Abstract
We examined the role that witnesses play in triggering humiliation. We hypothesized that witnesses trigger humiliation because they intensify the two core appraisals underlying humiliation: unfairness and internalization of a devaluation of the self. However, we further propose that witnesses are not a defining characteristic of humiliating situations. Results of a preliminary study using an event-recall method confirmed that witnesses were as characteristic of humiliating episodes as of those that elicited shame or anger. In Experiments 1 and 2, we manipulated the presence (vs. absence) of witnesses when a professor devalued participants and the hostile tone of this devaluation. As hypothesized, in both experiments, witnesses indirectly increased humiliation via the appraisal of unfairness. Results of Experiment 2 revealed that the presence of witnesses also interacted with hostility, enhancing humiliation. As expected, this moderating effect occurred via the other key appraisal of humiliation (i.e., internalization).
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 32-47 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research and the preparation of this article were supported by the Research Fund Grant PID2019-108478GB-I00 from the Spanish State Agency for Research—Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Keywords
- emotion
- humiliation
- self-concept
- shame
- witnesses