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Smart-shaming and our Pinoy culture of anti-intellectualism

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The Public-Shaming Pandemic

By D. T. Max

On February 18th, Nga Nguyen, an Instagram influencer who likes travel and couture, flew from London—her “base”—to Milan, where she attended Gucci’s spring show. The fashion house picked up the bill for the flight and the hotel. Nga, who is twenty-eight, explained to me, “I have a very good relationship with all the brands, whether as a long-term client or just as a friend.” She was joined in Milan by her sister, Nhung, who is a year younger and lives in Hanoi, where she manages a luxury hotel that their family owns. A week after the Gucci event, the sisters took the Eurostar to Paris, for the Saint Laurent show; they then went to London, where they stayed at Nga’s house. On March 1st, Nhung flew back to Vietnam and Nga made a short business trip to Germany, where she also took a relative to a doctor’s appointment. In the examination room, Nga coughed slightly. “The doctor looked up and suggested a coronavirus test,” she recalled. “I thought he was joking.”

The doctor swabbed a mucus sample from Nga’s nose, and told her to go to the relative’s house and wait. She remembers feeling fine, but that evening she developed a fever, and her cough worsened. Two days later, she had pneumonia, and her coronavirus test was positive. A runner who can normally cover four miles in half an hour, she could barely walk. On March 12th, emergency workers took Nga to the hospital. She remained there for more than a week, then returned to her relative’s house, where she eventually made a full recovery. Now back in London, she feels “very grateful for the care” that she received in Germany.

When Nhung arrived in Hanoi, she passed through an airport checkpoint, and had no fever. But she began coughing that night. Four days later, she became Hanoi’s first confirmed Covid -19 patient. She spent two weeks in isolation at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, then went home to quarantine. She, too, has recovered and is thankful to the doctors who treated her.

The sisters’ experience differed in one crucial way. European Union nations have strong privacy protections, and no one besides Nga’s family and a few friends knew that she had Covid -19. Nhung’s case became public knowledge. Before she received her diagnosis, Vietnam had a small number of coronavirus cases outside the capital, and the outbreak had dwindled to nothing. A Vietnamese journalist told me, “The government was thinking of declaring Vietnam free of an epidemic.” Nhung spoiled the plan. The authorities, determined to make other Hanoi residents stay home, especially in Nhung’s neighborhood, made a show of locking down her street. That wasn’t all: the Vietnamese government, which regularly uses newspaper leaks to persuade or frighten its citizens, invited the press to watch a live stream of a meeting about the young woman’s medical condition. Within an hour of articles about the meeting being published, people on the Internet had figured out who Nhung was and found her social-media accounts.

In less than a day, Nhung’s Instagram account had ten thousand new followers—and many of them were attacking her. Things got so out of control that she changed her account setting to private. Although she was lying in a hospital bed, people kept claiming to see her bustling about the city. One user came across a photograph of a woman who looked like Nhung at the grand opening of a Uniqlo, and reposted the image on Instagram, announcing to her followers that Nhung was partying while sick. Another user posted a picture of a different look-alike walking along Ta Hien, Hanoi’s night-life strip, and suggested that Nhung was casually infecting passersby. Next came a rumor that Nhung had gone to visit her boyfriend in Vinhomes Times City, an upscale district.

The Vietnamese government, clearly committed to making an example of Nhung, let it be known that when she flew home from London she did not mention her visit to Italy. Not only had Nhung apparently infected her sister; according to officials, she was the probable source of infection of ten other people on the flight, all of whom tested positive shortly afterward, as well as the driver who picked her up from the airport, her housekeeper, and one of her aunts. Some of the infected airplane passengers were British tourists, leading the Daily Mail to proclaim that Nhung was a “super-spreader.” The Vietnamese government posted photographs of Nhung in her hospital room—ostensibly to prove that she was recovering—and social-media users marshalled these images to lambaste her yet again.

The wave of anger also reached Nga in Europe. She was pictured in articles about the fashion industry and the spread of Covid -19. It made no difference that she appeared not to have infected anyone. “The people I interacted with during Fashion Week were all fine,” she told me. “My photographer and my makeup artist were in close proximity, and they were O.K.” Nevertheless, enraged Vietnamese mined Nga’s Instagram account , including recent photographs from her trip to Milan and Paris, to portray her as heedless and decadent. Trolls dug up an old image of Nga on vacation in Mykonos, dressed in Saint Laurent and standing beside Salt Bae—the Turkish celebrity chef known for the extravagant way he sprinkles salt while cooking. Someone in Vietnam dotted the Mykonos image with bright crown shapes, to suggest that Nga was dispensing the coronavirus like salt. Instagram users gave the image almost eleven thousand likes. One Vietnamese commenter said of Nga, “She has the collective consciousness of a cunt.” Another declared, “Please help me send a fuck you to . . . Nhung’s whole family.”

The source of Nga’s prominence—her glossy Instagram account—became a cudgel to beat her and her sister with. One social-media user tried to pit the Nguyens against each other. “I’ve followed you for a long time because you’re talented,” a woman from the city of Ha Long wrote to Nga. “But I really cannot accept your sister.” She added, “I hope you and your family will recover quickly.”

The attacks hurt the sisters when they were at their most vulnerable. Nhung secluded herself and turned to meditation. Nga told me, “Battling the virus while all these articles are slapping at you makes it harder.” She saw the attacks as examples of class jealousy: “In Vietnam, we are too privileged—we travel too much.” She ascribed the extraordinary attention she and her sister received elsewhere to racism, noting, “If this was Paris Hilton, there would not be so much fuss.”

Public shaming used to take place in the public square. By the nineteenth century, it had moved to the newspaper, and in the twentieth century the forum was television. Today, people are scorned online. The Internet, with its opportunity for anonymity, its absence of gatekeepers, and its magnification of transient hurts, has made it unnervingly easy to generate instant mass outrage. The blog, a venue of self-reflection, has given way to the social-media post, which tends to favor the impulsive attack and the group pile-on.

Digital shaming delivers swift and overwhelming retribution, often unfairly. You don’t even have to be in the right to successfully pillory someone: all you need is to feel that you have been wronged. In 2015, an Australian man at a shopping center took a selfie in front of a poster of Darth Vader and sent it to his kids. A mother standing nearby, mistakenly thinking that the camera was pointed at her children, decided that the man was a predator. She photographed him and posted the image on Facebook, warning, “Take a look at this creep!” The post was shared twenty thousand times. When the man’s partner told him that people online were calling him a pedophile, he drove to the local police station to clear his name. It was too late: he had already been identified on the Internet. He received death threats. After his accuser’s error was revealed, so did she.

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Earlier this year, when Singapore was in lockdown, a local woman was caught on video refusing to wear a mask while ordering at a food stall. The clip went viral, and online commenters misidentified her as Tuhina Singh, the chief executive of a tech company. An online mob doxed Singh—posting her e-mail address and telephone number. She was subjected to attacks until Singapore authorities revealed that the actual culprit was named Paramjeet Kaur. Social-media users then pounced on Kaur, calling her a “Covidiot.”

Digital shaming has its defenders. When wrongdoers are socially powerful, registering frustration with them on such forums as Twitter can seem more like collective resistance than like bullying. The #MeToo movement , for example, has exposed many celebrities, politicians, and executives who have engaged in inappropriate behavior. A similar logic has guided the filming of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Matter . Jennifer Jacquet, a professor at New York University, has argued that digital shaming can succeed when other forms of political action fail: a viral video of environmental destruction can become a worldwide scandal that forces a corporation to adopt greener policies. In a 2015 book, “ Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool ,” Jacquet notes that the mere possibility of public censure is often sufficient to keep people in line: “At its most efficient, a sense of shame can regulate personal behavior and reduce the risk of more extreme types of punishment.” She recently told MSNBC that the Covid -19 pandemic is opening up “a lot of opportunity with shaming”—though she cautioned that people should condemn “a broad sweeping behavior,” such as gathering in large groups indoors, rather than harass “a particular individual.”

Online shaming may not be as brutal as the Puritan stocks, but it can be devastating in its scale: a target of ire who is trending on Twitter might receive hundreds of humiliating messages per second. Sometimes digital campaigns go too far even for those who unleash them. This past spring, a New Yorker named Christian Cooper went bird-watching in Central Park, and asked a woman to put her dog on a leash. When she refused, he began filming her, and she responded by calling the cops and telling them pointedly that “an African-American man” was “threatening” her. His sister posted the video on Twitter. “She needs a good public shaming,” one user said. “Do your thing Twitter.” Millions of people watched the clip, and the woman—a business executive named Amy Cooper—became so notorious that the investment firm where she worked fired her. Amy Cooper’s behavior was appalling, but Christian Cooper seemed a little shaken by the backlash against her, telling the Times , “I’m not excusing the racism, but I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.”

Lawrence Garbuz is a fifty-one-year-old trusts-and-estates lawyer. He lives in New Rochelle, in Westchester County, and works at a firm, in midtown Manhattan, that he co-founded with his wife, Adina Lewis. They have four children, including one at Yeshiva University and another at a high school in the Bronx.

One day in February, Garbuz developed a cough and a fever. At the time, nearly all Americans known to have Covid -19 had gone abroad or been in contact with others who had. Garbuz had hardly travelled recently, and he sat at his desk all day, so he wasn’t worried about being infected.

Yet he continued to feel worse, and, after his doctor suggested that he go to the hospital, a friend drove him to one in Bronxville. An X-ray appeared to show ordinary pneumonia, so no special measures were taken to isolate him when he was admitted. Garbuz is an active member of a synagogue in New Rochelle, and part of Jewish tradition is to visit the sick. As many as a dozen friends and family members went to see him. After four days, he was having such difficulty breathing that he was intubated and transferred to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital—again without special precautions. There, on March 2nd, he was given a Covid -19 diagnosis and placed in a medical coma, so that he could be on a ventilator without discomfort. Three weeks later, Garbuz was out of danger. By then, more than twenty-three thousand people in New York State had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Before Garbuz went to the Bronxville hospital, he had attended a funeral and a b’nai mitzvah—unknowingly exposing more than a hundred families. Unfortunately, he appears to have been an efficient spreader of the virus: his wife, his two children who lived at home, his friend who drove him to the hospital, and a nurse who treated him soon tested positive for the virus. In all, Garbuz was at the center of an outbreak of ninety infections.

