Middle / Upper Primary Quiz Questions
These questions can be used in a class quiz with students in teams to help crystallise the information Bill shared in the introductory session with students. Understanding the emotion of shame is a very important step in helping young people to deal with harmful behaviour and wrongdoing in a restorative way.
The field of human emotion this content comes from is ‘Affect Theory’, first identified by Silvin Tomkins in the 1960’s and further developed by Donald Nathanson M.D. More information on human affect theory can be found at For more information about teaching affect theory to students, go to: This 3 part document by Peg Lowmiller explains the process she uses for teaching students about the nine innate affects and the compass of shame.
Question 1:
What is the name of the feeling of ‘yuck’that we all get when we know we’ve messed up or harmed someone?
Answer: ‘Shame’(the technical affect theory name is ‘shame-humiliation affect’)
Question 2:
What are some things that happen in our body and brain when shame hits us:
Answer:
- Feeling of ‘yuck’
- Our bodies Slump, our head might drop and it’s really hard to look somebody in the eye
- Cognitive Shock – our brain shuts down for a second and it’s impossible to think straight
- When we start thinking we might remember other times we have stuffed up – other moments of shame
- We feel like we are all bad – that there’s actually nothing good about us
- We either choose ‘Fix it’ or ‘Compass Of Shame’ behaviours to make the shame go away
Question 3:
The feeling of shame has an important job – just like all of our other feelings. What is it?
Answer:
To make us aware that we have mucked up and need to do something about it – fix it. If we didn’t have this little alarm bell inside us, we might do and say things all day that harm others and hurt relationships without being able to tell. Some people’s shame bell rings a lot louder than others.
(In social situations, the best way to deal with shame involves some form of reparation / restitution with others. The experts call this ‘discharging shame’)
Question 4:
What do people do with their feelings of shame if they don’t feel liked or that they belong?
Answer:
They go to the Compass of Shame to try to make the sham feelings and thoughts go away:
- Withdrawing from other people, moving away from others so we don’t give them more reasons not to like us. This gets lonely after a while so lots of people start to...
- Attack self by saying and thinking negative thingsabout ourselvesand allowing other people to put us down and treat us badly as well. When we are attacking self, welook for people to hang around who will treat us badly because we think that’s the only way we deserve to have friends. For lots of people, this only works for a while and eventually we can’t stand it anymore so we start to...
- Avoidingthe feeling of shame by becoming massive show offs, braggers, and try to be the ‘person who is best at...’ or the’ tough guy’ or the ‘person who has everything’ – anything that makes others think that we are really proud and perfect. Some people use drugs to turn the shame off. When this stops working, and there is no other way to deal with the shame we start to get into...
- Attacking others to try to make others feel worse than us, hoping this will make us feel better. This is where we bully, tease, and hurt on purpose. We just feel so ashamed of ourselves that the only thing that helps us to feel better is to see somebody else hurting just as bad.
When people get to this point, they really need the help and understanding of others. Punishing people who are attacking others just makes them feel more shame and their behaviour gets worse – not better. People here need rescuing by patient, firm and fair people. People who are willing to help them find other ways to deal with their shame.
Question 5:
What do people do with their feelings of shame if they feel like they are liked and accepted by others?
Answer:
They turn into Captain Fix-It pants by doing something to fix the harm they’ve caused. These people are good at saying and doing sorry and doing what they can to clean up problems they have caused others.
Question 6:
What are the four poles or points of the compass of shame?
Answer:
Withdrawal, Attack Self, Avoidance, Attack Other
Question 7:
What do we know about people who deliberately hurt, tease, put down or bully others?
Answer:
They are at the attack other point of the Compass of Shame and are hurting on the inside with feelings of shame about something. They need help to deal with whatever is causing their shame.
Question 8:
How do the fix it (restorative questions) help people with feelings of shame?
Answer:
They allow people to get rid of shame by fixing the harm they have caused (and help them re-connect with others)
© 2008 Bill Hansberry