Why Shame Doesn’t Work
Decades of social psychological & public health research show us that individual blame does not promote prosocial, “responsible” behavior.
The following is an excerpt from my new book, Unlearning Shame.
Just Say No” Isn’t Enough
The first time I saw my mom order wine at a restaurant, I was five years old, and it made me unbearably distraught. As soon as the glass came to our table, I burst out crying: “Don’t do drugs, Mom!” I could not believe she would do something so wrong.
I was a 1990s kid, and deep into the teaching of Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E. In the 1980s and ’90s, D.A.R.E. was catching on across the United States, teaching children that a life free of addiction was as simple as choosing to say no.[i]
D.A.R.E. classes typically took place in the middle of the school day and were led and facilitated by police officers. D.A.R.E officers taught children about the “street names” and effects of various substances, shared stories about what they’d seen those substances do to people (usually people they were about to arrest), and ran children through various skits to help them practice saying no to drugs.
