Shame is an innate emotional response to situations that cause embarrassment, exposure, or humiliation, and can be elicited by a range of work-related scenarios, including errors, unmet targets, critiques, and public setbacks.

Research from Wharton explores the role shame plays in establishing the culture of an organization. The researchers argue that shame can be such a horrible feeling that it can actually act as a positive driving force for social cohesion. For instance, when someone is singled out and shamed, those around quickly cotton on that such behavior is not welcome and strive to avoid similar feelings of shame themselves.

Normative control

“Organizations are inherently interested in aspects of normative control. Shame has a major influence on this. It affects what people do and what they will avoid doing,” the researchers explain. “Shame can be something that aligns people to organizational goals, or it can be something that creates problems. That is why it is critical to attend to.”

As a result, it’s important that managers are able to understand the kind of emotions that underpin the culture in their organization. What are some of the factors that might drive emotions like pride and shame at work? If managers are able to ask these kinds of questions then they can uncover a range of hidden norms that influence behavior.

The researchers explain that most previous work on the topic has focused primarily on the person experiencing shame rather than those who observe it. They were especially keen to understand how shame impacts social cohesion, and conducted five experiments to explore its effect.

“We are socialized not to show shame or express it because it is an emotion that is often associated with lower status,” the researchers continue. “It’s not as though we don’t feel it or it doesn’t exist — it’s just invisible. It’s there, it’s operating and it’s affecting us, but we don’t label it and don’t name it.”