His diagnosis was reported at a time when America was still hoping to avoid the devastation that had occurred in China and Italy. On March 3rd, New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, tweeted the name of Garbuz’s law firm—Lewis and Garbuz—and mentioned where his children attended school. The Mayor’s intention was to alert anyone who might have come into contact with the family, but the effect was to violate a patient’s privacy. A surprised commenter asked on Twitter, “Can you really spill this much info about a person if they test positive?”

Adina Lewis had long used social media to chronicle the turns of her personal life. After de Blasio’s tweet, she wrote on Facebook, “I ask all of us who are running on the hamster wheel of life, particularly us New Yorkers, to learn from this and take a moment to take care of yourself.” Most Facebook users who commented on her post wished her husband a quick recovery. A woman named Nora Madonick said, “That anyone would consider this anything other than a terribly unfortunate situation with no possible blame is unthinkable.” Others were lacerating. A young man whom the Garbuzes had never met posted, “I hope your business never rebounds for what your husband has brought upon us.” The hostility directed at the family spread beyond the digital realm. A New Rochelle laundry refused to wash the family’s clothes, and for more than a week their mail stopped being delivered; only after Lewis complained to the town’s mayor did it resume.

On Purim, Lewis returned to Facebook to wish others a happy holiday, and commented that she was trying to see the “blessing” in “this cluster of virus.” Perhaps her husband was “a messenger of something good,” and “his illness was able to make us all aware of the problem.” She reminded people that her husband hadn’t had any known risk factors. “Let’s all stay rational and calm,” she urged. “Let’s continue to find the humor in the absurdity of it all. I look forward to being able to laugh about the time we were all ‘coronaed’ (a verb I just made up) with all of you.”

The post elicited more than four hundred comments—many of them scathing. A resident of Rye wrote, “A blessing?,” and went on, “He did not go to one party he went to three. He continued to travel on metro north. He was coughing. His hands were filled with germs. Anyone he touched got sick. . . . It was thoughtless and reckless.” A man from Queens wrote, “He kept going to the synagogue where the rabbi and other congregants tested positive who then spread it to hundreds of people and now New York has over 20,000 cases and 157 people are dead in the city and people can’t pay their rent. Don’t call this a blessing.” Another commenter said, “I did have a family member pass due to Covid -19. I will not hail your husband as a hero!” Then there was the young man who had told Lewis that he hoped her husband’s career would not recover. “He deserves to die,” he wrote. “He’s a scumbag. Endangered hundreds of thousands of people. He will never be able to live in New York again after this and he deserves it.”

People with contagious diseases have often been targets of shaming. In 1907, Mary Mallon , a cook for wealthy families in New York, was confirmed as the first healthy carrier of typhoid bacteria. She had inadvertently infected seven of the eight families she worked for. Mallon was ordered into quarantine but did not accept responsibility: how could she infect others if she wasn’t sick? She was released from quarantine after agreeing not to work as a cook again. But she changed her name and began cooking for a new household, causing more infections. Forcibly returned to quarantine, she was denounced in newspapers and given a memorable nickname: Typhoid Mary. One article featured an illustration of a woman frying skulls in a skillet. In a letter that Mallon wrote in 1909, she lamented that she had become “a peep show for everybody.”

During the flu epidemic of 1918 , the U.S. was at war, and many officials used the language of patriotism to encourage compliance with policies that staved off infection. In San Francisco, masks became mandatory, and that October a hundred residents of the city were arrested for violating the rule. (Most pleaded forgetfulness.) The Chronicle published a list naming many of the offenders, explaining, “The man or woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker.”

Shaming has been part of each subsequent epidemic, from AIDS to SARS , but nothing prepared the world for the ubiquity of it during the Covid -19 crisis. At a time when ordinary social life has nearly been eliminated, social-media use is soaring, and ordinary acts can be dangerous, almost every day is punctuated with multiple waves of online outrage. People have been shamed for stockpiling toilet paper and paper towels, for going to stores to buy groceries, and for having them delivered. They have been shamed for not wearing a mask, or for wearing medical-grade masks on the street. They have been shamed for paying too much attention to their health, and for not being mindful enough. In the U.K., the police have deployed drone footage to embarrass dog walkers for using their pets as a pretext for engaging in nonessential activities. In Florida, a man dressed as the Grim Reaper, who has reminded people on beaches to keep their distance, has received death threats online.

Digital shaming seems to become particularly virulent when there is no agreement on what constitutes correct behavior. Many Covid -19 statutes are vague; the epidemiology behind the disease is in flux. How close is too close for sunbathing beachgoers? Are neck gaiters worthless at containing your droplets, or just as effective as traditional masks? Meanwhile, the U.S. is being led by a President who derives part of his political power from belittling expertise. To the consternation of liberals, he has resisted wearing a mask, and his disdain has been mirrored by many of his followers, who condemn mask-wearers as “sheeple.”

When two brothers from Tennessee amassed nearly eighteen thousand bottles of hand sanitizer to resell on the Internet, social-media users devoured them. “I hope that man from Tennessee overdoses on sanitizer for being such a useless, repulsive piece of shit,” a woman from New Jersey tweeted. Abashed, the brothers agreed to donate the goods instead. One of them issued a public apology, saying, “If by my actions anyone was directly impacted and unable to get sanitizer from one of their local stores because I purchased it all I am truly sorry.” He then told the Times , “That’s not who I am as a person. And all I’ve been told for the last 48 hours is how much of that person I am.” The Augusta Chronicle , declaring justice well served, said , “The vast court of public opinion is superbly suited to shame morally ambiguous opportunists.”

Even though the public has treated superspreaders as if they had intended to transmit the disease to others, incidents in which someone has deliberately spread Covid -19 to unsuspecting people have been virtually nonexistent. In March, ABC News reported that the F.B.I. had advised local law enforcement that far-right groups were planning to give the virus to their enemies, by sending infected supporters to Jewish services and spraying police officers with infected fluid. No such acts have occurred.

When the pandemic began, Wojciech Rokita, a gynecologist and obstetrician in Kielce, Poland, was also serving as a governmental health consultant for the region surrounding the city. Under his direction, the area’s neonatal mortality rate had gone from the worst in the nation to the best. In 2018, when he was fifty-two, his peers elected him the head of the Polish Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians. Rokita, a prideful perfectionist, was known for upbraiding subordinates who made mistakes.

On March 8th, before Poland had any known cases of Covid -19, Rokita and his wife joined another couple on a skiing vacation in the Swiss Alps. At the ski resort, Rokita, who had helped establish guidelines for handling infected obstetric patients in the event of a coronavirus outbreak in Poland, frequently checked the news to monitor the infection’s spread in Europe. Concerned that an outbreak in Switzerland was becoming acute, he drove his party home earlier than expected, returning to Kielce on March 11th. While they were away, Poland had reported its first case of Covid -19. Three days after he got home, the country shut its borders.

Because Rokita’s job involved contact with patients, he got tested. The results took thirty hours to come back. In the meantime, he ran a few errands, including picking up his wife’s car from a BMW repair shop. Later that day, he was informed that he was positive. He began quarantining at the hospital where he worked, and spoke to the regional office of the state health agency, giving it names of people with whom he had been in contact.

Echo Dnia , a tabloid, soon learned that the first patient in the region to test positive was a local doctor. The paper posted the news online, and within thirty minutes Rokita had been named in the comments section. One of the employees at the BMW dealership claimed that Rokita had not kept a safe distance from workers. The tabloid didn’t mention that he had not received his test results at the time. Some nurses at Rokita’s hospital told the paper that he had also dropped by his workplace, violating sanitary measures. Outraged comments proliferated, including from people who knew him personally. “I’m certainly not going to let this go just because—thank God—I didn’t go to my appointment,” a hospital worker who was also a private patient of Rokita’s wrote, anonymously. “He could have consciously and deliberately infected me.” She added, “I wonder how many women weren’t as lucky as I was last week.” Video surveillance showed no sign of Rokita’s having been at the hospital before he started quarantining there. (The paper deleted the hospital worker’s comments—eventually.)

A commenter on the Echo Dnia Web site said of Rokita, “Someone should spit in his face.” Another wrote, “If he went skiing during the epidemic, and he’s really a doctor, then I think he’s a brainless moron.” Rokita’s cell phone was so overwhelmed by vitriolic calls that his family couldn’t get through to him. They began to worry that someone would burn down their house.

On March 14th, Rokita, voluntarily confined inside the hospital, called Echo Dnia and begged for the harassment to stop. The editor told Rokita that limiting comments about him on the paper’s Facebook page would only anger people more. According to his daughter Karolina, the editor tried to persuade Rokita to speak to one of the tabloid’s reporters, so that his reputation could be restored; her father said that he would consider it. Two days later, the press reported seven hundred and thirty-four new suspected infections in Poland. Everyone was worried, and some people sensed a conspiracy. The next day, someone wrote on Echo Dnia’s Facebook page, “Enough of this fucking collusion and sweeping things under the rug!”

Rokita tried to assure his family that the drama would soon blow over, but privately he was in agony. Karolina told me, “He was overwhelmed. Not only with the amount of hate comments, messages, phone calls he was receiving—even at 4 a.m. —but also with the fact that the attack came from people he knew and had helped in the past.” Rokita was touched when an old friend texted him with a simple message: “How are you feeling?” Rokita wrote back, “I’m still alive.”

That day, he FaceTimed Karolina from the hospital. She asked him if he was as sad as he looked. “I’m just tired,” he said. “Very tired.” That evening, his wife called his cell phone, but he didn’t pick up. The next day, Echo Dnia reported that Rokita had killed himself. The newspaper got this information before the family did. An online commenter soon revealed that Rokita had died by hanging.

Karolina thinks that her father’s act was intended to end the witch hunt against their family. She told me, “The same way we were scared for him, he was scared for us.”

