Tag: psychology

By Posted on Posted in Culture, Guilt, Honor, Shame, Spirituality 6 Comments Tagged with , , , , ,
The label “fear-power culture” has various meanings, depending on the perspective of the speaker. This posts explains the three ways people have defined “fear-power culture.” 1. Religious: Fear-Power as Spiritual Control The worldviews of Majority World cultures, especially tribal religions, …

The Meaning of ‘Fear-Power’—3 Options Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Culture, Guilt, Honor, Shame, Wesetern 4 Comments Tagged with , , ,
The idea of “guilt vs. shame” has a long history in 20th-century scholarship (see previous post). But how did the cultural model of guilt-shame-fear develop? Here is a super short history of the cultural trichotomony.  In 1954, Christian anthropologist and …

The Model of Guilt-Shame-Fear—A Short History Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Communication, Culture, Honor, Shame, Wesetern No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,
Where do these categories of “guilt-shame” or “shame-honor” come from? Like all ideas, the notion of “shame” has developed over time. This post summarizes the main currents of shame research in the 20th century. The Beginning: Ruth Benedict The binary …

The Meaning of ‘Shame’—A Short History Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Culture, ethics, Resources, salvation, Shame, Spirituality, Theology, Wesetern 3 Comments Tagged with , , ,
Last year Christian publishers released 4 books titled “Unashamed.” These are Christian efforts to speak to a popular topic in Western culture—the longing to be free of shame and to “be myself.”  While inspiring and encouraging, these books assume the distorted, Western …

Super Duper “Unashamed” Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Culture, ethics, Shame 10 Comments Tagged with , , , ,
Guilt-innocence cultures are W.E.I.R.D.—Western, Education, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.In 2010, three cultural psychologists published an article titled “The Weirdest People in the World?” The authors explain that most psychological research in conducted on a small, unrepresentative subset of human population—W.E.I.R.D people.The …

Guilt-Innocence Cultures are WEIRD Read more »