Self-Esteem and Emotion

The theory and research to be discussed here suggest a new way to conceptualize self-esteem in terms of emotions, the basic emotions of pride and shame. The idea of connecting self-esteem to these emotions is not completely new, but it has only recently been made explicit. Our theory emphasizes what already seems to be understood in everyday usage, that self-esteem concerns how we usually feel about ourselves. High self-esteem means that we usually feel justified pride in ourselves, low self-esteem that we often and easily feel ashamed of ourselves or try to avoid feelings of shame. All of the correlates of self-esteem (perceptions, beliefs, and concepts regarding the self; attributions regarding others' perception of self; and behavior toward self and others) may derive from these self-feelings—whether we are usually proud or usually ashamed of ourselves.

In this view, level of self-esteem is a summary concept, representing how well one does overall in managing shame. For persons with high self-esteem, shame is painful but not overwhelming. Such persons have sufficient experiences of pride in their lives that they can usually manage the shame they experience.

Persons with low self-esteem appear to lack sufficient experiences of pride to be able to manage shame; for them, shame is a calamity, to be avoided at all costs. When it cannot be avoided, its effects are often disruptive or even catastrophic. What makes shame so problematic in our society is that, in adults, it is nearly always hidden. We have learned to

be ashamed of being ashamed (Scheff 1988). Both laypeople and researchers often ignore pride and shame as causal agents, because these emotions usually have low visibility and because we have all been trained to ignore them.

In modern societies, it is taken for granted that shame is a rare emotion among adults. This belief is reflected in the anthropological division between shame and guilt cultures: supposedly, traditional societies rely on shame for social and self-control, modern societies on guilt. A similar premise is found in psychoanalytic theory, which places near-total emphasis on guilt as the adult emotion of self-control, with shame deemed "regressive," that is, childish. (For an early critique of both premises, see Piers and Singer 1953.)

There is also an opposing tradition in the scientific literature, however, which maintains that shame is a primary emotion, generated by the constant monitoring of self from the point of view of others. Such monitoring, it is argued, is not rare but incessant, even in solitude. This thread can be found in Darwin (1872), MacDougall (1908), Cooley (1902), Lynd (1958), Goffman (1967), and Lewis (1971). Their arguments can be summarized by three propositions:

1. In adults, social monitoring of self is continuous. We are, as Cooley put it, "living in the minds of others without knowing it."

We do not think much of [self-feeling] so long as it is moderately and regularly gratified. Many people of balanced mind and congenial activity scarcely know that they care what others think of them, and will deny, perhaps with indignation, that such care is an important factor in what they are and do. But this is illusion. If failure or disgrace arrives, if one suddenly finds that the faces of men show coldness or contempt instead of the kindliness and deference that he is used to, he will perceive from the shock, the fear, the sense of being outcast and helpless, that he was living in the minds of others without knowing it, just as we daily walk the solid ground without thinking how it bears us up. (Cooley 1902, 208; emphasis added)

2. Social monitoring always has an evaluative edge and gives rise, therefore, to either pride or shame.

These first two propositions, taken together, create a puzzle. If social monitoring is so incessant, and if it produces either pride or shame, why do we see so little of either emotion?

3. Adults are almost always in a state of pride or shame, but these emotions have such low visibility that we seldom notice them.

This review suggests that although pride and shame may determine

behavior, they usually go unnoticed. Their lack of visibility involves both the stimulus and response sides. On the stimulus side, adults are careful to conceal their manifestations of pride and shame (Goffman 1967, 101–104). On the response side, these emotions are socially unacceptable, to the point that one is not supposed to discuss, express, or even feel them (Scheff 1984). We live in a shame-denying society, in that the denial and disguise of pride and shame are not only matters of individual propensity but also institutionalized patterns of collective behavior. Our very vocabulary denies shame, projecting it instead onto the outer world. We say, "It was an awkward moment for both of us," rather than leveling about emotions by saying, "We were both embarrassed."

Perhaps this institutionalized denial is the reason that self-esteem has never been adequately defined; it touches, after all, on the collective secret of pride and shame. For purposes of discussion, we will here define level of self-esteem as each person's ratio of pride to shame states . This definition is rudimentary, but it may help to stimulate further discussion and research. For example, even though the definition is crude, it could serve as a basis for classifying most of the thousands of items in the existing self-esteem scales. Showing that scale items are facets of either pride or shame, or perhaps are sources or consequences of these emotions, would be a first step toward making the scales comparable.

