Resolving the paradox of shame: differentiating among specific appraisal-feeling combinations explains pro-social and self-defensive motivation

Research has shown that people can respond both self-defensively and pro-socially when they experience shame. We address this paradox by differentiating among specific appraisals (of specific self-defect and concern for condemnation) and feelings (of shame, inferiority, and rejection) often reported as part of shame. In two Experiments (Study 1: N = 85; Study 2: N = 112), manipulations that put participants’ social-image at risk increased their appraisal of concern for condemnation. In Study 2, a manipulation of moral failure increased participants’ appraisal that they suffered a specific self-defect. In both studies, mediation analyses showed that effects of the social-image at risk manipulation on self-defensive motivation were explained by appraisal of concern for condemnation and felt rejection. In contrast, the effect of the moral failure manipulation on pro-social motivation in Study 2 was explained by appraisal of a specific self-defect and felt shame. Thus, distinguishing among the appraisals and feelings tied to shame enabled clearer prediction of pro-social and self-defensive responses to moral failure with and without risk to social-image

when history teaching turns into parrhesia the case of italian colonial crimes

The aim of this chapter was to highlight the importance and the consequentiality of a specific kind of history education that happens when teachers decide to openly narrate to their students the crimes committed by previous generations of their own group—crimes so far kept silenced and literally denied in the general social discourse. According to Foucault's categorization of different kinds of truth's speaking, we propose to call parrhesia this history teaching. After reviewing theoretical stances on consequences expected for young people receiving this kind of history education, empirical evidence is discussed referring to recent researches conducted on chosen case studies. Data suggest that knowledge conveyed by parrhesiastic historical teaching on previously silenced ingroup crimes allow young students to morally distance themselves from wrongdoings of older generations

Applying Perceptual Treatments for Reducing Operating Speeds on Curves: A Driving Simulator Study for Investigating Driver’s Speed Behavior

The aim of this driving simulator study is to investigate the effectiveness of different speed-reducing measures on a sharp curve of an existing road. Specifically, three perceptual treatments (white peripheral transverse bars, red peripheral transverse bars and optical speed bars) and chevrons are tested by means of a driving simulator over a randomly selected sample of forty-four drivers. The observed driving speeds are finally compared to those recorded under a baseline condition (with no treatment). Results confirmed the enormous potential of driving simulators in assessing the viability and design of several speed-reducing measures, especially those related to drivers’ perceptions that are strongly based on human factors issues, thereby allowing the selection of the most effective one in terms of cost reduction and safety promotion, in view of its actual implementation on the field

Predicting support for social action: how values, justice-related variables, discrete emotions, and outcome expectations influence support for the Stolen Generations

The Stolen Generations are Indigenous Australians who were taken from their homes by the State and placed in children’s homes or foster care. This study investigated relations between the values held by Non-Indigenous Australians and willingness to support a hypothetical organization set up to repair the damage caused. Participants (N = 235) completed the Schwartz Portrait Values Questionnaire followed by items concerning their perceived responsibility; Indigenous deservingness; feelings of pleasure, anger, guilt, regret, shame, and sympathy; their support for the organization; and how efficacious they expected their support would be. It was found at the bivariate level that support was positively associated with self-transcendence values (universalism, benevolence) and negatively associated with both self-enhancement (power, achievement, hedonism) and security values. A path analysis implied that universalism values influenced support via the justice-related variables of perceived responsibility and undeserved treatment, outcome expectations, negative emotions, and sympathy. This study contributes new information about the effects of values on personal willingness to repair past wrongs.N. T. Feather, Lydia Woodyatt, Ian R. McKe

Historical culture and peace. How older generations address the need of younger generations to learn about theier in-group past

This chapter has three aims. First, it aims to disentangle social denial of in-group responsibilities for intergroup violence from other types of silence about intergroup violence. Secondly, it argues that intergenerational narratives which omit information about in-group responsibilities for violence that occurred before the birth of younger generations are highly risky to the descendants of perpetrators. Finally, it emphasises the importance of exploring in greater depth the understudied moment when a literal social denial about past in-group war crimes is exposed. To support these aims, the chapter presents results from a recent mixed methods, quasi-experimental study, which used between- and within-subject comparisons. The study asked young Italian university students to read an explicit text (“detailed text”) vs. a more nuanced one (“mild text”) about Italian war crimes occurring during the colonial invasion of Ethiopia. Data were collected before reading the text, during the reading and after it. Texts were constructed by manipulating the wording of a single historical narrative, taken from a textbook currently used in Italian high schools. The inclusion of this information in Italian history textbooks is quite recent, taking place approximately 70 years after the end of the war. Prior to this a widespread social denial silenced these crimes and as a result they were largely ignored in general social discourse. Results showed that participants reacted not only to the new information received but also to the way in which it was conveyed. The detailed narrative, by frankly taking a moral stance on past violence (a strategy that we named, after classic works of Foucault, 1983, parrhesia), provoked a better understanding of information, together with an increase of negative group-based moral emotions. Interestingly, while collective guilt did not differ between participants exposed to a detailed or a mild text, moral emotions distancing young participants from the responsibilities of older generations increased when these crimes were clearly exposed