Eventually, even the fiercest shaming campaign dies down. Public interest fades, and painful tweets disappear from everybody’s screens. Who still remembers such scandals as #PlaneBreakup or #CecilTheLion? Lawrence Garbuz was discharged from the hospital at the end of March. Since then, he has been at home, healing. When I called him, in July, he politely declined to talk about his experience. “I haven’t Googled my name,” he said. “Probably I don’t want to.” When I reached Nga Nguyen in London, she told me that she is willing to return to fashion shows when they resume, but added, “It’s not my priority.” She has been developing an environmentally responsible line of self-care products, and hopes “to launch by end of year.” She told me that her sister had been “more traumatized,” though Nhung’s infamy is also fading. The Vietnamese journalist I spoke with said of Nhung, “People don’t really care who she is anymore. There’s a kind of rule that, after twenty or thirty days, people should shift their attention.”

The Rokita family’s pain has continued. According to Karolina, no funeral home would take her father’s body. He was cremated, but hospital officials insisted that his family go to a location outside the city limits to take possession of his ashes, as if he had been a medieval leper. (A well-connected doctor persuaded the hospital to reconsider.) The Echo Dnia editor told me that he is sorry about Rokita’s death, though he noted that there is no official explanation for the suicide, and said, “The editorial staff made every effort to minimize the impact of hate appearing in the comment sections.” Yet, even after Rokita died, online posters continued to excoriate him. Some called his suicide a foolish overreaction. Three weeks after Rokita’s death, the respected Warsaw broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza published a sympathetic account of the family’s ordeal, but even that story was greeted with nasty online responses. One poster felt that Rokita shouldn’t have been bothered by all the online denunciations about him. “What interested him in the comments idiots were leaving?” another poster asked. “What a disaster!” This person speculated that Rokita must have had another reason for killing himself: “Maybe he took bribes and was afraid it would get out.”

Nobody in Switzerland is known to have caught the virus from Rokita. His wife and the couple who travelled with them remained healthy. Officials in Kielce cannot trace a coronavirus infection to him. His wife initially had a positive test, but she didn’t get sick, and a retest indicated that she was negative. Accordingly, Rokita’s own test sample is being reëvaluated. The results have been delayed for months and Karolina suspects a coverup, to hide official incompetence. She points out that her father’s Covid -19 test was the first performed in the region. Whereas Nhung and Garbuz almost certainly spread the disease, if unwittingly, Rokita evidently didn’t spread it to anyone. It’s possible that he never had Covid -19 at all.

On February 28th, Rijo Moncy, a twenty-six-year-old radiologist at a hospital in Italy, flew from Venice to Kochi, India, with his parents. (They were all born in India but have lived in Italy since Rijo was a child.) In Kochi, the Moncys, instead of self-quarantining, immediately went out to visit friends and relatives. Soon afterward, an uncle fell ill, followed by Rijo Moncy and nine other family members. Moncy’s ninety-three-year-old grandfather, with whom he shared a special bond, was among the infected.

After the family sought medical attention, their names were leaked to the Indian press. Trolls began attacking them online—with some calling for public floggings. The family were barraged with messages accusing them of deliberately bringing the virus from Italy. “The worst part wasn’t the virus,” Moncy told me. “It was the attacks on social networks.” K. K. Shailaja, the provincial health minister in Kerala, denounced the family as “irresponsible.” The Moncys took refuge in the Bible.

Moncy and his parents eventually went to a medical center in Pathanamthitta, and that’s when things turned around. The hospital gave them good care, and they were not stigmatized. Moncy told the Telegraph India , “They gave us a cake, food packets . . . and some rations which we never expected from a government hospital.” A nurse who treated others in the family caught the virus, but she didn’t get angry about it. “This is our job,” she said. Online, the trolls quieted down after Moncy apologized, in various media, for the family’s mistakes. “We thanked everyone,” he notes. “Even the people who had trolled us.”

Within a month, all the family members had emerged from the hospital, including Moncy’s grandfather—who, as the oldest person in India to recover from Covid -19, became a national hero. “He gave people courage,” Moncy explained to me. In an interview with a national magazine, he said of his grandfather, “Thank God he lives in Kerala. Had he been in Italy or the United States, he would have been left to die.”

Moncy has returned to Italy and gone back to work. He remains amazed that his shaming experience ended positively. Indians learned from his family’s misadventure and grew more tolerant. “There was so much ignorance before,” he told me. Shailaja, the health minister who had castigated them, contacted him after they were discharged. “She is a wonderful person, very smart,” Moncy said. “She called us at home, to see how we were.” The social-media attacks have ended. During the furor, Moncy told me, he had downloaded some of them onto his phone. “I have now erased them,” he added. “So I can try to forget.” ♦

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

“ Sige na, matalino ka na. ” (“Fine, you’re the smart one.”)

Heard this before? It’s a common response to an original thought in the middle of a typical conversation. All of a sudden, what was supposed to be a casual exchange of ideas is halted, where one person puts up a figurative hand that signals, “No more thinking.”

Instead of engaging a person who has something interesting to say, their ideas are perceived as a threat, as if the person were hurling insults instead of stating facts. The offended party feels that the person with a unique thought is making them feel stupid, so if the conversation goes on, they will even say:

“Bobo na ako, sige na. ” (“So I’m the idiot, okay?”)

Why is a meaningful conversation suddenly considered offensive? Why are some people slighted when they don’t understand or are unfamiliar with the topic at hand?

Why is it that when we encounter atypical opinions or articles that question the status quo, its comments frequently contain comments that the author is elitist, over-educated, or too analytical?

Why do we mock critical thought?

Why do we say, “ Ang dami mong alam ! (You’re a know-it-all!)” when we hear someone share a deep thought or provocative question? Why not engage the person and learn? Why do we avoid discussions that require us to think, do our own research, or question beliefs we’ve long held?

Why do we say, “Nosebleed!” when we hear someone speaking English? Even if English is considered a status symbol, it is still taught in all three levels of education. Why we are proud of our difficulty in understanding or speaking it? Why not just ask the other person to speak Filipino if they can? Why not learn the language if we want to be better at it?

The rise of anti-intellectualism

Anti-intellectualism is defined as the  hostility and mistrust  of intellectual pursuits. Those who present an atypical way of thinking are  othered (perceived as different), deemed  a danger to normality , and are considered outsiders with little empathy for the rest of the population. This is the origin of the idea that those who have alternative opinions or are part of a counterculture are elitist, arrogant, matapobre (anti-poor) and aloof.

There is a growing trend of shaming those who take the time to learn more and share their knowledge with others. As if intelligence is now a liability and scratching beneath the surface is a negative, invalidating ideas that go against the grain seems to be more common than being intrigued enough to look further. We ostracize those who think outside the box and say, “ Ikaw na ang magaling! ” (“Aren’t you the great one?”)

Instead of mocking someone for using a word we don’t know or for asking a question we never thought of, why not look up concepts that are foreign to us, instead of dismissing them as unnecessary and saying, “Wow, deep!” Why not ask about a new concept that leaves us stumped instead of mocking its origin or sarcastically saying, “Eh di wow!”

No limit to information

Regardless of one’s financial background, there is no better time than the present to learn about any topic or skill. With free and open access to unlimited information online, there is hardly any excuse to remain complacent about knowledge. But instead this time is spent on putting down the person who is actually curious enough to learn.

I understand the lack of hope that furthering one’s knowledge will actually lead anywhere. It is easy to accept that only the powerful have access to the wisdom of the world and that it’s better to not want more than what is attainable.

But that would be acting as if only the elite have the right to speak, think, discuss, question, or use a foreign tongue. This kind of thinking relegates those who perceive their social status as lower to a state of apathy and complacency. It conditions them to believe that the use of the English language, critical thought, and intellectual discussions are only for those who are rich. How scary is that?

Dangerous sentiment

It’s a dangerous sentiment to leave the thinking and philosophizing to those who have economic power. It’s detrimental to society to be complacent in our contentment and to think that resisting, protesting, or even questioning long-held beliefs and rules is not every person’s duty.

Instead we say, “ Oo na, edukada ka na! ” (Fine! You’re the educated one!),” as if speaking wisely were the same as showing off, that those who do have unconventional ideas only seek to rub it in other people’s faces, and that education is the enemy, instead of the savior.

In history, anti-intellectualism has been used as a  tool by extreme dictatorships to establish themselves and to paint educated people as a threat because they question social norms and question established opinion. In the 1970s, Cambodia’s  Khmer Rouge  executed civilians with more than an elementary education, particularly those who wore glasses because it suggested literacy.

Locally, the rounding up of thinkers and those who presented alternative ideas was done en masse during  martial law  –  a common practice in authoritarian political movements where intellectuals are deemed unpatriotic and subversive and must be removed.

The sentiment that to be wise, curious, and analytical is somehow elitist and harmful causes entire populations to become easy to lead. When intelligence is considered shameful, it favors a blind follower’s mindset where being part of a pack that doesn’t question motives is preferred.

Intellectual freedom is scary

Freedom – especially intellectual freedom – is scary. Those who are frustrated in democracies like ours may find that it is easier to be told what to think and feel and do, instead of deliberating within ourselves who our leaders should be and what we want for our nation.

It is easy to think that any kind of intelligent discourse is elitist and unnecessary so we won’t have to question things we might blindly adhere to, lest we determine that the truths we hold on to are false.

If not for the thinkers – those who are in a state of constant curiosity, the seeking of knowledge, information, and answers – we would not be here. All of our heroes, from Ninoy to Rizal, were men who loved books and sought knowledge. They were both ostracized and killed for their thoughts. In both instances these great thinkers were murdered by those who are only too happy when majority of the population views intelligence as a fault.

Foster curiosity, don’t discourage it

When independent thought is extinguished, we are much easier to lead as a pack and we are quick to follow a leader we trust knows better, but may not have our best interests in mind.

Aside from fostering our own curiosity, we need to expect more from our children. We need to teach them to always be inquisitive, and to not be satisfied until they come up with answers of their own. Don’t allow them to believe that things are so “just because.” Don’t stop their search for answers by saying, “ Basta, ang kulit mo ha. ” (That’s it, you’re annoying.), but instead find the answers with them. Be excited to learn as well.

Children follow what they see, and if they notice you are threatened by knowledge or discouraged to learn, they will feel the same way and not seek it for themselves.