Because most states of pride and shame are carefully disguised, this definition concerns, for the most part, unacknowledged, low-visibility pride and shame. It parallels Satir's (1972) definition of what she calls "low pot": one is "low pot" when one experiences undesirable feelings but tries to behave as if the feelings weren't there. Her definition of self-esteem does not actually name what we now think is the specific emotion involved in "feeling low," shame. Rather, it follows the contemporary custom of not explicitly naming shame.

Recent developments in theory and method now provide a way of detecting low-visibility shame and demonstrating its role in behavior. The first step was taken by Gottschalk and Gleser, who developed reliable scales for inferring emotion from verbal statements. Although much of their focus is on detecting low-visibility anger and anxiety, they also furnish a scale for low-visibility shame (or "shame-anxiety," as they call it [Gottschalk, Winget, and Gleser 1969, 49–52]). Although compatible with Gottschalk and Gleser's approach, the approach taken by Lewis (1971), a psychoanalyst, is much broader. Her laborious, moment-by-moment analysis of the audiotapes of several hundred psycho-

therapy sessions provides the rationale for inferring low-visibility shame from observable external cues, both verbal and nonverbal (loudness, pitch, rate of speech, intonation, and so on). In her study, she demonstrates that, although neither patient nor therapist seemed aware of it, episodes of low-visibility shame occurred in every session.

Lewis divides unacknowledged shame into two basic types: overt, undifferentiated shame; and bypassed shame. Overt, undifferentiated shame involves painful feelings that are not identified as shame by the person experiencing them. Rather, they are labeled with a wide variety of terms that serve to disguise the experience of shame: having low self-esteem, feeling foolish, stupid, ridiculous, inadequate, defective, incompetent, awkward, exposed, vulnerable, insecure, helpless. Our culture provides a great many such codewords. Lewis classifies all the terms listed above as shame markers, because they occurred only in a certain context and only in association with specific types of nonverbal markers . The context always involved a perception of self as negatively evaluated, by either self or other—the basic context for shame. In this context, Lewis always found a change in the patient's manner, characterized by such nonverbal markers as speech disruption (stammers, repetition of words, speech static like "well" or "uhhh," long pauses), lowered or averted gaze, blushing, and, especially noticeable, a sharp drop in the loudness of speech, even to the point of inaudibility.

Both the verbal and nonverbal markers of overt shame can be characterized as forms of "hiding" behavior. The verbal terms hide shame under a disguising label, and the nonverbal forms suggest physical hiding: covering the face with the hands, averting or lowering one's gaze to escape the other's eyes, and using speech disruption or overly quiet speech to hide the content of one's speech and thoughts. At times, but not always, the ideation of the person undergoing overt shame may also involve hiding: "I wanted to disappear"; "I wished that the earth had opened and swallowed me."

Because Lewis's work was based on audiotapes, her markers for shame are limited to verbal and paralinguistic cues. In contrast, our study of the "moment of truth" in "Candid Camera" television shows was based on videotapes, and we found that very flagrant gestural markers of overt shame sometimes accompany verbal and paralinguistic cues or may occur alone (Scheff 1985; Scheff and Retzinger n.d.). When subjects learned they had been caught on camera in what they thought was a private moment, some of them showed extreme hiding behavior: they not only hid their face with both hands, but some also simultane-

ously turned away from the camera, and others even attempted to hide completely. (One man crawled beneath a desk.) We also observed gestures that we interpreted as hiding behavior, although they appeared in what Tomkins (1963) characterized as a "miniaturized" form. For example, at the moment of truth, many subjects began to bring one or both hands up to the face as if to cover it. Instead of covering it, however, they ended up only touching it.

Because the concept of hiding brings together many different types of ideational, verbal, and nonverbal markers, it is a significant aspect of overt shame. It is of considerable interest, therefore, that one of the markers, face touching, has been independently validated by a study with a very different methodology. Edelman (1989) surveyed five different European countries, focusing on the experience of embarrassment. Although the subjects also associated various other gestures with that emotion, face touching was mentioned in all five countries.

To summarize: overt, undifferentiated shame is marked by (1) a context in which self is perceived as negatively evaluated, by either self or other; (2) "hiding" behavior; and/or (3) the use of undifferentiated terms such as those listed above. In these instances, the negative evaluation of self appears to cause so much pain that it interferes with the fluent production of thought or speech, even though the pain is mislabeled.

Like the overt pattern, bypassed shame occurs in a context in which self is perceived as negatively evaluated. But unlike the markers of undifferentiated shame, which are often flagrant and overt, those of bypassed shame may be subtle and covert. Although thought and speech are not obviously disrupted, they take on a speeded-up but repetitive quality that Lewis refers to as "obsessive." Typically, her patients repeated a story or series of stories, talking rapidly and fluently, but not quite to the point. They appeared unable to make decisions, because of seemingly balanced pros and cons ("insoluble dilemmas"). They complained of endless internal replaying of a scene in which they felt criticized or in error. Often they reported that when they first realized the error, they winced or groaned and then immediately began to obsessively focus on the incident. In such situations, the mind seems to be so caught up with the unresolved scene that one feels unable to become directly involved in events in the present, even though there is no obvious disruption. One is somewhat distracted.

