February 10, 2004
Shame
A psychologist named Sylvan Tompkins studied the facial expression of babies in order to see if he could identify a set of "innate emotions" He found a few, and after he found them in the US, he traveled around the world studying baby expressions, to see if they were universal. They were. He called it Affect Theory and wrote alot of books.
Here's the list:
Interest/Excitment,
Enjoyment/Joy --- that's it for the pleasant ones. Then there is --
Surprise/Startle followed by the less desirable (in my book, but who's to say) Fear/Terror,
Anger/Rage,
Distress/Anguish,
Shame/Humiliaton
Disgust, and finally
Dis-smell.
The disgust "face" includes a thrust of the tongue forward, Dis-smell a wrinkling of the nose.
General disclaimer - this goes for the whole blog - I am a sloppy student, and have peripheral understanding of most things because I have a rigid learning style, and very little concentration. All I'm giving you here is my limited understanding of a concept, in hopes that you will know that there is such a thing in the universe. If you're interested, I hope I have provided some resources for further exploration. No doubt there are dead theorists turning over in their graves, as well as horrified living ones, who would react negatively to my gross simplificatons. Thus disclaimed, I will continue.
The purpose of shame, according to Thompkins, is to put the brakes on an escalating emotion. For example, a child shows interest/ excitment about something a parent would prefer that she did not. The parent stops the action, with a word or gesture, i.e. no or stop. Shame is experienced momentarily, limiting the rising level of excitment. Then the good parent redirects the child to something that will allow him to experience interest/excitment again. The unattuned parent with a heavy hand may feel it necessary to do more than limit and redirect attention.like spanking This is not good, and results in (forgive my Bradshavian) toxic shame. Plain old shame isn't bad -- it's just the brakes.
Another example of shame as an inhibitor to interest/excitment is the familiar experience of rushing up to a person believed to be a friend, then realizing that person is a stranger. Our interest/excitment antennae waving and panting with anticipation are stopped short by shame.
I began this riff, because I said I was ashamed of my President (see Imminent). What I should have said is "Does this President have no shame?" Maybe if he had a little he would stop. He's on the anger/rage channel though, not interest/excitment, which is part of the problem. Not to mother bash (we're all sick of that,..... almost) but what exactly was Barbara Bush doing?
Photo note: Just in case you were wondering, it's a flower with a facial expression.
Posted by Dakota at February 10, 2004 06:32 AM