An interruption of the basic tendency towards social connection can occur in a social context through the experience of shame, humiliation and the death of a close person. Like the loss of connections triggered by traumatic memories, experiences of loss in the social context can also lead to violence. This is shown by the following observations.
In her work as a psychotherapist, Lewis found that her patients exhibited hostile behavior after they had a shameful experience that had not been addressed and processed (Lewis, 1971).
The extent to which shame as an experience of loss and access to social relationships is related to violence becomes clear in Collins’ descriptions of dominant interactions. While, according to Collins, emotional energy can be gained when people manage to tune into each other’s microrhythms in interaction, such a gain can also be achieved through dominant interaction. The person who wants to dominate struggles to establish their microrhythm in the interaction, while the victim submits to this rhythm. The strengthened rhythm of the dominant provides a feeling of superiority, which triggers an increase in emotional energy. According to Collins, potential victims have low levels of emotional energy, which facilitates dominance, while perpetrators also need to increase their emotional energy but have learned to achieve this gain through a dominating, unequal interaction (Collins 2008: 189). The dominant interaction, which can be understood as a form of violence, becomes an alternative means of accessing emotional energy. This alternative becomes relevant when the experience of a loss of connection due to shame and humiliation creates the impression that it is not possible to gain access to emotional energy through attunement to one another through a balanced interaction.
Mobbing in school
The Psychologist Evelin Gerda Lindner identifies the dynamics of humiliation as the key component in conflicts that escalate into cycles of violence. Lindner distinguishes between shame and humiliation and defines the latter as “the forced degradation of a person or a group, a process of subjugation that damages or destroys their pride, honor and dignity.” According to Lindner, depression is often the first reaction to a humiliation experience, followed by the desire to retaliate with aggressive counter-humiliation, which, depending on the resources available to the victims, can range from sabotage to more overt forms of aggression (Lindner, 2002 ).
For the sociologist Thomas Scheff, the unprocessed experiences caused by the shame of being excluded and humiliated are a source of hatred and the hidden component of anger and aggression. In this context he speaks of a cycle of shame and anger that takes on a life of its own (Scheff, 2006). Scheff examines the emotional and relational causes of violence and finds a pattern of emotion management that he calls “hypermasculinity” in which unprocessed experiences of shame and alienation play a key role. Scheff points out that the pattern of silence and/or violence that is characteristic for hypermasculinity is, due to cultural conditioning mainly found in men. This pattern has a feminine equivalent of obedience, blind loyalty and fear. He describes women who use this pattern as hyperfeminine and shows that they are attracted to hypermasculine men. In Scheff’s view, the two hypergenders reinforce each other, creating a social atmosphere that enables violence and war (Scheff, 2007).
While in the psychology of the individual, the persistent and often unconscious nature of traumatic memories contribute to a loss of connection to the self and others, in the social context this can be caused by unprocessed experiences of shame, humiliation and grief. In both cases, there is the possibility of a causal relationship between loss of connection and violent behavior.
Bibliography
Collins, R. (2004). Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Collins, R. (2008). Violence. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Lewis, H. (1971). Shame and Guilt in Neurosis. New York: IUP.
Lindner, E. G. (2002). Healing the Cycles of Humiliation: How to Attend to Emotional Aspects of “Unsolvable Conflicts” and the Use of “Humiliation Entrepreneurship”. Peace and Conflict, Journal of Peace Psychology, 2(8), 125.
Scheff, T. (2006). Theory of Runaway Nationalism: Love of Country/Hatred of Others. From http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff
Scheff, T. (2007). War and Emotions: Hypermasculine Violence as a Social System. From http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff
Images
https://www.verywellfamily.com/do-girls-and-boys-bully-differently-460494