This is an ABC podcast.

Shame and guilt are social emotions that we feel bad because we think that other people would think badly of us.

They're sort of a way of preventing ourselves from doing bad things.

They're also a way of punishing ourselves for having done bad things.

Dr Alex Corb from UCLA and more from him later about the brain in shame. Hi, it's all in the

mind on RN. I'm Lynne Malcolm. Today, how the social emotion of shame plays out in today's

society, both at a personal and public level.

Shame on you. You have given all women a bad name. You're just a piece of shit.

An ancient, almost barbaric punishment has returned out there in the vast, crowded emptiness of the virtual world.

The punishment is shame. Nowadays, it arrives unannounced, and when it does, you will find out what it means to be alone and vulnerable. A disgraced pop science writer called Joan Alera. He'd been caught plagiarizing and faking quotes,

and he was drenched in shame and regrets, he told me.

And he had the opportunity to publicly apologize

at a foundation lunch.

Maybe it would win him some salvation.

He knew before he arrived that the foundation was going to be live streaming his event,

but what he didn't know until he turned up

was that they'd erected a giant screen Twitter feed right next to his head.

And here were some of the tweets that were cascading into his eyeline

as he was trying to apologize.

Joan Alera boring us into forgiving him.

And Jonah Lehrer has not proven that he is capable of feeling shame.

And Jonah Lehrer is just a frigging sociopath.

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