Shame is not Loud Embarrassment

Neuroscientifically inclined psychologists who study emotions can help us to identify the real responses of those around us.  We can do that by becoming familiar with the tiny changes in facial expression in the milliseconds of unguarded reaction that precede our conscious and (often) constructed reactions to events.  We can learn a great deal, for example, from a person's startle response.  This can indicate the ongoing level of anxiety which that person experiences.

In fact, the startle response, the embarrassment affect, and the smile rate are microscopic indicators that we use unconsciously to quickly determine whether we will trust someone or not in an interaction and/or in a relationship.

The above description is painted in broad strokes and raises as many questions as it answers.  In his book, Born to be Good, Dacher Keltner helps us distinguish between the smile and the laugh.  Keltner notes that the smile is like "social chocolate."  It impacts the reward centers in our brains.  A smile opens others to relationships with us.  The smile can deepen bonds and repair breaches in relationships. Authentic smiles build human connection and community millisecond by millisecond (and faked smiles are a direct route to mistrust).

Keltner notes that laughter is different.  Charles Darwin theorized that laughter is smiling through loudspeakers.  He thought, as do we, that laughter is the loud version of our bared teeth and raised eyebrows.  Research doesn't bear that out.  In fact, laughter is pitched to the key of fun and play.  It differs significantly from smiling in both purpose and effect.

I wonder if this applies to a distinction that Keltner doesn't seem to address--the difference between embarrassment and shame.  He notes that embarrassment is another form of social glue.  When we are conscious (even subconsciously) of a possible relationship breach or conflict, we may become embarrassed.  The embarrassment response is a sort of vulnerability and submission display that invites forgiveness and care-taking.  Therefore, Keltner notes, it brings people closer together in situations which could have driven them further apart.

What about shame?  I am not sure, but I think that Keltner and his tribe may see shame as embarrassment through loudspeakers.  That, however, is certainly not my experience.  Nor does the research on shame bear this out.  June Tangney, Brene Brown, and others have described shame as an experience that reaches to the core of our identity and self-worth.  

I may be embarrassed by something I have done, such as passing gas in the elevator just before you get on.  If I am found out, I may giggle and apologize and then move on.  Embarrassment is a repair strategy for something I have done.  Embarrassment is a crimson-faced apology.

Shame is about who I believe I am.  And shame is the deeply held fear that I will be abandoned due to my defects.  If I believe somehow that I am flawed, defective, dirty and unworthy, then I will experience my actions as reflecting that belief.  And here is the problem.  I believe that for many of us, embarrassment and shame look quite similar on the outside.  But they are radically different on the inside.

So I know that I need a couple of personal disciplines when I am in a group.  On the one hand, I have to talk myself down from shame regularly.  With a few deep breaths and a conscious reminder to myself, I can remember that my mistakes look like mistakes to other people, even when to me they look like dark and dirty failings and flaws.  A bit of on-the-run perspective taking can help me to turn down the temperature on my shame experiences.

On the other hand, I am acutely aware that others may not have that skill or awareness.  So what looks like embarrassment to me from the outside is likely to be experienced as shame on the inside.  This is why I am at great pains to shield people from potentially embarrassing situations.  I am unwilling to expose people, if I can help it, to experiences of public embarrassment because of the shaming potential.

Why?  I'd like to think I'm compassionate and empathetic.  I also know that shamed people will either withdraw from the interaction or strike out in anger.  Neither response will move our relationships forward.

Just as smiles and laughter arise from different domains, so (I believe) do embarrassment and shame. We do well to treat shame as a separate reality.