Abstract

This chapter develops a naturalistic and evolutionary psychological account of shame and the sense of shame, according to which shame is a social rank‐based emotion. Culture, itself a part of nature, can modify our Homo sapiens bioprogram. In a special case of the cultural modification of our shame program, Early Confucian culture sought to exploit shame in order to decrease high rates of violence in the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). Early Confucian leaders believed that if people were to acquire increases in social rank primarily through prestige rather than violence, peace would reign. For several reasons, not least having to do with high‐fidelity cultural transmission of Confucianism through Chinese history, East Asians today display a heightened shame profile that makes them outliers with respect to the rest of the world. This is developed in the final part of the paper.