Criticizing a lot doesn’t mean that the other person will learn sooner. Pointing out to someone that they have made a mistake can help them realize their mistake, but that doesn’t mean they will be happier and it’s not even a guarantee that they will try to repair the damage or learn the lesson.
To think that “the letter is written with blood”, that if someone feels ashamed, they will immediately correct their behaviour and not make that mistake again, is a gross mistake. It is true that the trauma caused by humiliation leaves deep marks on us, but that does not mean that it is positive and, above all, that there are not other more assertive ways of pointing out errors.
Humiliation is a very intense emotion that can cause emotional wounds that are difficult to heal since it is a direct attack on the “self” and questions our worth as people.
Humiliation: It lasts longer than joy and is more intense than anger
We feel humiliated when we perceive that our value is diminished in the eyes of others. This is a very negative emotional state, but unfortunately also very common, although it has been very little studied compared to states such as anger, anxiety or fear.
Until now, it was thought that humiliation was simply an unpleasant state whose repercussions did not go beyond a momentary pang of pain or anguish. However, now a study carried out at the University of Amsterdam has put its finger on the sore spot, revealing that the consequences of humiliation are much more serious than we thought.
These neuroscientists decided to look into the brains of people while they were experiencing different emotional states. The aim was to compare their reactions to states such as anger, joy, shame and humiliation.
To generate these states, they were read short stories that referred to these emotions and asked to imagine themselves in the protagonist’s shoes. For example, in the case of humiliation, they were asked to imagine that they had a date and that the person, as soon as they saw them, turned around and left.
The responses that occurred at the brain level were analyzed taking into account their intensity and duration. By comparing the different conditions, the researchers were able to observe that the responses triggered by humiliation were more intense than those triggered by joy and more negative than those triggered by anger.
These neuroscientists believe that humiliation activates brain areas linked to pain, which is why it could be more intense than anger and, at the same time, represents a great cognitive load that we must process, which is why it is much longer lasting than joy.
Therefore, people who believe that by humiliating others and lecturing them in front of everyone they are teaching them something are actually only causing them pain and creating a wound that could last a lifetime. There are kinder ways to help.
Reference:
Otten, M., & Jonas, K. J. (2014) Humiliation as an intense emotional experience: Evidence from the electro-encephalogram. Social Neuroscience; 9(1): 23-35.
