Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Evolution and Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ens The true trigger of shame: social devaluation is sufficient, wrongdoing is unnecessary Theresa E. Robertson a, ⁎ ,1 , Daniel Sznycer b, ⁎⁎ ,1 , Andrew W. Delton a , John Tooby c , Leda Cosmides c a Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States b University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada c University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, United States ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Shame Emotion Social exclusion ABSTRACT What is the trigger of shame? The information threat theory holds that shame is an evolved adaptation that is designed to limit the likelihood and costs of others forming negative beliefs about the self. By contrast, attri- butional theories posit that concerns over others' evaluations are irrelevant to shame. Instead, shame is triggered when a person attributes a negative outcome to their self, rather than to a particular act or circumstance. We conduct a strong test of the information threat hypothesis. In Study 1, participants imagined taking an action that, though morally unimpeachable, could be interpreted unfavorably by others. As predicted by the in- formation threat theory, shame increased with the publicity of this act. In Study 2, participants played a public good game and then learned that the other participants either chose to keep interacting with them (inclusion) or not (exclusion)—ostensibly because of their contributions, but in fact randomly determined by the experimenter. Exclusion increased shame. Under-contribution did not. In fact, even the highest contributors tended to feel shame when excluded. These findings strongly suggest that the true trigger of shame is the prospect or actuality of being devalued by others. 1. Introduction In 1998, Joseph Dick, a Navy seaman on the USS Saipan, was ac- cused of the rape and murder of Michelle Bosko (Bikel, 2010). He confessed. He was tried and convicted. He served 12 years in prison. Eventually, he expressed how ashamed he was over this act by publicly apologizing to the victim's family. It seems at first there is no mystery here. No one is surprised when a person found guilty of a crime feels ashamed of what they have done. Such a person has been forced to face his own moral shortcoming and realize his personal failure. Most people would probably feel ashamed in that situation. The problem? Dick could not have committed the crimes he pro- fessed shame over. At the time, he was on duty aboard his ship and could not have left. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. And DNA evidence matched another man, who testified to acting alone. Yet after a great deal of aggressive interrogation by police, who insisted that he was responsible, he gave in and confessed. In the face of so many people insisting he was guilty, he came to feel responsible and ashamed for something he had not actually done. Joseph Dick was eventually convinced to confess, but even people who maintain their innocence in the face of a wrongful accusation or conviction often feel ashamed. They feel shame merely “because the system has declared [them] publicly guilty” (Wilson, 2002)—even though there is no moral shortcoming or personal failure. Why do people feel shame when others falsely believe they have done some- thing wrong? 1.1. Why do the innocent sometimes feel shame? One type of explanation for shame comes from attributional theories of shame: On this view, shame is activated when two conditions are met: (a) there is an event or outcome that is incongruent with one's re- presentations of one's current or ideal self (e.g., failing an exam, if one aspires to be a good student), and (b) one attributes that event or outcome to one's stable, global self (e.g. blaming that failure on one's low intelligence) (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007; Tracy & Robins, 2004). Thus, shame is driven by failure to live up to one's own standards or aspirations, with one's acts re- flecting negatively on oneself (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.05.010 Received 2 December 2017; Received in revised form 30 May 2018; Accepted 30 May 2018 ⁎ Correspondence to: T. E. Robertson, College of Business, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3775, United States. ⁎⁎ Correspondence to: D. Sznycer, Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada. 1 These authors share first authorship. E-mail addresses: theresa.robertson@stonybrook.edu (T.E. Robertson), daniel.sznycer@umontreal.ca (D. Sznycer). Evolution and Human Behavior 39 (2018) 566–573 1090-5138/ Published by Elsevier Inc. T