Humiliation
You feel humiliation when your rank falls.
You feel humiliation, for example, when you:
- are fired, demoted, laid-off or retired from work
- fail to graduate from school
- are criticized or putdown
- are the favorite and lose
- ask for help with directions or finances
- apologize, say sorry or admit you were wrong
- are treated as an equal by a lower-ranking person
- are asked for something without hearing please or thank-you
- learn that others have been allowed to break the rules with impunity
You feel humiliation because your rank is lower, not because your rank is low. The only criminals who feel humiliation are first-time offenders. Every CEO feels humiliation when they retire.
The bigger your fall in rank, the stronger the humiliation you feel.
Being fired from work makes you feel more humiliation than just getting a bad performance review. Failing a school year makes you feel more humiliation than just failing a test.
You feel imaginary humiliation more than real humiliation.
You feel imaginary humiliation when you imagine your rank falling. We all do this when we worry about things that could go wrong - like being laid off or failing a test. We specifically worry about the humiliation we imagine feeling when we tell others - like telling your family you've been laid off or telling your classmates that you failed.
You blush when you feel pride followed by humiliation.
Blushing only occurs when humiliation immediately follows pride. You will blush, for example, if you walk into a room of people who look at you and then laugh at a big stain on your crotch. You feel pride when you first walk into the room because everybody is looking at you. You then feel humiliation when you realize that you have a stained crotch.
Blushing makes others feel compassion instead of humor. The people in the room would feel humor when laughing at your stained crotch. They would then feel compassion when they saw you blushing.
Humiliation is one of two most important causes of unhappiness.
If you are unhappy, it is probably caused by one of two negative emotions: loneliness or humiliation. Loneliness is caused not being with family and friends. It grows stronger and weaker in the background rarely becoming memorably painful. By contrast, humiliation occurs at particular moments and is often memorably painful. You can best maximize your happiness by avoiding these emotions.
Humiliation is temporary.
You only feel humiliation while your lower rank is new. Once your rank is no longer new, you stop feeling humiliation. People who have been unemployed for a year or more no longer feel humiliation. Repeat offenders do not feel humiliation when they are convicted the second time.
The temporary nature of humiliation is a non-trivial issue - as discussed in the following paragraph.
Assuming that humiliation is permanent leads to big mistakes - like addictions and suicide.
Many people going through a downfall, like being fired, assume the depressing feelings they have are permanent. Unable to face a future of permanent depression, they take drastic steps to avoid it - like becoming addicted to a substance or committing suicide.
Their depressing feelings are humiliation and it does not last. With time, the humiliation associated with their downfall goes away leaving them just as happy as they were before the downfall. If these people know they will get better, they would not take drastic steps.
You feel humiliation when you apologize, say sorry or admit you were wrong.
People are reluctant to apologize because they are lowering their rank and making themselves feel humiliation. If you apologize for being late, for example, you are stating that your rank has fallen to that of somebody who is inconsiderate. If you admit you are rude, you are stating that your rank has fallen to that of someone who is impolite.
The strong reluctance of people to apologize is proof of the importance of humiliation. Apologizing is an easy way to stop another person feeling revenge towards you. It requires nothing real to apologize but it does stop the real possibility of retaliation. Yet we are reluctant to take this easy step to avoid retaliation because we don't want to feel humiliation. We'd rather have an enemy than feel momentary humiliation.
You feel humiliation when others do not say please or thank-you.
Saying please and thank-you is a promise of reciprocity. Saying “please pass the salt” is equivalent to saying “if you pass the salt, I will return the favor”. Saying “thank you” is equivalent to saying “I confirm that I will return the favor”.
If someone does not say please and thank-you, they are implying that you are their servant. They expect you to cooperate with their request without the promise of reciprocity. Implying that you are their servant lowers your rank and makes you feel humiliation.
We say please and thank-you to actual servants to mask the fact that they are lower rank. Customers and bosses, for example, say please and thank-you to waitresses or employees to avoid making them feel humiliation. Instead, they hope to make them feel pride by treating them as equals.
Asking for help makes people feel humiliation.
Men are reluctant to ask for directions because it lowers their rank to non-navigator. Instead, men would rather waste time using trial-and-error to find their destination than feel humiliation. Adults do not like asking others for financial help because it lowers their rank below adult. Instead, many would rather be homeless than feel humiliation.
Insecure people are overly sensitive to humiliation.
Insecure people are overly concerned with avoiding a fall in rank because it makes them feel humiliation. They are frequently checking their appearance, for example, for anything out of place. Or they frequently ask friends if their appearance or behavior is embarrassing. Avoiding feeling humiliation becomes their primary concern when socializing.
The highest ranked are more concerned with humiliation than pride.
The people at the top have nowhere to go but down and they have farther to fall than anyone else. Consequently, they are more likely feel humiliation than others. And they could feel much stronger humiliation than others. “ The desire of acquiring the comforts of the world haunts the imagination of the poor, and the dread of losing them that of the rich." (Alexis de Tocqueville)
People often feel vicarious humiliation the first time they have a personal servant.
People are often uncomfortable the first time somebody gives them a pedicure or they use a maid. They are uncomfortable because they imagine being the lower rank of servant - which makes them feel humiliation.
Although first time customers may imagine that servants feel humiliation, the servants don't. Their rank has not fallen. They may have been providing pedicures or cleaning toilets for years. Their rank may be low, but it is not lower. They are not feeling humiliation.
Many people do not mature fully because humiliation stops them learning from feedback.
To mature fully people need feedback from others. They need to know, for example, when they are hurtful to others so they know what to change. Otherwise their hurtful personality traits will persist and their development will be frozen.