Let’s quit the smart-shaming and instead encourage intelligent conversation. If it makes us insecure to be unfamiliar with topics and concepts, remember that it’s as easy looking them up online and asking questions to enlighten ourselves, instead of believing that knowledge is this scary thing meant for other people. It truly is there for everyone’s taking.

Thomas Edison once said, “Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress.” If we are always content with what we are given and refuse to ask questions – and if we condemn those who actually do – then we accept our step backward while everyone else leaves us behind. Our failure then becomes no one’s fault but our own.  – Rappler.com

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Filipinos and smart-shaming

Expressions such as “Ikaw na magaling!” or “Edi wow!” are now viewed as common responses to people who presumably share more information than what’s needed.

With the continuous increase in the number of Filipinos on social media, it has always been easy to share and disseminate information that are new to public.

Often times, though, we are also quick to react and even criticize those who have new ideas to share.

More than the intention of poking fun, it is disappointing how good conversations get halted by such responses; instead of engaging people in meaningful conversations, many social media users take such sharing of ideas as an offense. It is as if we Filipinos appreciate being ignorant to things that we find difficult or unnecessary at the moment.

The National Statistics Office’s 2010 Census of Population and Housing shows that 97.5 percent or 69.8 million of the 71.5 million Filipinos aged 10 years old and above are literate or can read and write.

Considering the high rate of basic literacy in the country, Filipinos should not settle for the mere ability to read and write. Rather, we must pursue for higher education to continuously improve ourselves as well as the country.

We value education and even consider it as a key to a bright future. But how can we attain intellectual progress if we continue considering the pursuit of knowledge as sort of a threat?

It is ironic how most Filipinos want smart and experienced leaders and look down upon politicians who are deemed incompetent due to their minimal educational background, but at the same time, engage in smart shaming among their peers.

Every so often, a lot of Filipinos say “Nosebleed!” when someone fluently speaks English, as if the language is very new to their ears and is not the second language of the country.

However, this should not be the case considering that the Philippines was named as the best country in business English proficiency for the years 2012 and 2013 by the Global English Corporation, posting better results than that of the United States and United Kingdom.

Smart-shaming is a manifestation of how we value the pursuit of knowledge. It is disappointing that there are people who mock those who zealously try to learn and share new learnings and ideas.

With a quick access to vast information, especially with the Internet, everyone has no excuse not to explore and learn things that are foreign to oneself.

Filipinos should quit smart-shaming if they want continuous self-development.

They should remember that a country’s growth immensely depends on its people. Intelligent minds mean the continuous growth and development of a people.

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People often say that students are the future. This may be true, but it doesn’t mean they are immune to the effects of smart shaming. Smart shaming is when someone puts you down publicly, often on social media, for expressing or giving them the correct information. It implies that you are stupid, trying hard, or even naïve. You may not have even done anything wrong other than correcting a misleading statement, but suddenly you are made out to be the bad guy.

The negative behaviors created by being smart-shamed can create real problems for your fellow students and yourself. Regardless if smart-shaming phrases are said sarcastically or as a joke, their harmful effects on students cannot be overlooked. A study by Cantonjos (2019) found that smart-shamed students experience adverse effects on their self-esteem, including decreased self-confidence and heightened insecurity about their knowledge and abilities. A typical scenario would be when a student hears a snide, smart-shaming comment after answering a teacher’s question in class. These comments can silently hurt the student’s feelings and their overall well-being. It can also affect their performance academically as they might refrain from being as participative as before.

A better, kinder world involves encouraging intelligence, not mocking it.

Smart shaming can take place in online spaces as well. While social media can be an excellent place to share ideas and celebrate accomplishments, it can also be a breeding ground for smart shaming. Being smart-shamed online can leave victims feeling angry, embarrassed, and discouraged. For merely correcting someone’s spelling mistake or pointing out grammatically incorrect words, some students have received vicious verbal attacks and insults from their classmates. These attacks leave the victim feeling ashamed and embarrassed. As a result, they become reluctant to express their opinions in class and even avoid participating in group activities at school.

The toll this phenomenon takes on victims’ mental health cannot be understated. It can make them question their abilities and believe they are stupid since other students think they are silly. This type of self-doubt can lead to anxiety and depression, affecting their performance in school and causing long-term mental problems.

This is why educating ourselves and others about the harmful effects of smart shaming is essential. Rather than fostering an open and inclusive environment, it can lead to an environment in which people feel inadequate. It hinders growth and innovation, which in turn prevents people from reaching their full potential. A better, kinder world involves encouraging intelligence, not mocking it.

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• v.17(2); 2021 May

Shame and Self-Esteem: A Meta-Analysis

Yohanes budiarto.

a Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

b Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia

Avin Fadilla Helmi

Scholars agree that shame has many effects related to psychological functioning declines, and one among others is the fluctuation of self-esteem. However, the association between shame and self-esteem requires further studies. Heterogeneity studies due to different measurements, various sample characteristics, and potential missing research findings may result in uncertain conclusions. This study aimed to explore the relationship between shame and self-esteem by meta-analysis to come up with evidence of heterogeneity and publication bias of the study. Eighteen studies from the initial 235 articles involving the term shame and self-esteem were studied using the random-effects model. A total of 578 samples were included in the study. The overall effect size estimate between shame and self-esteem (r = −.64) indicates that shame correlates negatively with self-esteem and is large effect size. The result showed that heterogeneity study was found (I² = 95.093%). The Meta-regression showed that age moderated the relationship between shame and self-esteem (p = .002), while clinical sample characteristics (p = .232) and study quality (p = .184) did not affect the overall effect size.

Self-esteem is a psychological trait that is very well known and very well studied and explained by Branden (1994) as a person's belief in their worthiness to be rejoicing and able to cope with and handle everyday life issues. Self-esteem can be determined by positive or negative self-assessment by comparing one with others ( Reilly, Rochlen, & Awad, 2014 ). According to Branden (1994) , self-esteem is a basic human need that is important for the continuation of positive, productive functions of life, such as interpersonal relationships, workplaces, and education. High self-esteem correlates with various positive effects such as altruism, compassion, the ability to deal with change and resilience ( Branden, 1994 ). On the opposite, low self-esteem correlated with depression ( Steiger, Allemand, Robins, & Fend, 2014 ), addiction, and low levels of resilience and competence to overcome life difficulties ( Branden, 1994 ).

Rosenberg, 1965, describes self-esteem as a self-related concept that refers to self-worth, feasibility, and adequacy (as cited in Gilbert & Procter, 2006 ). Gilbert and Procter (2006) find that low self-esteem increases an individual's vulnerability to negative mood conditions such as shame. Likewise, Wells, Glickauf-Hughes, and Jones (1999) postulate that high levels of shame are correlated with low self-esteem due to flaws and defects arising from experiences of shame that reflect low self-esteem. This correlation is very important because low self-esteem has been associated with negative mental conditions, such as depression ( Johnson & O'Brien, 2013 ). Within a life-span, self-esteem increases during young and middle adulthood, reaching the highest point at about age 60 to 65, and declining in old age ( Orth, Trzesniewski, & Robins, 2010 ).

Shame is generally defined as strong negative emotions characterized by perceptions of the global devaluation of oneself. Tangney and Dearing (2002) define shame as strong negative emotions in which the feeling of global self-evisceration is experienced. Shame is often generated by social events in which a personal status or feeling of rejection is sensed. Shame can refer to various aspects of the self, such as behavior or characteristics of the body, and broader identities ( Hejdenberg & Andrews, 2011 ). In particular, the multidimensional conceptualization of shame has been posited ( Andrews, Qian, & Valentine, 2002 ) to distinguish: 1) characteristic experiences of shyness (i.e., regarding personal habits, various styles with others, and personal skills); 2) experience shameful behavior (doing something wrong, saying something stupid, and failing in competition); and 3) bodily shame (i.e., called shame about one's physical appearance). Shame can cause severance of body image, low self-esteem, and feelings of guilt ( Franzoni et al., 2013 ).

Shame is a self-evaluative emotion that involves concern and attention about oneself. When shame is perceived as an emotionally painful emotion, it may have the power for self-break ( Fortes & Ferreira, 2015 ). When individuals experience shame, the devaluation of self is perceived, and it may lower self-esteem. The frequent feeling of shame can eventually form into a trait of shame. Trait shame, in turn, involves negative feelings that are very painful and often crippling, which involve feelings of inferiority, despair, helplessness, and the eagerness to hide personal flaws ( Andrews et al., 2002 ). Thus, it can be assumed that shame experience is closely related to fluctuations in self-esteem ( Elison, Garofalo, & Velotti, 2014 ). Furthermore, low self-esteem can increase an individual's vulnerability to experience negative emotional states, including shame. Thus, although the direction of their association is unclear, several studies have reported a substantial relationship between low self-esteem and negative emotions, such as guilt and shame ( Garofalo, Holden, Zeigler-Hill, & Vellotti, 2016 ).

Demographic Dynamics in the Relationship Between Shame and Self-Esteem

As the self-concept develops, children begin to sense of self-appears at age two until they get a more stable self-concept ( Lewis, 2000 ). During this development, at about age 3, children start to develop the capacity of self-evaluation related to differences between them and other children and understand morality and social norm ( Muris & Meesters, 2014 ). Children and adolescents seem to have the same differences as adults in determinant factors of guilt and shame. Children, when asked about their understanding of situational determinants of guilt and shame, they state that feelings of guilt are related to violations of moral norms such as property damage or personal reproach ( Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991 ). The emotion decreases with age ( Williams & Bybee, 1994 ).

Children are believed to start experience shame only when they have reached the cognitive capacity to understand themselves as objects for reflection and have social maturity to understand and apply social scripts and rules of behavior ( Emde, Johnson, & Easterbrooks, 1987 ; Lewis, Sullivan, Stanger, & Weiss, 1989 ). A cohort-sequential longitudinal study by Orth, Robins, and Soto (2010) found that shame declined from adolescence into middle adulthood, arriving at the lowest point around age 50 years, and then grew old. This variation brings impact to the self-esteem dynamics as shame requires self-evaluation, which in turn, the evaluation impacts self-esteem.

The dynamic relationship between shame and self-esteem may also be moderated by population trait: clinical and nonclinical populations. Dyer et al. (2017) conducted research comparing clinical samples (Dissociative identity disorder [DID], Complex Trauma and General Mental Health) with a healthy volunteer control group and found that the clinical groups exhibited significantly greater shame than those of nonclinical samples. These clinical traits populations are used as a moderating factor in the relationship between shame and self-esteem.

