Shame on you! A study of how individuals handle the feeling of shame.
AccountsShameCultural consumptionSocial statusCultural capitalManagement of enterprisesFöretagsledningManagementBusiness and Economics
The aim with this thesis was to acquire an understanding for how individuals handle the feeling of shame in connection with cultural consumption. In order to capture the feeling of shame we developed an interview method called the Backstabber interview technique. We found that the Backstabber interview technique successfully triggered feelings of shame in connection to cultural consumption, which made it possible for us to study the handling of shame. We found that our respondents tended to use different forms of accounts in order to handle the feeling of shame. We categorized them into five accounts with relating sub-accounts. Our results indicated that individuals gain status through skilfully use accounts.