Our Emotions Help Us Navigate Reality

From a 2015 Paper: The function of anger, for example, is to orchestrate bargaining tactics when others put too low a weight on the individual’s welfare; the function of gratitude is to consolidate a higher level of cooperation when the system detects that an unexpectedly high weight has been put on one’s welfare; the function of pride is to motivate the individual to publicize (and achieve) traits or acts that enhance valuation by others; the function of shame is to limit reductions in the weight placed on one’s welfare by an audience; the function of guilt is to prevent or remedy events where one put too low a weight on the welfare of another (often unintentionally), independent of whether the other will know it. Within this framework, one can distinguish guilt and shame while seeing why they are related. In guilt, the outcome to be avoided is imposing harm on valued others, something that remains even if they never discover it. In shame, the outcome to be avoided is being devalued by others. One can feel both shame and guilt about the same act, but the functions, internal recalibrations, and outputs are distinct. For example, someone who felt guilt and shame about infidelity might refrain from it, whereas someone who felt shame but not guilt about infidelity might practice it but conceal it. Future work may profitably assess similarities and differences between shame and other emotions, such as guilt and embarrassment.
Because shame (like pain) causes personal suffering and sometimes leads to hostile behavior, this emotion has been called “maladaptive” and “ugly”. However, an evolutionary–psychological analysis of the existing evidence suggests a different view: this ugly emotion may be the expression of a system that is elegantly designed to deter injurious choices and to make the best of a bad situation.