Unfortunately, getting feedback from others usually makes people feel humiliation. As a result, they become defensive and disagree with the feedback before considering it. And the person giving the feedback is less inclined to give feedback in the future.
The solution is to develop the habit of just listening when others give feedback. People cannot stop feeling humiliation. However, they can anticipate it and choose to listen instead of being defensive. People that develop habit of just listening to feedback are more mature and more likeable.
Humor requires that somebody feels humiliation.
People only feel humor when they learn about somebody's rank falling. And if somebody's rank falls then somebody feels humiliation. So you cannot feel humor without somebody feeling humiliation. Even self-effacing humor reduces somebody's rank - the comedian's.
When the victim of a joke complains about being picked on, the joke teller will say "it's just a joke" or "I'm just joking". However, if the joke makes others feel humor it must make the victim feel humiliation. The humor the audience feels is as real as the humiliation the victim feels. It's not just a joke to the victim.
You feel humiliation when a lower-ranking person treats you as an equal.
If a lower-ranking person treats you like an equal, it feels like your rank has fallen to their level. Adults feel humiliation when a young child addresses them by their first name. The Queen feels humiliation when her subjects do not curtsey or bow for her.
Avoiding humiliation is what keeps people going after mid-life.
As children and young adults people experience a steady increase in rank. They keep graduating from another year of school, grow a little taller, get more freedoms, acquire more assets, get paid more and get promoted routinely. That steady increase in rank produces a steady stream of pride and therefore happiness until mid-life.
Most people hit a rank plateau mid-life. They no longer experience increases in rank. Their education, height, incomes, assets and title do not change significantly from one year to the next. The lack of rank increase means they no longer feel pride. After feeling a steady stream of pride for decades, its absence feels like depression.
This is when people suffer a mid-life crisis. They try to replace the pride they lost. Since they can no longer increase their career or family rank, they try to increase it elsewhere. A common choice is to be more sexually appealing. Men buy sports cars. Women get cosmetic surgery. This does make them feel pride - but only temporarily. Once the pride stops, they end where they were before the car or surgery - just as unhappy or more so.
At this point, people consider letting their rank fall. Without the reward of pride, people are no longer willingly to tolerate long hours of work or commuting. They consider letting it fall, but they don't.
People don't let their rank fall because of humiliation. They contemplate a career that is less demanding but also less rewarding financially and lower stature. They imagine moving to a smaller house or wearing cheaper clothes. When people imagine that lower rank scenario they feel humiliation. That feeling of humiliation usually feels so unhappy that they decide to not make any changes. They continue in the same career, same hours and same commute. Instead of working to feel pride, they work to avoid humiliation. It's a miserable existence that is hard to avoid. Many of these people give up on finding happiness during the week and instead live for the weekends. Some start eating too much in an attempt to use food to offset their lost pride. Others become functional alcoholics - they drink enough to make it through the boredom of the workday but not enough to be unable to do the job they have been doing for years.
People at this juncture in life make a critical assumption about the humiliation they will feel if their rank falls. They correctly assume they will feel humiliation, but they incorrectly assume they will feel it forever. They won't. They will only feel humiliation for the short time their rank is falling. After the humiliation stops they will end up just as happy about work but working far less - leaving more time for hobbies or family - both sources of new happiness.
As children and young adults people experience a steady increase in rank. They keep graduating from another year of school, grow a little taller, get more freedoms, acquire more assets, get paid more and get promoted routinely. That steady increase in rank produces a steady stream of pride and therefore happiness until mid-life.
Most people hit a rank plateau mid-life. They no longer experience increases in rank. Their education, height, incomes, assets and title do not change significantly from one year to the next. The lack of rank increase means they no longer feel pride. After feeling a steady stream of pride for decades, its absence feels like depression.
This is when people suffer a mid-life crisis. They try to replace the pride they lost. Since they can no longer increase their career or family rank, they try to increase it elsewhere. A common choice is to be more sexually appealing. Men buy sports cars. Women get cosmetic surgery. This does make them feel pride - but only temporarily. Once the pride stops, they end where they were before the car or surgery - just as unhappy or more so.
At this point, people consider letting their rank fall. Without the reward of pride, people are no longer willingly to tolerate long hours of work or commuting. They consider letting it fall, but they don't.
People don't let their rank fall because of humiliation. They contemplate a career that is less demanding but also less rewarding financially and lower stature. They imagine moving to a smaller house or wearing cheaper clothes. When people imagine that lower rank scenario they feel humiliation. That feeling of humiliation usually feels so unhappy that they decide to not make any changes. They continue in the same career, same hours and same commute. Instead of working to feel pride, they work to avoid humiliation. It's a miserable existence that is hard to avoid. Many of these people give up on finding happiness during the week and instead live for the weekends. Some start eating too much in an attempt to use food to offset their lost pride. Others become functional alcoholics - they drink enough to make it through the boredom of the workday but not enough to be unable to do the job they have been doing for years.
People at this juncture in life make a critical assumption about the humiliation they will feel if their rank falls. They correctly assume they will feel humiliation, but they incorrectly assume they will feel it forever. They won't. They will only feel humiliation for the short time their rank is falling. After the humiliation stops they will end up just as happy about work but working far less - leaving more time for hobbies or family - both sources of new happiness.
Child stars have the worst life plan.
As children, child stars feel strong pride as their rank rockets to stardom. However, they usually spend the remainder of their lives continuously declining in rank. This continuous decline in rank makes them feel continuous humiliation, which they often try to avoid with drugs or alcohol.
As children, child stars feel strong pride as their rank rockets to stardom. However, they usually spend the remainder of their lives continuously declining in rank. This continuous decline in rank makes them feel continuous humiliation, which they often try to avoid with drugs or alcohol.
For more about emotions, visit: Happiness Dissected
