Towards a mature shame culture : theoretical and practical tools for personal and social growth

Towards a mature shame culture seeks to identify new tools for social change through a deeper understanding of the social psychology of shame and guilt. The study takes as its starting point a suggestion by Richard Hauser and Hephzibah Menhuin-Hauser that many personal and social crises can be interpreted through the lens of a late 20th Century transition from a guilt culture to an 'infantile' shame culture. Implicit in this is the need to develop more socially mature forms.This idea is placed in the context of praxis for personal/social growth drawing on previously unpublished material from the Hauser's archive. The study then explores a theoretical framework for understanding the social psychology of emotions in general, and shame in particular. It draws on affect psychology, micro-sociology and social attachment theory. Shame is located primarily as a social emotion, with a normative function of monitoring social bonds between people - rather than, as it is usually framed, as a 'self-conscious', 'negative' and 'pathological'emotion. This reframing of the experience highlights the 'salutogenic' function of shame in building and strengthening relationships. In this frame much of what is commonly thought of as 'shame' can be seen to be the result of unacknowledged shame, where other emotions are bound to the sense of shame and carried as 'toxic' memories of unresolved shame experiences. This pattern of unresolved shame can be seen at the root of the personal and social pathologies of violence and alienation.The study charts how attempts to communicate this salutogenic perspective on shame led to an experiential education workshop Working with shame. It draws on the experience of participants in this workshop in a variety of settings (including anger management programs, workshops at men's gatherings, and community professional development training, and other group work). Interview data is used to illustrate how the masking of the physiological expression of shame, principally with anger and/or fear, interrupts the affective/emotional signals between people that would normally result in empathic responses an salutogenic outcomes. Finally, the study explores how this perspective on shame might inform social crisis-intervention programs at community level; and how it might be applied to the larger, and longer-term challenge of bringing about cultural change. It suggests key features that mark the transition from 'infantile' to 'juvenile' forms of shame and some of the factors limiting further growth towards shame-maturity