo planteamiento que utilice el microanálisis del discurso textual en el contexto del análisis institucional en el que el discurso tiene lugar. Este planteamiento debía unir un sólo caso y un estudio comparativo en una forma que integre las disciplinas humanas y los niveles micro y macro. /// [Chinese] (Unicode for Chinese abstract). /// [Japanese] (Unicode for Japanese abstract).