Another assumed moderating effect might derive from the various quality of the studies in meta-analysis. Quality of studies provides researchers a valid estimate of the truth of the studies ( Moher et al., 1993 ). A standardized tool to assess the quality study classifies the study based on the characteristics of published articles. Such features are intended to estimate the precision of the findings and data in the study, where the precision is a function of systematic error and random error. It functions to classify possible causes of bias in meta-analysis outcomes as well as to describe the strengths and shortcomings of analysis in the topic of the study.

From the description above, the research questions are as follows: 1) "Does shame correlate with self-esteem?," 2) “Do age differences moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem?" 3) “Do clinical characteristics moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem?" and 4) "Do quality studies affect the effect size of the study?"

Statistical Analysis

Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 3.0) software (CMA; Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2013 ) is used to perform statistical analyses of publication bias, study heterogeneity, and meta-regression. The random-effects model is used to estimate the variance distribution of observed effects sizes given in participants, regions, and methods throughout the study studied ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2010 ). When researchers decide to include a group of studies in a meta-analysis, researchers assume that research has sufficient common sense to synthesize information, but generally, there is no reason that they are “identical” in the sense that the actual effect size is the same in all studies ( Konstantopoulos, 2006 ).

The results of each study included in this meta-analysis were quantified in the same metric, by calculating the effect size index, and then estimating effects were statistically analyzed to 1) obtain estimates of the average magnitude of the effect, 2) assess heterogeneity in-between effect estimates, and 3) looking for characteristics of research that can explain heterogeneity ( Cooper, 2010 ). To measure heterogeneity in all studies, indicators of heterogeneity, such as Q and I -squared statistics, were calculated in this study. The Funnel plot and fail-safe N statistics were adopted to estimate publication bias ( Egger et al., 1997 ). Meta-regression was used to detect the moderating effects of age, population dichotomy: clinical and nonclinical, and the quality of every study as possible sources of heterogeneity throughout this study.

Study Search

After the research questions were formulated, the next step is to define the eligibility criteria of the study, namely the characteristics that had to be met to be included in the meta-analysis. This study follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines ( Liberati et al., 2009 ).

Inclusion Criteria and Exclusion Criteria

We applied the following standards to screen the data found in databases:

• English language papers: We limit studies in English, so that understanding of the content of studies is adequate.
• Samples involving clinical or nonclinical characteristics, as well as the means of age, were retained so that it could be used as a moderator variable when heterogeneity of studies was found.
• Measurement of shame: Shame was measured with a standard scale. Studies of shame psychometric were also coded. We ensured that the variable shame did not overlap with the concepts of shyness, embarrassment, vicarious shame, body shame, humiliation, and guilt. When found, those terms were excluded from the study.
• Measurement of self-esteem: Self-esteem was measured using a standardized questionnaire. Any concepts related to self-esteem, such as self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-worth, were excluded from the study.
• Study design: Selected studies are limited to quantitative studies; however, the design of the studies could vary as prospective studies, cross-sectional experiments and correlations, and psychometrics. We excluded publications that reported only qualitative data, reviews, or theoretical works.
• Statistical information: only studies showing correlation coefficients between shame and self-esteem, whether found in pilot studies or primary studies, were selected in the analysis. Other information, such as betta weights in the regression study, was converted to the correlation coefficient.

Literature searches were conducted on the PsycINFO database, Sage Journals, Scopus, and Proquest. The keywords used in the research were: "shame," "self-esteem," "self-worth," "shame scale." The first step was to screen all 578 potential articles, as displayed in PsycInfo. Three hundred forty-three articles were excluded because quantitative data were not stated. We continued to explore the remaining 235 full articles that explicitly mentioned quantitative information in abstracts and found 217 studies that mention correlation coefficients in the results. We continued to screen for the full article and strictly selected the construct of shame and self-esteem. We excluded 193 studies that did not measure shame referred to in our study. From the selection results, we found 24 study articles that measured both shame and self-esteem and also found the effect size needed. After digging up information that could be the causes of heterogeneity in studies such as population characteristics and means of age, six studies were found that lacked both demographic information. Finally, we had 18 studies from 2002 to 2018, analyzed in the meta-analysis. (see Figure 1 for the flowchart of study selection).

Shame and esteem-related keywords such as body-shame, body esteem, collective esteem, and social esteem were excluded in the analysis. For descriptive purposes, the researcher noted the years of study, researchers, the source of the article, sample size, characteristics of the sample divided into clinical and nonclinical, and the mean age of the sample. The mean age of participants in the form of continuous data and the distribution of sample characteristics as clinical and nonclinical were used as moderators in the meta-regression analysis.

Quality Assessments

Quality assessment of the studies in this study was adapted from the Quality Assessment and Validity Tool for Correlational Studies ( Cicolini, Simonetti, & Comparcini, 2014 ). We employed four criteria, which are described in 13 questions to assess the design, sampling techniques, measurements, and statistical analysis of each study we study. The availability of information in the study following the question was given a score of 1 (Yes/reported), and a score of 0 (No/not measured) was given when the information needed in the study was not found. From these 13 questions, the range was 0–14 because there was one question that had a score of 2 (Yes), namely questions related to the reliability of the instruments in the study. Studies were then categorized into three groups based on total scores: low (0–4), medium (5–9), and high (10–14). Table 1 below shows the template of the quality assessment of each study.

Note . 0–4 = LO; 5–9 = MED; 10–14 = HI.

A summary of quality assessments of 18 studies that had been screened showed that 14 studies have high quality and four studies of medium quality. Four studies of medium quality were two studies of Gao, Qin, Qian, and Liu (2013) , Wood, Byrne, Burke, Enache, and Morrison (2017) , and Yelsma, Brown, and Ellison (2002) . The quality of the study medium is due to not fulfilling random sampling criteria, participant anonymity, non-prospective study designs, and sampling from various sites. Fourteen studies reviewed were of high quality ( Feiring, Taska, & Chen, 2002 ; Goss, 2013 ; Greene & Britton, 2013 ; Legate, Weinstein, Ryan, DeHaan, & Ryan, 2019 ; Passanisi, Gervasi, Madonia, Guzzo, & Greco, 2015 ; Pilarska, 2018 ; Reilly et al., 2014 ; Simonds et al., 2016 ; Velotti, Garofalo, Bottazzi, & Caretti, 2017 ; Ward, 2014 ; Woodward, McIlwain, & Mond, 2019 ; Zhou, Wang, & Yi, 2018 ). Of all studies, only a study by Feiring et al. (2002) conducted a retrospective study even though the selection of samples was not random. The majority of studies in this meta-analysis did not conduct random sampling and outlier handling in the analysis. A moderation analysis of the study quality classification was carried out to see its effect on the overall effect size. The moderation analysis was carried out together with age, characteristics of the samples, and quality study by meta-regression. Table 2 summarizes the quality assessment of 18 studies included.

In this study, the effects size index used is the correlation coefficient. When the correlation coefficient is used as a measurable effect, both Hedges and Olkin and Rosenthal and Rubin recommend the transformation of this effect size to a standard normal metric (using the r -to-Fisher Z transformation). The following Table 3 shows the distribution of research data studied, supplemented by information on the correlation coefficients that have been transformed into Fisher's Z along with their standard errors, variances, Z values, and p -values.

a Female participants. b Male participants.

Heterogeneity Study

Heterogeneity testing of all studies is summarized in Table 4 . I 2 statistics for heterogeneity was 95.09 (95.09%), p < .001, which resulted in the acceptance of alternative hypotheses and showed significant heterogeneity in the studies taken. I 2 shows the amount of variability that cannot be explained by chance. In other words, I 2 index explains the percentage of variability estimate (95.09%) in results across studies that is due to real differences and not due to chance. Also, Q values higher than df indicates heterogeneity.

Figure 2 below summarizes the results of the meta-analysis with 95% Confidence Interval (CI). The analysis carried out in this study was based on the random-effects model due to the non-homogeneous characteristics of the population. In Feiring's study, the horizontal line/CI almost touched the value of 0 so that the p -value (.047) was close to .05. The forest plot shows that study 2 by Gao et al. (2013) and Simonds et al. (2016) have wide plot lines. The plotline indicates a wider CI, which means that the study has low precision. The overall summary information at the 95% confidence interval shows that in the correlation study between shame and self-esteem, the random effect size is − .643 (moderate effect), with Z -value = − 8.981 and p < .001. Based on the effect size value with p < .001, the alternative hypothesis cannot be rejected so that there is a negative correlational relationship between shame and self-esteem.

Funnel Plots

One other mechanism for displaying the relationship between study size and effect size is Funnel Plots. In this study, the use of standard errors (rather than sample size or variance) on the Y-axis has the advantage of spreading points at the bottom of the scale, where smaller studies are plotted. This can make it easier to identify patterns of asymmetry ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ). Funnel Plots is a spread of effect size on a measure of study accuracy. This description provides information support in the meta-analysis, mainly related to the heterogeneity of studies ( Stuck et al., 1998 ).

Based on Funnel Plots in Figure 3 , it appears that the distribution of effects on the standard error forms a "funnel," giving the impression that there are no biases in the analyzed studies, no asymmetrical plot.

The majority of studies with large effects appear towards the top of the graph and tend to cluster near the mean effect size. More small-effect research appears to the bottom of the graph, and because there are more sampling variations in the estimation of effect sizes in studies with small effects, this study will be spread over a range of values.

With no publication bias in these studies, the lower part of the plot does not show a higher concentration of studies on one side of the mean than the other. This graph reflects the fact that studies that have smaller effects (which appear downward) are more likely to be published if they have a greater effect than the mean effect, which makes them more likely to meet the criteria for significant statistics ( Hunter et al., 2014 ).

Fail-Safe N

The fail-safe N related to publication bias in this study uses Orwin, 1983, approach (as cited in Borenstein et al., 2009 ) as summarized in Table 5 . The Orwin approach allows researchers to determine how many studies are missing, which will bring the overall effect to a specified level other than zero. Therefore, researchers can choose a value that will represent the smallest influence that is considered important and substantive, and ask how many missing studies are needed to bring the summary effect below this point.

