Emotions Of Manners Analysis

The Emotions of Manners: Shame, Guilt and Embarrassment

In this essay I will have a closer look on three of the emotions connected to manners and social conduct: shame, guilt and embarrassment. As expressions the three are often used interchangeable, so first I will look at the differences and similarities of the three using examples, definitions and the results of a study on the characteristics of them. After that, I will put them in context of Cas Wouters’ paper “How civilizing processes continued: towards an informalization of manners and a third nature personality” which was published in The Sociological Review. I have chosen to omit the debate of shame-cultures versus guilt-cultures, and rather emphasize the repercussions these emotions

One of the things he writes about is the emancipation of emotions and the development of a third-nature personality. In the following paragraph, I will try to explain this development in a simplified way.

First-nature is our primal and basic emotions, emotions that are necessary to control when living a society. In the civilizing process the control of these emotions have become internalized and a part of our very being, or in other words they become a second-nature. The second-nature serves as suppressor of the first-nature emotions, as well as internalizing the standards of social conduct. Nineteenth century culture regarded suppression of first-nature emotions as a necessity. Even the mere thought of these emotions was believed to put one in the danger of dishonourable conduct. The third-nature appeared, according to Wouters, as a consequence of the ‘loosening up’ of social standards and the acknowledgment of our first-nature. He argues that people’s ability to self-regulate «dangerous» emotions and thoughts have become so strong that these can now be openly admitted to and discussed without fear of acting upon them. In addition, one can do so without feeling shame. Our emotions have been emancipated (Wouters