Definition Essay-What Does Shame Means

161 Words1 Pages
Shame is an emotion that every person has felt- even Donald Trump. It’s the burning on your cheeks as you embarrass yourself and the pause in your mind before you take a risk. Although shame is considered to be a wholly negative emotion, it can often be used in a productive manner. During my internship at a behavioral economics firm I worked on a project commissioned by the government to try and reduce the number of cyclists passing through red lights. By creating posters that shamed this behaviour, reinforced by statistics regarding accidents between cyclists and cars we found that the number of cyclists passing through red lights in the test areas had decreased by a third. Ruth Benedict, the first renowned female anthropologist, felt that