Research Projects for MA Students 2025 (Supervisor: Prof Kitty Dumont)

Project 1 

United we tweet, united we “shame”: The age of shamelessness 

Brief Description 

Historically, shame culture was always used to maintain the status quo. Today, public shaming is justified as challenging the status quo (Fumurescu, 2023). Public shaming can range from shaming an individual to shaming an organisation or country. That social media users are particularly prone to other shaming has been argued to be related to the reduced moral sensitivity of social media users (Ge, 2020). In this research project, we will look at factors (e.g., personality, orientational, and situational) that predict social media users to engage in other shaming which can range from individual to organisational shaming. 

References and further Readings 

Frye, H. (2022). The problem of public shaming. Journal of Political Philosophy, 30(2), 188-208. 

Ge, X. (2020). Social media reduce users' moral sensitivity: Online shaming as a possible consequence. Aggressive Behavior, 46(5), 359-369. 

Muir, S. R., Roberts, L. D., Sheridan, L., & Coleman, A. R. (2023). Examining the role of moral, emotional, behavioural, and personality factors in predicting online shaming. Plos one, 18(3), e0279750. 

Pundak, C., Steinhart, Y., & Goldenberg, J. (2021). Nonmaleficence in shaming: The ethical dilemma underlying participation in online public shaming. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31(3), 478-500. 

Smith, R. H., Webster, J. M., Parrott, W. G., & Eyre, H. L. (2002). The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(1), 138. 

Research Methodologies 

Surveys and Social Psychological Experiments 

Degree 

Master's by Research 

Supervisor 

Prof Kitty Dumont (dumonkb@unisa.ac.za) 

Space available 

One MA candidate

Project 2 

Humiliation and the Self-Concept 

Brief Description 

Vorster, Dumont and Waldzus (under review) proposed to define psychological humiliation as the experience of receiving an unsolicited message that implies being seen or perceived by one or more significant other(s) in a manner incompatible with one’s social self-concept. Based on a content of 2635 narratives capturing definitions of humiliation and accounts of humiliating situations from 1048 participants, it was found that humiliation entails specific self-discrepancies that do not only refer to the fundamental content dimensions of communion and/or agency but also affect different aspects of the self. Vorster, Dumont and Waldzus (under review) propose that this psychological definition of humiliation offers the potential for predicting factors contributing to an individual’s susceptibility to humiliation. Two main predictors were proposed: narcissism and the dominant social construction of the social world (i.e., Culture). For instance, it is reasonable to predict that individuals with an excessively inflated self-concept, either on a personal or group level (e.g., collective narcissism; see Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 2020), are more likely to experience humiliation. It is also reasonable to assume that people experience and resolve psychological humiliation differently depending on whether their self-worth is embedded in dignity cultures, where reputation is not bestowed by others but rather intrinsic, or in face and honour cultures, where reputation is heavily reliant on others and encompasses not only personal but also familial reputation. Lastly, the proposed definition of psychological humiliation does not imply (as in previous concepts) that psychological discrepancy results only from perceiving oneself as being judged as less competent or worthy. Self-discrepancies can also arise from perceiving oneself as being judged as more competent or worthy than one actually is. This proposal raises an intriguing empirical question: Are these positive self-discrepancies also experienced as aversive, and if so, are they similar to the more common experience of humiliation as negative self-discrepancy? Orson Welles’ movie Citizen Kane might offer some insight into the concept of humiliation resulting from positive self-discrepancy through the character of Susan, who nearly committed suicide due to her husband’s grandiose illusions about her talents as an opera singer. Susan, who was painfully aware of her vocal limitations and grew increasingly traumatised by the humiliation of having to perform in front of an audience, might have survived her suicide attempt. However, she never forgave her husband for refusing to see her for who she was. 

According to some of the outlined arguments, the proposed research project should aim to study the interplay between the experience of humiliation and self-concept.

References and further Readings 

Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2014). Communal and Agentic Content in Social Cognition. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 50, pp. 195-255). Academic Press. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7 

Boldero, J., & Francis, J. (2000). The relation between self-discrepancies and emotion: The moderating roles of self-guide importance, location relevance, and social self-domain centrality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 38–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.1.38 

Golec de Zavala, A., & Lantos, D. (2020). Collective narcissism and its social consequences: The bad and the ugly. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(3), 273-278.Eisenberg, N. (2006). Prosocial Behavior. In G. G. Bear & K. M. Minke (Eds.), Children's needs III: Development, prevention, and intervention (pp. 313–324). National Association of School Psychologists. 

Elshout, M., Nelissen, R. M. A., & van Beest, I. (2017). Conceptualising humiliation. Cognition and Emotion, 31(8), 1581–1594. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1249462  

Fernández, S., Saguy, T., & Halperin, E. (2015). The paradox of humiliation: The acceptance of an unjust devaluation of the self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(7), 976–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167215586195 

Hartling, L. M, Lindner, E., Spalthoff, U., & Britton, M. (2013). Humiliation: A nuclear bomb of Emotions? Psicologia Politica, 46, 55–76 

Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: a theory relating self and affect. Psychological review, 94(3), 319-340. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319 

Leidner, B., Sheikh, H., & Ginges, J. (2012). Affective dimensions of intergroup humiliation. PloS One, 7(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046375  

Veldhuis, T. M., Gordijn, E. H., Veenstra, R., & Lindenberg, S. (2014). Vicarious group-based rejection: Creating a potentially dangerous mix of humiliation, powerlessness, and anger. PloS One, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095421  

Vorster, A., Dumont, K. B., & Waldzus, S. (2021). Just hearing about it makes me feel so humiliated: Emotional and motivational responses to vicarious group-based humiliation. International Review of Social Psychology, 34(1): 6, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.458  

Vorster, A., Dumont, K. B., & Waldzus, S. (under review). Rethinking Humiliation: Self-Discrepancy as the Core of a Complex Psychological Experience. Currently with European Journal of Social Psychology 

Research Methodologies 

Surveys and Social Psychological Experiments 

Degree 

Masters by Research 

Supervisor 

Prof Kitty Dumont (dumonkb@unisa.ac.za) and Dr Anja Vorster from Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand) 

Space available 

One MA candidate