Bodily cues of submission and emotional distress after norm violation influence perceivers’ moral judgements and prevent social exclusion : A socio-functional approach to shame displays

Abstract

Socio-functional approach to shame suggests that displaying shame after norm violation communicates that a person is ready to conform to the group’s standards, which in turn prevents social isolation and punishments. Previous research gives support for this theory, showing that a perpetrator’s verbal expressions of shame increase forgiveness and reduce observers’ punitive intentions. However, only one experimental study has investigated the hypothesized effects of nonverbal shame displays, manipulating solely the transgressor’s head orientation. This is a serious shortcoming given the functional approach assumption that human shame is evolutionarily rooted in submissive behavior established in shrunken body posture. In addition, so far no comparison has been made between shame and other closely related emotions, making it premature to conclude that shame would have an unique social function not possessed by other emotions. Two experimental studies were conducted to investigate the communicative and social effects of shame displays. In Study 1, participants read vignettes of mild norm violations, after which they were asked to select a picture of emotional expression most suitable to convey the transgressor’s understanding of her/his transgression. Bodily displays of shame were selected as the most suitable for this communicative task, but expressions of sadness were also found appropriate. In Study 2, the social functions of shame and sadness were compared to further investigate the social consequences and mediating socio-cognitive mechanisms underlying the consolidating influence of shame displays. Again, a vignette approach was used, but now the expressions were systematically manipulated while measuring the perceiver’s moral judgements, empathy, and cooperative and punitive intentions. Both shame and sadness expressions increased observers’ empathy and willingness to cooperate with the transgressor compared to a neutral expression condition. However, contrary to the uniqueness assumption, the effects of shame on empathy and cooperative intentions were identical to those of sadness. Also, none of the expressions reduced the perceiver’s punitive intentions. The presented results partially support the functional account, showing that bodily shame induces empathy and prevent from social isolation. The similarity of shame and sadness suggests, however, that general empathy driven mechanism may underlie the obtained consolidating influence of submissive bodily displays.