Illness-related elicitors of shame and guilt in children

Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. This book shows that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The book describes how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, the book provides a compelling and novel account of human cooperation.

Download Full-text

FURTHER VALIDATION OF THE SHAME AND GUILT SCALES OFTHE HARDER PERSONAL FEELINGS QUESTIONNAIRE-2

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.85.5.271-281 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 85 (5) ◽

pp. 271 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

DAVID W. HARDER

Keyword(s):

Shame And Guilt

Download Full-text

Avoiding Shame and Guilt

10.1093/oso/9780190651374.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

C. Daniel Batson

Keyword(s):

Empathic Concern ◽

The Other ◽

The Third ◽

Helping Relationship ◽

Shame And Guilt

After rejecting the remove–empathy hypothesis (Chapter 4), attention turned to the other two classic egoistic explanations for the motivation to help produced by empathic concern: empathy-specific punishment and empathy-specific reward. This chapter considers two kinds of empathy-specific punishment, shame and guilt. The shame hypothesis claims that we help more when we feel empathic concern because we’re motivated to avoid disapproval and censure from others. The guilt hypothesis says that we’re motivated to avoid self-condemnation for failing to do what we should. Contradicting the shame hypothesis, experiments revealed that even when no one else will know if participants fail to help, empathy still increased helping. Contradicting the guilt hypothesis, participants induced to feel empathy helped more even when provided a good excuse for not helping. Given that neither form of empathy-specific punishment could account for the empathy–helping relationship, our search shifted to the third classic egoistic explanation: pursuing pride.

Download Full-text