The mean Fisher's Z in the new study (which is missing) can be a value other than zero, which in this study, was set at 0.00001. Also, the value of the criteria used is the effect size Z instead of the p -value. This means that the Orwin fail-safe N is the number of missing studies, which when added to the analysis, will bring the combined Z value above the specified threshold (currently the upper limit is set at, 0.600). The fail-safe N Orwin numbers obtained is 1. This result means that we need to find 1 study with the mean Fisher's Z value of 0.648 to bring the combined Z value above the value 0.650.

Bagg and Mazumdar's Rank Correlation

The rank correlation test uses the Begg and Mazumdar tests ( Begg & Mazumdar, 1994 ), which involve correlations between effect sizes rank and variances rank, respectively. The result of the analysis shows a value of p = .879, indicating the acceptance of the null hypothesis and showing no publication bias. In this case, Kendall's value b is − 0.026, with p -value 1-tailed (recommended) of .439 or p two-tailed value of .444 based on normal estimated continuity correction, as shown in Table 6 . The estimated value of Kendall's tau rank correlation coefficient shows that the observed outcomes and the corresponding sampling variances are not highly correlated. This finding means that a very low correlation would indicate that the funnel plot is symmetric, which may not show a result of publication bias.

Egger's Regression Intercept

Egger shows that the bias assessment is based on precision (the opposite of the standard error) to predict standardized effects (effect size divided by standard error). In this equation, the measure of the effect is captured by the slope of the regression line ( B 1 ), while it can be captured by the intercept ( B 0 ). In this study, the intercept ( B 0 ) was −0.946, 95% CI[−8.581, 6.688], with t = 0.263, df = 16. The p 1-tailed value (recommended) was .398, and the p 2-tailed value is .796 indicating no evidence of publication bias.

Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill

Based on Funnel Plots analysis, the observed and imputed plots were detected that more studies were on the right side than those on the left side. Therefore, the assumption that arises is that missing studies have occurred on the left side of axis X. In Figure 3 , observed studies are described as open (colorless) circles, while six imputed studies are represented by black circles.

If the meta-analysis has captured all relevant studies, it is expected that the funnel plots will be symmetrical. That is, we would expect research to be spread evenly on both sides of the overall effect.

Duval and Tweedie went more advanced by a method that allowed us to link these missing studies. That is, the researcher determines where the missing study tends to "disappear," then adds it to the analysis, and then recalculates the combined effect. This method is known as Trim and Fill ( Duval & Tweedie, 2000 ).

If we refer to Figure 3 , an asymmetrical study of the right side is trimmed to find an unbiased effect (in an iterative procedure) and then fill the plot by re-entering the study trimmed on the left side of the mean effect. This program looks for missing studies based on the random-effects model and looking for studies that are lost only to the left side of the mean effect. This method shows that there are seven missing studies. Based on the random effect model, the estimated points at the 95% confidence interval for the combined study are − 0.643 ( − 0.784, − 0.502). Using Trim and Fill, the estimated imputed points are − 0.812 ( − 0.962, − 0.663). See Table 7 for Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill output.

Age, Characteristics of Samples, and Quality of Studies as Moderators

After heterogeneity of the studies is detected, the next step is to identify the variables and characteristics which cause heterogeneity. Meta-regression analysis is used to estimate the parameter effects with minimum variance. In this study, the age, population characteristics, and study quality are considered as covariates between shame and self-esteem.

The age, clinical/nonclinical characteristics, and high and low study qualities moderating effect tests are based on the random-effects model with the restricted maximum likelihood model (REML) estimation method. Based on the analysis using a meta-regression test, it can be explained that the regression coefficient for age is equal to − 0.03, which means that every one degree of age equals a decrease in the effect size of 0.03. The p = .02 shows the variable age functions as a moderator in the relationship between shame and self-esteem. Thus, it can be concluded that age moderates the relationship between shame and self-esteem because age is significantly related to effect size. Differences in sample characteristics based on clinical and nonclinical groups do not have a moderating effect on the relationship between shame and self-esteem ( p = .232). The quality of studies that are categorized into high and moderate-quality does not moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem ( p = .184). Study quality, age, and sample characteristics simultaneously affect the effect size ( p = .03). The summary of the meta-regression is shown in Table 8 .

Note . Simultaneous test: Q = 9.32, df = 3, p = .03.

Apart from the above calculations, a scatter plot can also explain the pattern of the relationship between age as a moderator and the observed effect size. The scatter diagram below illustrates that there is a clear relationship between age as a moderator and the observed effect size. It can be concluded that as age increases, the effect size moves away from 0. This means that the relationship between shame and self-esteem (when other covariates are controlled) gets stronger as we age. Figure 4 shows the regression plot of age as a moderator.

The meta-analysis results displayed a negative correlation between shame and self-esteem with effect size is different from zero ( r = − .643, p < .001). The random-effects model analysis shows the mean of the distribution of the true effects is 0.643. According to Cohen's classification, it is classified as a large effect size. This finding supports the research hypothesis that there is a relationship between shame and self-esteem.

Shame, as self-conscious emotion, deals with negative, global, and stable evaluations of the self ( Tangney & Dearing, 2002 ), and it brings impact to the fluctuation of self-esteem. When a person perceives himself as "a bad person," their self-esteem decreases. Usually, feelings of shame happen due to a condition where the personal self is devalued, such as a bad performance socially assessed. Poor performance leads to greater reactions of psychological states indicating a danger to the social self, namely a decline in social self-esteem and an increase in shame ( Gruenewald, Kemeny, Aziz, & Fahey, 2004 ).

Many shameful experiences can eventually crystallize into a trait-like proneness of shame. Trait shame, in turn, includes an especially painful and often disabling, adverse sensation involving a sense of inferiority, hopelessness, and helplessness, as well as a willingness to conceal private failure ( Andrews et al., 2002 ). Also, shame experiences have been suggested to be closely linked to fluctuations in self-esteem, and many shame experiences might be conceptually linked to chronically low self-esteem rates ( Elison et al., 2014 ).

This study shows that based on publication bias testing with information from funnel plots , fail-safe N , Bagg and Mazumdar rank correlations , Egger's Regression Intercept, and Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill no publication bias was found.

To explain what factors causing heterogeneity of the study, the thing that researchers can do is simply enter the mean age of the samples to be analyzed as moderators in the relationship between shame and self-esteem. Analysis with meta-regression showed that the age of various participants moderated the effect size of the relationship of shame and self-esteem. This result shows that the selection of random effect models as the basis of the meta-analysis in this study is appropriate. However, the study qualities and clinical characteristics of the sample did not moderate the effect size.

In a prospective study, De Rubeis and Hollenstein (2009) found that, during early adolescence, shame slightly decreased over a period of 1 year. Similarly, self-esteem follows a quadratic life-span trajectory, increasing during young and middle adulthood, peaking at about 60 to 65 years of age, and declining in old age ( Orth, Trzesniewski, et al., 2010 ). This age dynamics influence the quality of shame and self-esteem relationship.

In the context of the study sample with clinical and nonclinical characteristics, no moderating effect was found. This finding indicates that the dynamics of shame and self-esteem in both characteristics of the research sample are similar. The clinical samples in this study were various, involving those with an eating disorder ( Goss, 2013 ), schizoaffective disorder ( Wood et al., 2017 ), sexual abuse ( Feiring et al., 2002 ), and lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB; Legate et al., 2019 ). These different clinical characteristics may interfere with the moderation effect when comparing to nonclinical samples.

In the process of selecting a study, the initial screening has been done so that the variables of shame that are analyzed only involve shame based on self-evaluation in an embarrassing event. Thus, the various measures of shame that are not included in this study include body-shame and trait shame. However, this study still finds heterogeneity in the studies studied. When sensitivity analysis is carried out by looking at relative weight images, there are no different relative weights from the studies analyzed, so that study ejection is not carried out from the analysis. From this, it can be concluded that the occurrence of heterogeneity is not caused by sampling error.

Acknowledgments

We thank Megawati Oktorina for being helpful in screening and selecting studies and their details.

Biographies

Yohanes Budiarto is a third-year psychology Ph.D. student at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is currently a lecturer at Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia. He is specialized in Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology as well as in the Indigenous and Cultural Psychology areas. His research areas are within the social-emotion of shame/embarrassment, psychometrics, psychology of religions as well as family studies.

Dr. Avin Fadilla Helmi is a senior lecturer and researcher at Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She is interested in researching cyberpsychology, human relations, leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation, and interpersonal issues.

The authors have no funding to report.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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Embarrassment

The impact of public shaming in a digital world, how humiliation tactics are being used and confused for activism..

Posted July 5, 2018 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

There's no denying how digital life has changed the way we live (and behave) today.

Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center recently canvassed stories from technology experts and scholars about the current and future impact of the Internet.

Experts were concerned about the way people’s online activities can undermine truth , foment distrust , jeopardize individuals’ well-being when it comes to physical and emotional health, enable trolls to weaken democracy and community, kill privacy, and open up larger social divisions as digital divides widen and more.

These same experts and scholars are quick to remind us of the many positive sides that technology has brought us.

“Digital life is being able to speak and see someone—regardless of where you are—on a phone you carry on your person.”

“I can get answers to questions about almost anything just by asking my telephone.”

"Digital tools enable people to invent or reinvent their lives and careers. They can also innovate through wide networking with people and information that allows them to develop businesses, find the perfect job, and meet soulmates, colleagues, new friends, and fellow interest-sharers."

The ugly side

With all this power at our fingertips, we have slowly witnessed the corrosion of both online and offline civility among humanity.

Using public shaming to shift our beliefs rather than having constructive conversations has become the new normal. Are we now blurring the lines between activism and [cyber] bullying or humiliation?

Many people remember the public shaming of Justine Sacco or maybe Lindsey Stone that went viral and cost both women years of online reputational damage. People from all walks of life participated in vilifying these women—the majority never meet them or knew them, however with the click of a keypad, were able to ruin their lives.

We shame to pressure outliers to conform to our norms—even if no one can agree anymore what those standards should be.

