Shame and Humiliation

My gut response is:

Shame is an internally motivated state in which the person inflicts this feeling on him/herself. Whereas, humiliation is externally motivated...caused by someone else who intentionally inflicts the feeling on the other person.
 
My gut response is:

Shame is an internally motivated state in which the person inflicts this feeling on him/herself. Whereas, humiliation is externally motivated...caused by someone else who intentionally inflicts the feeling on the other person.

Was thinking the same thing.

Shame being something you feel as a result of something you did where humiliation is something you feel as a result of something done to you.

Maybe not the literal definition, but the distinction I immediately draw.
 
Are they the same? What's the difference?

The are difference because you can feel shame for allowing yourself to be humiliated. They are really quite disticnt IMO.

As lesbiaphrodite said, shame is internal (I.e., feeling shame for thowing away food when people ar starving.). Humiliation requires an external action (even if that external action comes from ones self - if that makes any sense).
 
DOC

Check the dictionary.

Humility is not the same as guilt.
 
Shame and humiliation is separated by embarassment
 
VM

Both can be either, but humilty tends to be imposed rather than self-inflicted. Alfred Nobel gave money to a countess whose family had lost its wealth. She was a clerk or something when he met her. Her boyfriend wouldnt marry her because of her poverty. So Nobel gave her some money, she got married, and all was well. Humble no more.
 
VM

Both can be either, but humilty tends to be imposed rather than self-inflicted. Alfred Nobel gave money to a countess whose family had lost its wealth. She was a clerk or something when he met her. Her boyfriend wouldnt marry her because of her poverty. So Nobel gave her some money, she got married, and all was well. Humble no more.

WTF??? Humility and Humiliation may share the same base word, but they have VERY diverse meanings.

humility: noun - the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc.
—Synonyms: lowliness, meekness, submissiveness.


humiliation: noun - 1. an act or instance of humiliating or being humiliated.
2. the state or feeling of being humiliated; mortification.
—Synonyms: degradation, dishonor.




 
I would use humiliation as deeper and more intense than shame. Just how I would rank them if I was choosing a word in writing. I also think of shame as largely personal and humiliation as beyond the personal--more of a judgment by others.
 
Shame refers to your feelings about an act.

Humiliation refers to your feelings about who you are.

You would shame a person in order to correct a behavior you don't like. You would humiliate a person to cause them to lose self-respect.

The difference isn't in nuance. They are substantively different things.
 
Here's a really good example.

Say you have a high class, wealthy couple. The husband gambles away all of their money, gets in a car wreck and is paralyzed. The wife has to go work at McDonalds to support herself and her husband who is no longer capable of work.

Working at McDonald's would make the erstwhile rich woman feel humiliated, but not shamed. Seeing his wife work at McDonald's would make the husband feel shame but probably not the humiliation she feels wearing that uniform and frying burgers.
 
Humiliation is when someone knows your shame.

:D

sr17plt said:
I would use humiliation as deeper and more intense than shame. Just how I would rank them if I was choosing a word in writing. I also think of shame as largely personal and humiliation as beyond the personal--more of a judgment by others.

I don't know. I think of this example: Someone falls with their tray in a high school cafeteria. They're humiliated but they're not shamed.

On the other hand, a close friend sees where they've practiced writing their name using the last name of a boy they like in their notebook. They're shamed but they're not necessarily humiliated.

I heard once that shame is what we feel when our secret desires become known. Humiliation is what we feel when we show our weakness. I don't know if I buy it though.
 
Shame is guilt for having done (or not done) something.

Humiliation is guilt for enjoying it. ;)
 
I don't know. I think of this example: Someone falls with their tray in a high school cafeteria. They're humiliated but they're not shamed.

On the other hand, a close friend sees where they've practiced writing their name using the last name of a boy they like in their notebook. They're shamed but they're not necessarily humiliated.

I don't think these are shame or humiliation. These people would feel embarrassment.
 
:D



I don't know. I think of this example: Someone falls with their tray in a high school cafeteria. They're humiliated but they're not shamed.

On the other hand, a close friend sees where they've practiced writing their name using the last name of a boy they like in their notebook. They're shamed but they're not necessarily humiliated.
i dunno. Is that really being shamed? I think of shame as stronger than that. I'd call what you describe as being embarrassed at the most.

Shamed would be if they had been writing mean and petty things about someone in said book, things that they should be ashamed of writing or even thinking, and then have that dark side of themselves exposed.

You know the expression "shamed into <something>" like shamed into donating to charity. Because if they say "no, screw your soup kitchen", they seem petty and cheap, or in other words, Bad People.
 
:D



I don't know. I think of this example: Someone falls with their tray in a high school cafeteria. They're humiliated but they're not shamed.

Not to me. They are just embarrassed. If they are twelve-years old, they may think they are humiliated--but in my book they just don't know what humiliation is.
 
You can be alone and feel shame, but humiliation requires others present?
 
Humiliation - made to feel humble (lowly), often by someone wielding a whip or cattle-prod

Shame - when you find you left your wallet at home and find you can't pay for above
 
Apart from dictionary definitions, my intuitive response to the two words is different.

In one sense, I see them as different in degree: shame is bad, humiliation is mortifying.

In another sense, like others, I see shame as deep and personal, something you carry with you, like a burden, for some deed or some attribute one wishes were not part of herself, while humiliation is public, a more superficial embarrassment witnessed, and perhaps catalyzed, by others.

In the realm of sex and eroticism, I think of shame as that awful burden one experiences with regard to predilections and habits one feels one should not have or take part in-- a schism between what one wishes to be, and what one is. Humiliation, on the other hand, strikes me as something done to one by another: one can be humiliated (if they allow themselves to be) by an unfaithful partner, or by being denigrated by a lover through violation of codes that impact one's self-image, a couple trite examples being the prude who's humiliated by being 'made' to parade around in slutty costumes, performing slutty acts, or the husband whose manliness is undermined when he's cuckolded. In this sense, I'd differentiate shame from humiliation by the deep misery inevitable in the first, and the potential for a form of arousal and satisfaction in the second (ETA: much like varying degrees of other forms of emotional/psychological distress (such as fear), as well as physical pain and discomfort (binding and other forms of constriction, flogging, piercing, etc.), can be exploited for sexual gratification).
 
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My husband did something so unbelievable stupid this morning, that I am simply reeling. He is certainly ashamed of himself-- but I wouldn't humiliate him about it.
 
You can be alone and feel shame, but humiliation requires others present?

My husband did something so unbelievable stupid this morning, that I am simply reeling. He is certainly ashamed of himself-- but I wouldn't humiliate him about it.

See? We are in agreement. Shame is personal and usually private. Humiliation requires the involvement of another and thus is public. Humiliation, therefore, is public shaming.
 
Okay, then let me ask you this: Humiliation can be erotic. Can shame be erotic?
 
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