Cross-cultural invariances in the architecture of shame

Abstract

Human foragers are obligately group-living, and their high dependence on mutual aid is believed to have characterized our species' social evolution. It was therefore a central adaptive problem for our ancestors to avoid damaging the willingness of other group members to render them assistance. Cognitively, this requires a predictive map of the degree to which others would devalue the individual based on each of various possible acts. With such a map, an individual can avoid socially costly behaviors by anticipating how much audience devaluation a potential action (e.g., stealing) would cause and weigh this against the action's direct payoff (e.g., acquiring). The shame system manifests all of the functional properties required to solve this adaptive problem, with the aversive intensity of shame encoding the social cost. Previous data from three Western(ized) societies indicated that the shame evoked when the individual anticipates committing various acts closely tracks the magnitude of devaluation expressed by audiences in response to those acts. Here we report data supporting the broader claim that shame is a basic part of human biology. We conducted an experiment among 899 participants in 15 small-scale communities scattered around the world. Despite widely varying languages, cultures, and subsistence modes, shame in each community closely tracked the devaluation of local audiences (mean = +0.84). The fact that the same pattern is encountered in such mutually remote communities suggests that shame's match to audience devaluation is a design feature crafted by selection and not a product of cultural contact or convergent cultural evolution.

The emotion–valuation constellation: Multiple emotions are governed by a common grammar of social valuation

“…The present research adds to a growing number of findings supporting the claim that social evaluations underlie the operation of multiple, different social emotions (Sznycer et al, 2016;Sznycer, Al-Shawaf, et al, 2017;Sznycer, Xygalatas, Agey, et al, 2018;Durkee et al, forthcoming;Cohen et al, forthcoming;Lieberman, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2007;Lim, 2012;Smith et al, 2017). The present research also indicates crosscultural regularities in the structure and content of human social-evaluative psychology, as found in past research (Buss, 1989;Buss et al, 1990;Shackelford, Schmitt, & Buss, 2005;Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007;Evans & Scott, 1984;Brown, 1991;Rozin, Lowery, & Haidt, 1999;Henrich et al, 2006;Herrmann, Thöni, & Gächter, 2008;Sznycer et al, 2016;Sznycer, Al-Shawaf, et al, 2017;Sznycer, Xygalatas, Agey, et al, 2018;Curry, Mullins, & Whitehouse, 2019;Durkee et al, forthcoming). Against this background, this work is to our knowledge the first to document a quantitatively close correspondence between social evaluations and the intensities with which multiple social emotions are activated.…”

“…This suggests that multiple social emotions are governed, in part, by a common, human-universal grammar of social valuation. Importantly, the emotion-valuation link is not confined to the reputation-management emotions of pride and shame, as was observed in past research (Sznycer et al, 2016;Sznycer, Al-Shawaf, et al, 2017;Sznycer, Xygalatas, Agey, et al, 2018;Durkee et al, forthcoming;Cohen et al, forthcoming). Instead, this link generalizes across a broad suite of social emotions.…”

“…In other sets of studies, shame tracked the devaluation that audiences expressed with respect to various disgraceful acts and traits (Sznycer et al, 2016;Sznycer, Xygalatas, Agey, et al, 2018;Cohen, Chun, & Sznycer, forthcoming). Meanwhile, other negatively-valenced emotions failed to uniquely track audience devaluation (Sznycer et al, 2016).…”

Evolutionary Psychology and Emotions: A Species-Typical Computational Design

“…(p. 2625) Transcultural studies show that in many communities there is a close correlation between shame and devaluation. To feel shame does not seem to be a product of cultural evolution, but rather a universal system that is part of our biology (Sznycera et al, 2018).…”

Kaleidoscope

“…Sznycer et al tested this by carrying out an experiment on almost 900 participants across 15 small-scale and varied communities from around the world. 6 Multiple scenarios were tested to elicit rated reactions about a hypothetical other, or about something they might have done, for example 'He/You steal(s) from members of his community'. The findings were absolutely consistent across languages, cultures and different modes of subsistence: the more a group devalued an act, the greater the intensity of the shame felt.…”