Shame

Shame is an important mechanism in much of the world for discouraging unethical behavior. Shame may be defined as public censure and disapproval, whereas honor, its opposite, is public affirmation. Shame and honor may be endowed by one’s inherited circumstances or family station, but they also serve as negative and positive reinforcements of behavior. Shame takes many forms, including embarrassment, humiliation, loss of face, ridicule, punishment, expulsion from the family, and exile.

Relationship-Oriented Cultures Shame-based regulation of behavior is most prevalent in relationship-oriented cultures, which rely heavily on personal supervision. This is because the experience of shame, in the sense intended here, requires that other people take note of one’s behavior. A relationship orientation is typically found in non-Western countries. Direct supervision plays a central role in relationshiporiented cultures because authority resides in persons rather than in rules. Rules may be laid down, but they receive their legitimacy from the persons who lay

them down, such as parents, teachers, husbands, bosses, elders, or political leaders. These are also high-context cultures, in the sense that behavior norms need not be spelled out explicitly but are learned from the context of everyday life. Activities that superiors allow to proceed without immediate censure are assumed to be permissible.

Relationship-based behavior regulation can be seen in countless everyday business contexts. For example, department stores in relationship-based countries typically ask customers to pay a central cashier rather than the sales person who showed them the merchandise. The customer then brings a receipt to the sales person to pick up the items purchased. The reason for the central cashier is that direct and constant supervision of persons who handle money is viewed as necessary, and it is easier to supervise one person than many. Loss of face is a particularly important mechanism for enforcing behavior norms, as for instance in many Asian cultures. Exposure of bribery in the news media, for example, may lead to loss of face that is highly damaging to one’s personal and professional life even if there are no legal consequences. Loss of face is a powerful force, however, that must be managed with care in everyday business situations. For example, a boss who criticizes employees in front of their coworkers can cause serious loss of face that could lead to poor morale or resignations. It can also result in loss of face for the boss, and consequent erosion of authority, since the boss exhibited poor management skills. Generally, a boss should not cause employees to lose face unless they have already done so by demonstrating gross incompetence in front of their peers or unless their conduct is truly immoral rather than merely inept.

A relationship orientation tends to be associated with an ethic of care, which in turn stems from a conception of human nature defined by relatedness to others. In Confucian cultures, for example, one scarcely exists apart from the family, and in many African cultures, the village, not the individual, is the unit of human existence. As a result, one’s first concern is for those with whom one is connected—the extended family, friends, village, tribe, or ethnic group—since this is in essence concern for oneself. Cronyism and 1900———Shame nepotism, frowned on in the Western business world, may represent high moral virtue. Shame-based cultures do not reject justice but view it as a derivative value when it applies. Justice is important to the extent that it is grounded in the fact that caring for significant others is tantamount to caring for oneself. Shame is the primary form of social regulation because it results from a failure to care. Shame-based cultures may be susceptible to corruption in the form of bribery and kickbacks,

since personal relationships are necessary to getting things done. There is a constant temptation to create a relationship quickly by exchanging favors rather than by going through the long process of building mutual trust.

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