- Shame may be a detrimental response to problematic behavior because it motivates hiding, escape, and general avoidance of the problem.
- We tested whether shame about one’s past addictive drinking (measured via nonverbal displays and self-report) predicts future drinking behaviors and changes in health among newly recovering alcoholics...
- Results showed that nonverbal behavioral displays of shame expressed while discussing past drinking strongly predicted
- (a) the tendency to relapse over the next 3 to 11 months
- (b) the severity of that relapse, and
- (c) declines in health.
- All results held controlling for a range of potential confounders (e.g., alcohol dependence, health, personality).
- These findings suggest that shame about one’s problematic past may increase, rather than decrease, future occurrences of problem behaviors.
(Randles & Tracy, 2013). Clinical Psychological Science. Read the full-text paper here. [Note: The photo used above is from another study.]
Method of Coding Nonverbal Displays of Shame (from the paper):
- ...participants were video-recorded while they responded orally to the question “Describe the last time you drank and felt badly about it.” ...Five research assistants (blind to hypotheses) were trained to watch videos (without audio) and code the first 10 seconds of nonverbal behavior. [An adequate "thin-slice" of behavior to code.]
- Shame displays were coded on the basis of a previously validated shame behavioral coding scheme...which involves coding for two specific behaviors: chest narrowed...and shoulders slumped...These behaviors were previously found to correspond to shame or failure across six studies of children and adults from a range of cultures and to correspond with submission displays documented in nonhuman animals across a range of species...
