Is Shame Necessary?: New Uses for an Old Tool First Edition Edition

Robert Sapolsky, author of Monkeyluv
“In the age of Anthony Weiner and Miley Cyrus, shame seems an antiquated concept—a quaint tool of conformity-obsessed collectivist societies, replete with scarlet letters and loss of face. In this thought-provoking, wonderfully readable book, Jennifer Jacquet explores the psychology and sociology of shame. In the process, she argues that shaming is far from obsolete, and can be an effective weapon wielded by the weak against the strong.”
 
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow
“Shame is no longer unfashionable, thanks to Jennifer Jacquet. This book describes, in sparkling prose, how important a sense of shame is to civilized life, and provides some fascinating insights as to the role of social media in providing a new tool to moderate shameless behavior.”

Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together
“A book that gives shame a good name—and just in time—because it reinforces our better angels, cements our communities, and crucially, because our planet needs us to feel it. Well argued, beautifully written, sophisticated and down to earth.”

Nicholas Christakis, coauthor of Connected
“Our species had emotions before we had speech. And our emotions are social, not merely individual. Jacquet trenchantly and engagingly analyzes how we might resurrect one public emotion—shame—and put it to good use in our collective lives, influencing public discourse and public policy. Shame is relevant to everything from how we drive, to how we pay our taxes, to how we choose our food. And it is even useful, Jacquet satisfyingly shows, in constraining the acts of powerful individuals and enormous corporations.”

Joseph Henrich, co–director of the Center for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture at University of British Columbia
“Deployed throughout human history to intimidate and punish those who threatened the cooperative harmony of small communities, shame has been increasingly left on the shelf in recent centuries, its immense powers deemed impolite and unnecessary. Now, Jennifer Jacquet not only skillfully re forges and sharpens this ancient emotional weapon, she gives us our first lessons on how to wield it. Polluters, exploiters and other global parasites beware, the human community has just rearmed.”

Brian Eno, Long Now Foundation
“This is a wonderful, important and timely book. It shows us that the glue that really holds society together is not laws and diktats but honour and shame. Among (many) other things, Jennifer Jacquet has identified and articulated the social tools by which it might just be possible to encourage better long term behaviour from those big players—like corporations—who are otherwise able to find their way round the law.”

Gawker.com, “The Best Books This Year Are All Written by Women: A Guide for 2015”
“[Jacquet’s] new book mines the possibilities of shame to be used as an agent for positive change. Where the book lands is as unexpected as it is revelatory.”

Publishers Weekly 
“An astute how-to and defense of shame.”

Astra Taylor, LA Times
"Jennifer Jacquet's Is Shame Necessary? is an earnest call to employ chastisement for the greater good….her arguments are backed by interesting research and her moral conviction is refreshing, particularly given how destructive the emotion she analyzes can be.”

The Economist
“[A] thought-provoking treatise on the soft power of opprobrium, and its important role in achieving social cohesion in an ever more individualised culture....The implicit message of Is Shame Necessary, about the importance of collective social responsibility, is timely and urgent—particularly about inequality and climate change.”
 
Bob Holmes, New Scientist
“Jacquet systematically explores the nature of shaming and some of the psychological evidence that shows why it works. In doing so, she makes a strong case for the value of shaming for shaping and enforcing social norms….her book is the first I know to address shaming in such detail. As such, it makes a valuable contribution by drawing our attention to the potential value of this strategy whenever we seek to change how institutions behave.”

Nick Romeo, Chicago Tribune
“An incisive argument….Jacquet’s book is a powerful critique of the delusion that individual consumer choices can resolve large-scale social and environmental problems.” 

Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post
“In her book, Is Shame Necessary?, [Jacquet] contrasts the limits of guilt (a personal emotion by which individuals hold themselves to their own standards) with the power of shame (a public process driven by collective norms enforced by a vigilant audience). For example, Jacquet explains that so much of what citizens do for the environment — recycle, switch on compact fluorescent light bulbs, drive hybrids — accomplishes so little because these are the actions of consumers seeking to assuage personal misgivings….Shame seeks to impose and enforce a broader standard, and that is what makes it so daunting and effective.” 

Claire Fallon, Huffington Post
“Jacquet’s book [also] documents, carefully, the problems inherent in Internet shaming: disproportionality, the disinhibition effect of anonymity, and the threats to privacy rights. But she goes well beyond this to examine the totality of shame: how it works, how it can be used effectively, and in what circumstances it is an appropriate measure….She also points to instances in which shaming is a first step to more institutionalized penalties for behaviors we no longer find acceptable. In Jacquet’s view, shaming is a tool that can effectively regulate harmful acts for which there’s no official punishment.”

JENNIFER JACQUET is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. She works at the intersection of conservation and cooperation, focusing on the human dimensions of large-scale social dilemmas, such as overfishing and climate change. She formerly wrote for the Guilty Planet blog at Scientific American.