ABSTRACT
Generations of psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and lay-persons have viewed shame, alongside with guilt, as a quintessent moral emotion (e.g., Darwin, 1872; Emde & Oppenheim, 1995; Spiecker, 1991; Williams, 1993). As Gaylin (1979, p. 76) so eloquently wrote, “shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential”. Applied and practical efforts have also focused on shame and guilt as joint causes of virtuous behaviour. For example, the main goal of the increasingly popular notion of “reintegrative shaming” in the so-called restorative justice conferences (where stakeholders of a delinquent act convene to confront the offender with the consequences of his/her act) is to instil a sense of shame or guilt in the offender in order to inhibit future misbehaviour (Braithwaite, 1989; Retzinger & Scheff, 1996). Likewise, most readers will remember the “shaming corner” as the place they feared to be directed to after having committed a “moral wrong” in their elementary school classroom (Maxwell & Reichenbach, 2005).
