How to protect yourself emotionally from unfair accusations

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Today, we’re talking about how to protect yourself emotionally when being unfairly accused.

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When someone accuses you unfairly, why is there so much shame mixed up in the heat of your anger?

Why, in such situations, do you sometimes have to remind yourself, again and again, that you did nothing wrong?

A fascinating study by Stony Brook business school professor Theresa Robertson, published in?Evolution and Human Behavior, has some answers – and some crucial takeaways for handling criticism, rejection, and exclusion.

The study is called “The true trigger of shame: Social devaluation is sufficient, wrongdoing is unnecessary. ”

It basically says that we tend to feel shame when we’re socially excluded –?whether we deserve it or not. This is because we’re evolutionarily programmed to fear being kicked out of our social groups, or rejected by our intimates. Back when we roamed the earth in small tribes, reputational damage meant extreme danger. We knew that we couldn’t survive, alone on the savannah. Even today, rejection can mean (or feel like) social death.

In this study, the researchers had people play a team game -- after which some were arbitrarily excluded from their groups, regardless of whether or not they’d been good “team-players.”

It turned out that the excluded people felt ashamed – even if, in reality, they’d been among the?best?team-players.

Those who’d been?poor?team players, but continued to be included, felt little shame.

As the researchers summed it up: “Exclusion increased shame. Under-contribution [to the group] did not. In fact, even the highest contributors tended to feel shame when excluded.”

The researchers then give the astonishing real-life example of Joseph Dick, a U.S. Navy seaman who in 1998 was falsely accused of rape and murder. There was no way that Dick could have committed these crimes. He’d been on board his ship at the time they occurred; the DNA evidence matched that of another man, who testified to committing the crimes alone. And yet – after many people insisting that Dick was guilty, and long rounds of aggressive police interrogation, he confessed; he served 12 years in prison; and he even apologized publicly to the victim’s family! (Only later was he exonerated and pardoned.)

That’s how deeply social exclusion can affect you. That’s how far undeserved shame can carry you. Right into jail.

As the researchers sum it up: “People … feel shame when they think others hold reputation-damaging beliefs about them, even if [they know] those beliefs are false. Under the right conditions, even an innocent person will feel shame.”

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There’s one wrinkle, though. The study suggests that shame is caused by reputational damage?rather than?from core existing beliefs about the self.

Yet it’s probably more complicated than that. Our temperaments and personalities predispose some of us to react to reputational damage more strongly than others. We know, for example, that sensitive children in stable homes tend to be highly conscientious, because their nervous systems react strongly, even to gentle, constructive censure. But if you’re a thick-skinned type, you’re more likely to respond to reproach with either breeziness or anger.

Back in 2005, when I was first researching?QUIET , I came across?a fascinating 1963 anthropological account ?of a pre-modern tribe – the Lakalai, of Papua New Guinea -- who sorted their members into two personality types: “Men of anger,” and “Men of shame.” The “men of anger” tended to be leaders, warriors, hunters. The “men of shame” were thinkers, dreamers, artists, advisers.

Sound familiar? As the 1963 anthropologists pointed out, the Lakalai taxonomy sounds an awful lot like modern-day concepts of introverts and extroverts.

Granted, that was one paper, written a long time ago. But I felt a deep jolt of recognition when I found it. And I’ve never forgotten it.

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So, what should you do with all this information?

• In a perfect world, you’ll protect yourself emotionally from unfair accusations, yet remain open to genuine, constructive feedback.
• The next time you face feelings of social devaluation, calmly assess the situation. Maybe the person or group causing these emotions has a fair point, and maybe they don’t. And maybe (probably), things are more complicated than a simple right/wrong analysis.
• But if you feel that you’re especially prone to shame, remember the findings of Robertson’s study: that even the most generous team players felt shame after they were arbitrarily excluded.
• Remember the case of Joseph Dick.
• And remember this:?Just because someone makes a claim against you, doesn’t make it true.

The more you internalize this knowledge, the more protected you’ll be from the sting of undeserved rejection – and the more open to fair and constructive criticism.

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See you next week!

my warmest,

Susan

#Introverts ?#Quiet ?#Leadership ?#QuietLeadership ?#Bittersweet ?#Kindred #SocialLife