“I think a lot of people resort to public shaming out of anger and frustration, the desire to call out bad behavior, and the need to feel validated for their emotions,” writes Christine Organ in an essay on shaming published on the blog Scary Mommy. “We feel justified in sharing that photo or video, entitled to call out the rude, crass, or inappropriate behavior… We’re doing the world a favor, thankyouverymuch.”

Of course, shaming in America dates as far back as the days of the Puritans, when those deemed to have crossed their thin moral line were subject to being stoned, scorned, thrown into stocks, or worse.

Just a generation ago, an embarrassing gaffe might have been written up in the local paper or gossiped about over backyard fences until it was old news. But today is much different. The Internet has eternal life and boundless reach, and victims of a digital disaster must learn to live forever with the implications of that high-tech “tattoo.”

As Jennifer Jacquet, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University, writes in her book Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool , “The speed at which information can travel, the frequency of anonymous shaming, the size of the audience it can reach, and the permanence of the information separate digital shaming from shaming of the past.”

In other words, being the victim of a public shaming has the potential to ruin your life—financially, emotionally, and physically. In the most extreme cases of online harassment, we have seen the worst-case repercussions over and over again: young people taking their own lives and adults losing their livelihoods.

Bullying vs. activism

In a culture of rising incivility , combined with many that are both sensitive and passionate about their beliefs, people are using bullying or harassing behavior and labeling it as activism .

The latest target to experience this is Tess Thompson Talley . Although she's an avid hunter, which many animal rights activists as well as animal lovers may not agree with, it doesn't dismiss her right to her interests and hobbies as long as there is nothing illegal.

Hunting is definitely not for everyone (myself included), however to blatantly mock her and send her death threats on social forums is not activism — this is a form of harassment. In an age of online hate, it's disheartening to watch adults criticize and send digital daggers at each other. These are the same people that are supposed to be the role models for the next generation.

Talley is not alone. In the past couple of months she's had company. BBQ Becky, Permit Patty and Pool Patrol Paula are all nicknames for average people that made public spectacles of themselves forgetting there is always someone ready to aim and shame your most embarrassing moments.

There are no winners

When activism turns into digital or civil warfare, the message will likely get lost and all people will remember is static noise. Change can't and won't happen through this type of behavior.

You may not have heard of the restaurant in Virginia, Red Hen until it made headlines after White House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave by the owner because they didn't agree with her politics .

It didn't take long for social feeds to light up and publicly shame both Sanders and Red Hen, especially since there was another restaurant in Connecticut with the same name struggling to let people know it wasn't them.

In his recent article, The Ricochet Effect of Public Shaming Now on Full Display , Mitch Albom helps explain how divided people are today and how it contributes to public humiliation.

To use words like “honesty, compassion and cooperation ” as reasons to evict someone shows a total lack of, well, honesty, compassion and cooperation.

He continues:

As for “compassion,” what compassion are you showing for someone who, for all you know, may struggle with certain elements of her job herself? Nor is this about “cooperation.” It’s the opposite of cooperation. It’s about your feelings trumping everything else, include decorum, manners or common decency. Sanders didn’t murder anyone.

Albom ends his essay by reminding us, it's about us! As we watch people in authority behave inappropriately as well as adults, business owners and others, it's up to us to lead by example.

When in doubt, click out

Being an activist is admirable. You don't have to be a bully—be constructive with your behavior (comments), not combative. There is never a reason to use profanity, mock people or especially wish death to others.

One lasting thought, you are your online presence. Your immediate gratification to insult someone for what you may believe is activism, will be attached to your digital resume forever. Short-term vindication is rarely worth the long-term ramifications. Having a bad day? Give yourself permission to sign-off.

PEW Research: Stories from Experts and Scholars 2018 .

Scheff, Sue: Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Hate (Sourcebooks, October 2017).

Organ, Christine: Public Shaming Is Out of Control (Scary Mommy, 2017).

Jacquet, Jennifer: Is Shame Necessary: New Uses For An Old Tool (Vintage, 2016).

Detroit Free Press, Mitch Albom: The ricochet effect of public shaming now on full display (June 30, 2017).

Sue Scheff is a an advocate and family internet safety expert and the author of Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate .

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Anti-Intellectualism: An Analysis on the Interpersonal Skills of STEM Achievers

Smart shaming is a wide issue that must be given attention for it affects the most essential parts of our nation-builders – the students. The idea of this study was made from the need to understand and analyze anti-intellectualism as a common problem in the Philippine society, especially to the academic community and student achievers. The researchers conducted this study to scrutinize the effect of anti-intellectualism or smart shaming to the interpersonal skills of grade 12 STEM achievers in La Consolacion University Philippines.

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Psychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal

Psychology and Education

In a nation that values education, intellectual questioning and sharing knowledge are considered beneficial. However, Filipinos, particularly young people, often engage in anti-intellectualism or smart-shaming, which exaggerates and expresses feelings of intelligence. The research involved 200 students who responded to a questionnaire from various colleges. The study found that a large number of students experience smart-shaming, with many being victims or having spoken words associated with it. The main reason for smart-shaming is for fun, but the study also revealed that it hurts the inner self of the smart-shamed person and negatively affects their academic performance. Students should be aware of the negative effects of smart shaming and develop strategies to avoid it. The study suggests that students should be aware of the negative effects of smart shaming and develop ways to avoid it.

Psychology and Education , Alexanda Eunice Secapuri , Dana M. Campos , Neil Ochoa

Anti-intellectualism has been a prevalent phenomenon in educational institutions for generations, targeting the most active and high-performing students and academic achievers as asserted. The research aims to know the related themes to the existing anti-intellectualism, the impact of antiintellectualism on the self-esteem of academic achievers, and students' perception towards antiintellectualism. A phenomenological research design was used in the study, which is focused on the lived experiences of Grade 12 academic achievers on anti-intellectualism. The researchers used purposive sampling given that they needed to obtain key informants who fit the set of criteria. The conducted One-on-One interview presented that the Grade 12 Academic Achievers in Lyceum of Alabang have low self-esteem because of being exposed to anti-intellectualism. Therefore, the research reveals that academic achievers face external factors such as an unhealthy learning environment, normalized anti-intellectualism, and unhealthy competition, which contribute to their exposure to anti-intellectualism, while smart shaming, characterized by high expectations, opposite beliefs, crab mentality, backhanded compliments, and inside jokes, significantly impacts their selfesteem and social interactions, ultimately hindering their academic and personal development; therefore, the normalization of anti-intellectualism in various settings restricts their potential for participation and perpetuates a culture that shames and undermines intellectuals.

Dr. Menka Choudhary

MATEC Web of Conferences

Olga Iatsevich

Pakistan Journal of Education

Mushtaq Malik

interactions and achieve manifold developments. The purpose of thestudy was to explore the development of social intelligence duringuniversity years among University students. The study was delimited tofour year under graduate programs Bachelor of Science (BS) students ofUniversity of Sargodha. The cross-sectional study includes the studentsof BS programs 1st semester and 7th semester. Using multi-stagesampling technique, 560 students in total from seven department of theuniversity were selected as the sample. Tromso Social Intelligence Scale(TSIS) with reliability coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) 0.75 was used. Itwas found that overall the development of social intelligence duringuniversity years was at good rate and statistically significant. The urbanand rural backgrounds students and boarder and day scholar studentsreported equal level of social intelligence; whereas male studentsreported higher level of social intelligence than the female students. It isrecommended that the univers...

Journal of Curriculum and Teaching

Sezgin SELVİ

John Arvin Baygan

Using Kapwa theory on the "smart-shaming" phenomenon.

Universitas …

Maria Caridad García-Cepero

This research study analyzed the structure of educators’ implicit theoriesof intelligence (ITI) and explored the relationship between ITI and beliefsabout the identification of gifted students. This study included a sampleof 372 educators. School Teachers and professors from colleges of educa-tion favor practical, analytical, and creative attributes in their prototypesof an intelligence person. However, participants were fairly neutral aboutwhether interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes characterized intelli-gent people. Educators that rated creativity as an important attribute of intelligence tend to favor multiple methods to identify gifted students. Incontrast, educators who supported the use of IQ test as the primary basisof gifted identification tended to agree that analytical abilities were part of the structure of intelligence. Este estudio analizó la estructura de las teorías implícitas de los educadoressobre la inteligencia (ITI, por sus siglas en inglés) y exploró la relación entrelas mismas y las creencias sobre la identificación de los estudiantes talen-tosos. El estudio incluyó una muestra de 372 educadores. Los profesores decolegio y universidad favorecen atributos prácticos, analíticos y creativosen sus prototipos de una persona inteligente. Sin embargo, los participan-tes mostraron bastante neutralidad a la hora de determinar si los atributosinterpersonales o intrapersonales caracterizan a la gente inteligente. Loseducadores que puntuaron la creatividad como atributo importante de lainteligencia tienden a favorecer múltiples métodos para identificar a losestudiantes talentosos. En contraste, los educadores que apoyaban el usode pruebas de coeficiente intelectual como la base para la identificacióndel talento generalmente estuvieron de acuerdo con que las habilidadesanalíticas eran parte de la estructura de la inteligencia

Education Policy Analysis Archives

Edwina Pendarvis

sunita magre

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• Philosophy of Teaching

Defining and Denouncing Student Shaming: A Teacher’s Reflection

• February 10, 2020
• Katie E. O'Leary

* Editor’s note: Every so often we like to give Faculty Focus readers an inside look into The Teaching Professor . The following article was recently featured on The Teaching Professor. If you’re interested in similar articles, you can check out a Teaching Professor subscription here!

One of the reasons I love teaching is that each semester provides a fresh start: empty grade books, eager students. I also cherished this time when I was a student myself: poring over course syllabi, purchasing new textbooks, meeting my professors. Although I reside on eastern South Dakota’s frigid plains, the first day of class consistently brings me a warm feeling. But once the newness of the semester fades, it’s not long before I casually share with a colleague something a student did or (more commonly) failed to do. This habit started in graduate school. Years ago, student shaming provided a humorous means of connecting with my fellow TAs: in my early 20s, commiserating over student issues felt normal, even cool. Perhaps, too, a case can be made that swapping stories of students’ shortcomings had little effect on our students themselves. They didn’t hear us laugh at their misspelled words or poorly constructed sentences. Yet, 10 years later, I’m haunted by the thought that I might have spent more time complaining about my students than championing their success.