The two patterns of shame appear to involve opposite styles of response. In overt shame, the victim feels so much emotional pain that it obviously retards or disrupts thought and speech. In bypassed shame,

the victim avoids the pain before it can be completely experienced, through hyperactive and rapid thought, speech, or actions.

Adler's (1956) theory of human development anticipated Lewis's discovery of the two basic types of unacknowledged shame. Although he did not use the term, Adler described a "feeling of inferiority," that is, shame, that played a central role in his theory. He argued that children's primary need is for love (for what Bowlby [1969] called a "secure attachment"). If love is not available at crucial points, the child can proceed along one of two paths. One path is to develop an "inferiority complex"—to become prone to overt, undifferentiated shame. The other is to compensate by seeking power—to avoid feeling shame by bypassing it, through what we have termed hyperactive and rapid thought, speech, or actions.

Although the two formulations are compatible, Lewis's work marks a significant advance over Adler's. His theory, true to the psychoanalytic genre, uses concepts that are static and highly abstract. For this reason, his propositions, though provocative, are virtually untestable. No one has envisioned the observable markers of feelings of inferiority, the inferiority complex, or the compensatory drive for power. Nor has the process implied by this theory been spelled out in sufficient detail to allow observations to evaluate its accuracy. Through what concrete steps does deprivation of love cause either an inferiority complex or the drive for power? Adler's theory is couched in concepts that are only "black boxes"; the wiring within and between these boxes is not specified. His "theory" is not testable as it stands.

In contrast, Lewis's formulations provide the foundation for a testable theory, because they describe or at least imply observable markers for the major concepts involved and for the events in the connecting causal chain. She also specifies the behavioral manifestations of Adler's structures, allowing their presence or absence to be detected in actual episodes of social interaction. To our knowledge, hers is the first general theory of human behavior with these desirable characteristics.

Although oven shame and bypassed shame appear to be very different in terms of behavior, the difference is one of outer style; the different appearances mask an underlying similarity. Both the slowed-down pattern of overt shame and the speeded-up pattern of bypassed shame are disruptive; both involve rigid and distorted reactions to reality. Both kinds of shame are equally invisible—one is misnamed, the other ignored. These two basic patterns explain how shame might be ubiquitous, yet usually escape notice.

A series of studies by Scheff (1986, 1987, 1989) has shown how Lewis's theory and method can be applied to audiotaped discourse to demonstrate the cycle of insult, humiliation, revenge, counterrevenge, and chronic resentment that characterizes interminable quarrels and silent impasses. Retzinger (1988) reports similar results with videotapes of marital quarrels, using standard methods for rating visual, as well as verbal and paralinguistic, cues. The analysis of audio and videotapes may provide a new path toward establishing a causal relationship involving self-esteem, emotion, and behavior.

The concept of low-visibility shame may give us a key to what has been a very important unsolved problem: the origins of destructive anger. The cause of angry violence, of anger that goes out of control, has always been something of a mystery. We know that anger alone does not usually result in violence, because most anger is of brief duration and relatively low intensity. What, then, is the additional ingredient that results in violence?

The additional ingredient, according to several theorists, is what Lewis (1971) calls unacknowledged shame . She argues that the combination of unacknowledged shame and anger causes a feeling trap, an alternation between shame and anger, taking the form of a chain reaction that can lead to explosive violence. She calls the result humiliated fury —feeling ashamed that one is angry, angry that one is ashamed, and so on, in a sequence that will not subside.

The psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut (1977) uses a somewhat different term, "narcissistic rage," for what seems to be the same state; he identifies it as a compound of shame and rage. A similar concept, which he called "impotent rage," can be found in Nietzsche. Interpreting the feeling of impotence as a variant or cognate for unacknowledged shame, Gottschalk, Winget, and Gleser (1969), Lewis (1971), and Wurmser (1981) all suggest that violence results from a mixture of shame and anger. Similar suggestions have already been mentioned above, particularly in the emphasis that Geen (1968) and Feshbach (1971) place on the role of insult and humiliation in causing aggression.

