I am sorry about the depression voice. I knew it was there, I just think it is also sensible in this respect. I am beginning to think humiliation is a fairly complex emotion, combining anger and shame (or something in that neighbourhood). So I would hazard a guess that depression can stop people from having enough ego to feel they have the right to be angry?

Thinking about humiliation play in BDSM, I guess publicity is not the best word, because you don’t need an audience, you only need one other person there. But it’s certainly not an emotion I can feel without external help, unlike shame, which is what I think they were trying to get at.

You have also made me wonder if humiliation is a word that we use for more than one thing. Maybe it doesn’t just subjectively refer to an emotional reaction, but also objectively to the kind of situation that makes most people feel that way (but not all)?

I was trying to think through what my distinction between “shame” and “humiliation” was, and couldn’t find one that correctly sorted the scenarios I could think of for each (as you might guess, I’m also not convinced by the researchers’ definition of “publicity and loss of social status”!) But I think the scenario as described, of an instant rejection by an internet date, didn’t seem “public”, and also didn’t involve “social status”. No one else knows why either of you are there, so neither “public” nor “status” can be affected.

I tried to think of a scenario to make me feel humiliation, based on the “internet date” theme, and the best I could come up with was arriving and approaching the wrong person by mistake. That still didn’t have the “public” “loss of social status” (you’d need the wrong person to then make it very obvious to everyone else what had just happened – and even then, I would be more affected by my initial mistake than by the public announcement of it).

“Your ego is sensible” – not quite! My reaction to the story has more to do with my history of depression. My “depression voice” still says things like, “you will never have anything good”, “no one really wants you”, “don’t expect any return on your time and effort” – so an internet date turning up and immediately leaving just seems like, “Oh well, I suppose that was the most likely outcome.” (And in the “happy” scenario the “depression voice” is telling me to expect nothing good, reminding me of all the times it hasn’t worked out.) It sounds bleak, but I’m a pretty positive person, a twisted form of “expect the worst, believe in the best”. And good things do actually happen to me from time to time.

As for “elicit different emotions”, I think there are overlapping themes: both “humiliation” and “anger” involve a sense of “picking up the pieces” (literally in “anger”, figuratively in “humiliation”); “happy” and “anger” share a sense of looking to the future (one cautiously, the other assessing what repairs/tidying are needed); “happy” and “humiliation” are both strongly affected by the “depression voice” expecting the worst (again, one cautious, the other resigned).

It’s always good to hear from you! What you say makes sense, but that’s more about what labels to apply to the three scenarios. It sounds like they do still elicit different emotions from you?

The researchers mention that they consider publicity and loss of social status to be essential components of humiliation. I’m curious if that would be part of your reaction to the ‘humiliation’ scenario. If so, maybe your ego is just sensible enough not to react the way others might.

My first concern was that the stories might not be controlled for emotional intensity. So I was happy that the researchers checked that by asking people for ratings afterwards.