"Shame"

The locus classicus for the differences between "shame" and "guilt" is the Piers and Singer volume (1971 [1953]). In brief, that source shows that the early idea division was between "shame societies" whose members do not internalize the values of the society and "guilt societies" where the values are internalized. Shame-motivated conformity is based in avoiding disapproval from fellow group members, while guilt motivates conformity through the effectiveness of the internalized values alone. Spiro, together with Piers in the latter's separate but contemporaneous formulation, rejects the notion that shame does not involve internalization of values. He holds that shame is distinguished by the fact that although values are internalized, the socializing agents for those values are not (Spiro 1958:406–422, Piers and Singer 1971 [1953]:25–33).

The position here is closer to Obeyesekere's, which sees "shame" and

"guilt" as both referring to actors' reactions or contemplations of wrongdoing. In his view, the experience of shame is directly and necessarily related to social life, whereas guilt is not. While shame may involve internalization of the values whose violation is the process of interest, it does not depend on it. Obeyesekere (1981:131) puts this as follows:

If . . . guilt were never given language formulation [because it is a primary mental process rooted in infantile experience] this was not true of shame. The [Sinhala] language has a complicated, incredibly large, subtly graded vocabulary of shame and its associated ideas pertaining to honor, status, loss of self-esteem, ridicule, vulnerability to slights, deference behavior, prestige and so forth. . . . Shame is a social emotion, though when it is internalized in a conscience it can act as a powerful mechanism of social control. Fundamentally, shame orients the individual to the reaction of others: he wants their approval and fears disapproval and ridicule.

I will follow Obeyesekere in the use of "shame" as referring to the actor's experienced or anticipated emotional discomfort arising from his understanding of the evaluation of his acts, omissions, or qualities made by others. Definition aside, it is an empirical fact that Swahili informants say that aibu sometimes results from the understanding that others do or will know about an act or quality and will evaluate it negatively. The informants also make it unmistakably clear that aibu can and does result from the actor believing that others view him as acting badly even if he himself considers his acts and qualities entirely proper and acceptable.

Finally, as we will see, informants also say that actors viewing their own behavior as unacceptable experience unpleasant emotions whether or not they understand that others share their views of what they did. These latter emotions are understood within the group as different from aibu, what I am calling "shame."

There is no reason to legislate here about the meaning of "shame" and the similarity between shame in this community and in all others. It is, however, my empirically based opinion that in the segment of American society in which I live, an emotion indistinguishable from Swahili shame exists, and the same is true of the two other societies in which I have done extensive fieldwork, Truk and Bena. Given the universal importance of evaluation in all societies, I find it difficult to believe that there are societies in which people do not experience bad feelings related to actual or anticipated unfavorable evaluations by others, but the concern with and intensity of such feelings probably differs measurably. I am sure that the Swahili experience such feelings, as well as talk about them, and that they influence their behavior. That is what is crucial for this discussion, which, however, may well have some hypotheses that apply generally.