What does shame look like for our students? Fueled by strong emotion, shame creates perceptions of the entire self, not just how one performs on a task (Turner, Husman, & Schallert, 2002). An F on an essay means “I am a bad writer,” not “I performed poorly.” Because our traditional college students likely haven’t yet formed a strong sense of identity, shame brings potential to influence our students’ roles not only as students but as people. Like failure, however, shame has its merits. Indeed, the role of shame in academia has been touted for its motivational effects. For highly motivated students, a failing grade can propel them to change their study skills and perform at a higher level (Turner et al., 2002). These definitions align with my personal experience, and I suspect that most of our students have felt these forms of shame too. But when shame moves beyond instructor-student exchanges and into the public sphere, it becomes devoid of utility. Perhaps more troublingly, in the digital age, student shaming contributes to a shift in academic culture.

Recent scholarship on student shaming in higher education focuses on its social media presence. Some argue that shaming students on social media proves particularly harmful because of the ease with which posts are shared (Lauricella, 2019). Why disparage a student’s plea for extra credit over lunch with a colleague when broadcasting it via Twitter will garner more laughs? While I don’t share “It’s in the syllabus” memes on my Facebook page, my assuming the role of office gadfly sanctions anti-intellectual snark—a pose that has no place in higher education.

Having worked in other fields before I started teaching full time, I have observed others indulge in similar office gossip: tales of rude customers and ignorant clients passed down from company supervisors and firm partners alike. Within higher education, however, could this practice of student shaming have significant consequences for our students? Our profession?

Because students are increasingly adopting a consumer mindset, we need to get creative on how to preserve the instructor-student relationship. Students are not our customers, clients, or colleagues; they are our students. And if we want to strengthen the instructor-student relationship, we need to pay attention to when we behave less like instructors and more like students. This, in my view, proves especially important when it comes to disparaging students for their writing. If writing is the process I claim it to be when I’m in the classroom, that process doesn’t disappear when I step through the office door. Surely there are other ways to connect to and create comradery with my colleagues than denouncing students’ writing. Entertainment has limits. And mocking students’ work in the proverbial town square isn’t the work of an intellectual.

I wonder whether student shaming pervades my classroom environment, whether I know it or not. And if the answer is “probably yes,” I am the one ashamed. That one of my former English professors would have circulated a screenshot of my clunky prose or shared a story of my public speaking jitters would have embarrassed me as a student and crushed me as a writer. Even now, the thought of it feels like shame, sinking slowly. Perhaps that’s the feeling I should keep in mind when I’m tempted to share, or post, or blame. And so, a decade later, I resolve to be more aware of my own student-shaming habits and shall choose instead to celebrate my students’ success.

Katie O’Leary is an Instructor of English at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD.

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Online Shaming, Its Positive and Negative Effects Essay

With the continuous development of the Internet and the appearance of new social media arises the problem of the youth depending on their virtual life. As with any area of human communication, online interactions can be both positive and negative, with the latter hurting people’s public and personal lives. Shaming is a part of human communication that took place long before the appearance of the Internet and social media; however, since it reflects processes that occur in the society, and the society is currently enthralled by social media, online shaming is a pervasive issue. Some may say that the main reason behind online shaming is to change one’s behavior for it to align with the perception of the majority. However, regardless of its reasons or intentions, online shaming is an unacceptable way of dealing with different human behaviors since it inflicts emotional distress to its subjects and rarely resolves conflicts in a positive way.

To understand why online shaming should not be regarded as an acceptable way of dealing with various human behaviors, it is important to mention the statistics that show how such a form of shaming influences people and youth in particular. According to the groundbreaking survey released by Vodafone (2015), 43% of surveyed youth believed that online shaming (otherwise called cyberbullying) was a larger problem than substance abuse. Moreover, 41% of respondents indicated that their experiences with online shaming made them feel helpless, sad, and very depressed; 26% of the surveyed youth felt completely alone when being shamed online, and sadly, 18% of them considered suicidal thoughts (Vodafone, 2015). Cheung (2014) also explored the negative effect of electronic devices on peoples’ lives; as such, the researcher pointed to totalitarianism and terror prevailing over individualism when societies pay a lot of attention to the use of the Internet and social media. Another problem associated with online shaming not only refers to individual harm but also to the overall fascination of people with the idea of getting others into trouble through data breaches, wrongdoings, and provocative images that taint others’ reputation.

From the perspective of psychology and social sciences, any human behavior is bound to evoke a response, either positive or negative. Importantly, someone’s wrongdoing may cause both a positive or a negative response based on societal norms or individual perceptions of different situations. In the majority of cases, online shaming takes place when the perception of a single individual does not align with that of a community, which chooses to inflict public harassment as a form of punishment. This form of punishment can also be regarded as an attempt to choose one’s behavior. However, because online shaming predominantly brings emotional suffering to its subjects, the change of behavior is unlikely to occur. In order to truly impact one’s behavior and positively influence their decision-making, constructive criticism and engaging discussions are needed but not online shaming.

Through thought-provoking discussions and the finding of the acceptable way of resolving a conflict, rival parties are more likely to come to a mutual conclusion and change negative behaviors. While shaming may be the answer for specific groups to expose the unethical behaviors of influential individuals such as politicians or businesspeople, online shaming that subjects ordinary people to harassment will lead to nothing but personal distress. Also, it is important to mention the phenomenon of digilantism, which is targeted at raising awareness of one’s behaviors and publishing information that may be harmful to their integrity (Jane, 2017). However, despite the positive intentions of bringing public attention to a problem, digilantism can have such negative effects as punishing the innocent or causing a severe social argument. This means that there should be more effective mechanisms of dealing with negative behaviors rather than their exposure to public scrutiny online.

In the refutation of the above argument, it is important to understand why online shaming occurs. For this purpose, the study on online shaming conducted by Cheung (2014) should be mentioned; the researcher explained that online shaming is a process that reflects in such concepts as honor and dignity. This means that individuals to participate in online shaming feel a responsibility of inflicting some degree of harassment on those people who, in their opinion, deserved such an attitude. De Vries (2015) came to a similar conclusion and suggested that shaming is used for the regulation of behaviors of those people who have committed a wrongful act and had to be punished.

Patterns of online shaming are usually similar in the majority of instances and follow the following chain of events: a wrongful action of an individual is recorded, the material becomes available on social media, it is shared among users, an emotional response occurs, a material gets spread around the Internet, and it is eventually uptaken by the media. Contrary to the primary argument that made direct parallels between online shaming and cyberbullying and their adverse effects, De Vries (2015) made a direct differentiation between cyberbullying and online shaming. In the author’s opinion, cyberbullying was different to online shaming in the sense that it predominantly focused on personal qualities of an individual while online shaming referred to one’s behavior. Importantly, online shaming could have a positive effect though preventing negative behaviors from occurring. Therefore, it can be argued that online shaming could be regarded as an acceptable way of dealing with negative human behaviors.

In support of the refutation argument, several positive effects of online shaming should be explored. In her Wired article, Jennifer Jacquet (2015) mentioned that online shaming of individuals’ behaviors was more likely to bring negative consequences. However, the exposure of corporations’ wrongdoings and behaviors and the subsequent online shaming could bring positive results. Jacquet (2015) gave such examples as “singling out big banks for environmental destruction, exposing countries for refusing to end forced labor or calling out denialists who undermine action on climate change” (para. 2).

Shaming retailers and large corporations is often expected to yield dramatic changes and even legislation. For instance, the case of Tesco being involved the use of slave labor resulted in the retailer pledging to make sure that the supply chain was completely slave-free. It is essential to understand that without online shaming of Tesco, the company would not have paid attention to its use of slave labor and would have continued such an unethical practice. When speaking of individuals and not corporations, online shaming can play an important social function of motivating people to take responsibility for their actions and pursue a change to resolve the feeling of shame and attain forgiveness. Positive influences of online shaming include the communication of group norms and the punishment of their violation through elevating the status of those who enforce those norms.

To summarize, it can be concluded that online shaming can be viewed from two different perspectives. On the one hand, online shaming is an unacceptable form of dealing with individual behaviors since it negatively affects the integrity and the emotional status of those who have been subjected to shaming. It has been reported that victims of online shaming could experience depression, negative thoughts, social isolation, and negative self-perception. In this case, online shaming is equal to cyberbullying since both of them have negative effects on people and their emotional well-being. On the other hand, online shaming can catalyze positive change and shifting of negative behaviors. Through experiencing shaming, a person can reflect on his or her behaviors and subsequently make decisions in favor of doing the right thing and avoiding such behaviors in the future.

In this case, online shaming is not equal to cyberbullying since the latter predominantly refers to attacking one’s qualities of character rather than behaviors and actions. Nevertheless, the argument against the use of online shaming as an acceptable way of dealing with human behaviors prevailed. Despite having several positive outcomes, online shaming is a method of judging one’s behavior that eliminates constructive criticism or discussions that yield understanding between rival sides. In order to change one’s behavior, shaming with the use of social media or the Internet is unlikely to be effective. If a person committed a wrongdoing and deserved a judgment for it, he or she should be confronted not with shaming, but with an honest confrontation that encourages a discussion as well as a subsequent change of behaviors.

Cheung, A. S. (2014). Revisiting privacy and dignity: Online shaming in the global e-village. Laws, 3 (2), 301-326.

De Vries, A. (2015). The use of social media for shaming strangers: Young people’s views. In System sciences (HICSS), 2015 48th Hawaii international conference on (pp. 2053-2062). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.

Jacquet, J. (2015). Public shaming makes the world a better place . Web.

Jane, E. A. (2017). Feminist digilante responses to a slut-shaming on Facebook. Social Media+ Society , 3 (2), 1-10.

Vodafone. (2015). Groundbreaking Vodafone global survey reveals 43% of teens think cyberbullying a bigger problem than drug abuse . Web.

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IvyPanda . 2020. "Online Shaming, Its Positive and Negative Effects." September 15, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/online-shaming-its-positive-and-negative-effects/.

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IvyPanda . "Online Shaming, Its Positive and Negative Effects." September 15, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/online-shaming-its-positive-and-negative-effects/.

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