Lewis's discovery of unacknowledged shame and the affinity between shame and anger provides the basis for an explicit theory of the role of emotion in aggression and violence (Scheff 1987, 1988). According to this theory, pride and shame states almost always depend on the level of deference accorded a person: pride arises from deferential treatment by others ("respect"), and shame from lack of deference ("disrespect"). Gestures that imply respect or disrespect, together with the emotional

response they generate, make up the deference/emotion system, which exerts a powerful influence on human behavior. Because both the level of deference being accorded and the person's emotional reactions are usually not acknowledged, this system has seldom been noticed, much less carefully studied. We will develop this analysis further in our discussion of the Attica prison riot, below.

The theory outlined here is supported by a series of exploratory studies, each study conducted independently, and independent of Lewis's work and the theory developed from it. Katz (1988) analyzed descriptions of several hundred criminal acts: vandalism, theft, robbery, and murder. In many of the cases, Katz found that the perpetrator felt humiliated and had committed the crime as an act of revenge. In some cases, the sense of humiliation was based on actual insults: "[A] typical technique [leading to murder] is for the victim to attack the spouse's deviations from the culturally approved sex role. . . . For example, a wife may accuse her husband of being a poor breadwinner or an incompetent lover . . . or the husband may accuse his wife of being 'bitchy,' 'frigid,' or promiscuous" (1988, 16).

In other cases, it was difficult to assess the degree to which the humiliations were real or imagined. Whatever the realities, Katz's findings support the model of the shame/rage feeling trap. In his analysis of the murder of intimates, he says: "The would-be killer must undergo a particular emotional process. He must transform what he initially senses as an eternally humiliating situation into a blinding rage" (1988, 19). Rather than acknowledging his or her shame, the killer masks it with anger, which is the first step into the abyss of shame/rage, ending in murder. Katz reports similar (though less dramatic) findings with respect to the other kinds of crimes he investigated. Because shame may be the key ingredient in a low level of self-esteem, Katz's study seems to implicate low self-esteem in the causation of criminal acts.

One issue not addressed by Katz's study concerns the conditions under which humiliation is transformed into rage. Because not all humiliation leads to blind rage, there must be some element not indicated in Katz's cases. Studies of family violence by Lansky strongly suggest what this extra element might be. In order to lead to blind rage, the shame component in the emotions that are aroused must be unacknowledged .

Lansky has published several studies of family violence. The first (1984) describes six cases, the second (1987) describes four. Another recent study (Lansky n.d.) analyzes a session with a single couple. In all eleven cases, Lansky reports similar emotional dynamics: violence re-

sulted from the disrespectful and insulting manner that husbands and wives adopted toward each other. Although some insults were overt (cursing, open contempt and disgust), most were more covert (innuendo or double messages). Underhanded disrespect seemed to give rise to unacknowledged shame, which led in turn to anger and violence, as predicted by Lewis. It was difficult for participants to respond to innuendo and double messages; these forms of communication seemed to confuse them. Instead of admitting their upset and puzzlement, they answered in kind. The cycle involves disrespect, humiliation, revenge, counter-revenge, and so on, ending in violence.

Both spouses often seemed unaware of the intense shame their behavior generated, as Lansky described in one of the cases:

A thirty-two-year-old man and his forty-six-year-old wife were seen in emergency conjoint consultation after he struck her. Both spouses were horrified, and the husband agreed that hospitalization might be the best way to start the lengthy treatment that he wanted. As he attempted to explain his view of his difficult marriage, his wife disorganized him with repeated humiliating comments about his inability to hold a job. These comments came at a time when he was talking about matters other than the job. When he did talk about work, she interrupted to say how immature he was compared to her previous husbands, then how strong and manly he was. The combination of building up and undercutting his sense of manliness was brought into focus. As the therapist commented on the process, the husband became more and more calm. . . . After the fourth session, he left his marriage and the hospital for another state and phoned the therapist for an appropriate referral for individual therapy. On follow-up some months later, he had followed through with treatment. (Lansky 1984, 34–35; emphasis added)

The wife's humiliation of the husband in this case was not disguised through innuendo; rather, her disparagement was overt. Her shaming tactics were disguised by her technique of first building him up by stating how "strong and manly" he was, then cutting him down. Perhaps she managed to confuse herself with this tactic as much as she confused him.

Lack of awareness of shame can be seen in Lansky's (n.d.) report of a conjoint session with a violent man and his wife. In this case, the wife dressed in a sexually provocative way, and her bearing and manner toward the interviewer were overtly seductive. Yet neither spouse acknowledged her activity, even when the interviewer asked them whether the wife was ever seductive toward other men. Although both answered affirmatively, their answers concerned only past events; there was an astonishing lack of comment on what was occurring at that very moment

in the interview. It would seem that blind rage requires not only shaming and shame but also blindness toward these two elements.