A functionalist account of shame-induced behaviour

Abstract

Recent research has shown that shame activates both a restore and a protect motive (De Hooge, Zeelenberg, & Breugelmans, 2010), explaining the hitherto unexpected finding that shame can lead to both approach and avoidance behaviours. In the present article we show a clear difference in priority and development of restore and protect motives over time. Our experiment reveals that shame mainly motivates approach behaviour to restore the damaged self, but that this restore motive decreases when situational factors make it too risky or difficult to restore. In contrast, the motive to protect one's damaged self from further harm is not influenced by such situational factors. As a consequence, the approach behaviour that shame activates may change over time. These findings add to our understanding of the motivational processes and behaviours following from shame.

Keywords:

• Shame
• Motivation
• Restore
• Protect
• Approach behaviour

Notes

¹A closely related emotion to shame is guilt (Tangney, 1999). However, guilt could not explain the effects on the restore or protect motives: in all analyses, adding reported guilt as a covariate showed non-significant effects, while the effects of reported shame remained significant.

²The effects of our manipulation on Restore, Protect, and on Task choice cannot be explained by other emotions than shame. Regression analyses with the reported emotions satisfaction, embarrassment, pride, guilt, regret, relief, anger, and happiness as predictors and Restore, Protect, or Task choice as dependent variables showed no significant effects.