This weeks lectures and readings pertained to shame, and guilt. In order to reflect on guilt in shame relative to the topic , it should be interesting to look at how players react to receiving criticism from their fellow players, or from making a mistake, in particularly receiving a a red card or a ban.
The paper suggested that shame is elicited by exposed transgressions, whereas guild by private transgressions given the nature of football and t he worldwide audience, the primary reaction should by shame. This is corroborated by the gesture associated with shame, covering the face and looking down towards the ground, with a vacant expression. Below is a demonstration of this from Manchester United - Real Madrid by the Manchester United player Nani, following a red card from a seemingly harsh refereeing decision.
Some studies suggest that shame is a maldaptive trait, citing links to depressogneic attributional style. However in the context of football, an understanding of shame might be highly beneficial. Anticipating the effects of shame or guilt from receiving a ban or red card, might motivate players to avoid these aversive affective states, and be beneficial for both themselves and the team in the long and short terms.
Saving Suarez
Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher & Gramzow (1992) , found that if a person reaches a certain threshold of shame, that shame may manifest in aggression and anger. This is particularly relevant to the case of Suarez. In an entire game against Chelsea, Liverpool were losing 1-2, and Luis Suarez was being outplayed and generally out-thought by the oppositions defence, in particularly Branislav Ivanovic, the Chelsea centre-back. In the 70thminute of the game, Luis Suarez decided to violently bite his opposition defender
Perhaps this is a result of , according to the findings of Tangney et al.’s study, that Suarez is shame prone, and externalising his aggression onto the opposition player as he believes the player is responsible for his poor perfomance for which he is ashamed, rather than if he was guilt prone, and would blame himself. Perhaps through a better understanding of shame and guilt, and better processing of both Suarez may be able to control his aggression into a more adaptive outcome (playing better), rather than a maladaptive outcome (racist abuse, biting players on two occasions which have lead to multiple game bans to his and his team's detriment.) This could be done by anticipating the guilt of doing something, before doing it. With that said, in the case of Suarez, perhaps he just has a total absence of guilt nor shame proneness, particularly under intense emotional/neurological stress. (As experienced during a football match). This was shown as it would be expected after the fallout, 7 match ban and universal condemnation when he last bit a player, he would want to avoid that feeling of shame/guilt occurring again.
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