Appeasement in human emotion, social practice, and personality

Keltner, Dacher; Young, Randall C.; Buswell, Brenda N.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1098-2337(1997)23:5<359::aid-ab5>3.0.co;2-d

Cited by 194 publications

(189 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The experimental manipulation of criticism and publicity reliably boosts shame (23,38,62,63). In contrast, displays of shame or embarrassment attenuate an audience's devaluing response when the audience and the offender share common knowledge about the discrediting act (35,64,65). The averted gaze and slumped posture of the shame display may lead to audience devaluation when the audience has not witnessed a discrediting act (20,22).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shame is known to mobilize withdrawal (32,34), which protects the shamed individual against acts immediately motivated by devaluation, and may weaken the formation of common knowledge of the shameful act (66). Submission (33), appeasement (35), and cooperation (37), each would function to increase the value of the shamed individual after devaluation. Aggression sometimes occurs (42,43), which is expected when threatening or inflicting harm is a cost-effective way of preventing the spread of negative information or when it is the best way to bargain for better treatment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, an evolutionarypsychological analysis of the existing evidence (35,62,71) suggests a different view: this ugly emotion may be the expression of a system that is elegantly designed to deter injurious choices and to make the best of a bad situation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shame motivates one to avoid behaviors that could cause devaluation and to conceal damaging information (31). When damaging information is discovered, the shamed individual withdraws (32), accepts subordination (33,34), shows appeasement behavior (35), increases cooperativeness (36,37), and upregulates cortisol (38) as well as proinflammatory cytokines to defend against infection (39). This is accompanied by a stereotyped nonverbal display (22,40,41).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures

Sznycer

Tooby

Cosmides

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

206

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We test the theory that shame evolved as a defense against being devalued by others. By hypothesis, shame is a neurocomputational program tailored by selection to orchestrate cognition, motivation, physiology, and behavior in the service of: (i) deterring the individual from making choices where the prospective costs of devaluation exceed the benefits, (ii) preventing negative information about the self from reaching others, and (iii) minimizing the adverse effects of devaluation when it occurs. Because the unnecessary activation of a defense is costly, the shame system should estimate the magnitude of the devaluative threat and use those estimates to cost-effectively calibrate its activation: Traits or actions that elicit more negative evaluations from others should elicit more shame. As predicted, shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation in the United States (r = .69), India (r = .79), and Israel (r = .67). Moreover, shame in each country strongly tracks devaluation in the others, suggesting that shame and devaluation are informed by a common species-wide logic of social valuation. The shame-devaluation link is also specific: Sadness and anxietyemotions that coactivate with shame-fail to track devaluation. To our knowledge, this constitutes the first empirical demonstration of a close, specific match between shame and devaluation within and across cultures.shame | emotion | valuation | culture | evolutionary psychology I n all known foraging societies past and present, humans have lived embedded in dense networks of cooperative and competitive interactions, a condition that is believed to have prevailed during the evolution of our species (1-3). Individuals in such social ecologies suffered or prospered depending on the summed effects of the choices of others-such as when and how often to share food, to provide care for another's child, to defer in conflicts, and so on. Ancestrally, the difference between an individual reproducing successfully, struggling, or dying early would have depended (in part) on the degree to which others traded off their own welfare for the welfare of that individual.Over the last fifty years, evolutionary researchers have identified a number of selection pressures that favored the evolution of decision systems that regulate welfare trade-offs between individuals, including kin selection (4), reciprocity/exchange (5, 6), risk-pooling (2), parenting (7), mating (8), externality management (9), and the asymmetric war of attrition (10). These theories, in turn, led to the empirical discovery of various choice architectures that evolved to produce best-bet welfare trade-off decisions given the information available to the actor about a potential recipient [e.g., how to respond to cues of genetic relatedness; how to respond to cues predicting the recipient's ability to effectively assert and defend her or his interests; how to respond to cues indicating a potential partner tends to cheat or free-ride (11-16)].In short, favorable valuation by others was a critical resource for our anc...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures

Sznycer

Tooby

Cosmides

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

206

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“…Emotions, such as contempt, signal the higher status individual's stance towards lower status individuals. Emotions, such as embarrassment and shame, signal the lower status individual's stance towards the self vis-a Á-vis higher status individuals Keltner, Young, & Buswell, 1997;Miller & Leary, 1992). Finally, there are those emotions that the lower status individual feels towards higher status individuals.…”

Section: Primordial Awe: Awe Towards Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion

Keltner

Haidt

2003

Cognition and Emotion

Self Cite

1,433

1,674

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In this paper we present a prototype approach to awe. We suggest that two appraisals are central and are present in all clear cases of awe: perceived vastness, and a need for accommodation, defined as an inability to assimilate an experience into current mental structures. Five additional appraisals account for variation in the hedonic tone of awe experiences: threat, beauty, exceptional ability, virtue, and the supernatural. We derive this perspective from a review of what has been written about awe in religion, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and then we apply this perspective to an analysis of awe and related states such as admiration, elevation, and the epiphanic experience.In the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear is a little studied emotionÐawe. Awe is felt about diverse events and objects, from waterfalls to childbirth to scenes of devastation. Awe is central to the experience of religion, politics, nature, and art. Fleeting and rare, experiences of awe can change the course of a life in profound and permanent ways. Yet the field of emotion research is almost silent with respect to awe. Few emotion theorists consider awe in their taxonomies and those who do have done little to differentiate it from other states.In this paper we offer a conceptual approach to awe. To do so we first review what has been written about awe outside of psychology, which turns out to be significant and illuminating. This literature review identifies two themes that are central to aweÐthat the stimulus is vast and that it requires accommodationÐas

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Young children's post tantrum affiliation with their parents

Potegal¹,

Davidson²

1997

Aggr. Behav.

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In our database of 331 parental narratives of tantrums had by children 18-60 months old, 29% of the tantrums were followed by child-initiated affiliation with parents. Four variables increased the probability of children's post tantrum affiliation (PTA): age, prolonged screaming, physiological stress, and parent-initiated separation from the child during the tantrum. The age effect may be due to increasing post tantrum persistence of negative affect, to the emergence of shame, guilt, and embarrassment over this developmental period, and/or to increasing cognitive ability, empathic capacity, or socialization. Screaming, which may be analogous to the defensive vocalizations of nonhuman primates, increases PTA when prolonged for 6 min or more. Physiological stress (indicated by autonomic activation or respiratory distress) appears linked to prolonged screaming and may mediate its effects by increasing the child's dysphoria and need for consolation. Separation (parents' departure from the scene of the tantrum or their imposition of a time out) also appears linked to prolonged screaming and may reflect parents' response to an aversive auditory stimulus. There was no evidence that PTA was associated with the presence or degree of physically expressed anger in the tantrum. PTA may be associated with distress during the tantrum. The post conflict reconciliation which occurs in several domains of human social life may be first experienced by children in the aftermath of their tantrums. Aggr. Behav. 23:329-341, 1997.

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Appeasement in human emotion, social practice, and personality

Cited by 194 publications

References 40 publications

Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures

Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures

Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion

Young children's post tantrum affiliation with their parents

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