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Men all over the world have been socialized to be strong, brave and competent, which usually has meant suppressing vulnerable emotions, especially fear, grief, and shame. In most male adults, these emotions are hidden, disguised or suppressed so consistently that early in childhood being aware of them becomes problematic.

There is also a substantial literature that men are socialized to pay less attention to attachments to others than women do. To achieve success or at least survival, men are trained to be less interested in affectional bonds than women (Lewis 1976). Suppression of emotion and detachment from others are closely interrelated. The more one suppresses one’s emotions, the more difficulty others have relating to you. And the more isolated from others, the easier it is to suppress emotions. On one’s own, without having to attend to others, one can try to organize one’s life in a way that avoids emotion.

By suppressing emotions and relationships, men become mobile to seek accomplishments and jobs. But such mobility comes at a high price: isolation from self and others, and, as I will argue, a propensity for aggression and violence. Men are socialized to deal with the outer world, but also to mostly ignore the emotional/relational (e/r) world. How does isolation from the e/r world translate into violence?

There are several studies that suggest a somewhat counter-intuitive answer to this question. These studies propose that the management of one particular emotion, shame, is crucial. They propose that men are particularly socialized to suppress this emotion: the sense of being weak, inadequate, powerless, helpless, impotent, or incompetent. Rather than experience these painful feelings or let others see them undergoing them, men usually become blank or angry. Shame itself is harmless, indeed, necessary. Shame is a prime component of conscience, modesty, and morality. It becomes a problem only if covered over. That is, one ingredient of violence, its incredible energy, is produced by masking shame with blankness or anger.

Lewis’s moment by moment analysis of shame/anger episodes in discourse (1971) suggests a shame mechanism that I have called spiraling (Scheff 1987; 1994). It seems to me that shame/anger spirals explain the emotional basis for the high energy level of humiliated fury. Lewis herself has provided a cognitive explanation that complements the emotional one. According to Lewis (1971), the predominant cognitive feature of bypassed shame is what she calls obsessive preoccupation, the narrowing of focus onto a single issue. When an individual has a propensity to isolation from others, these two processes serve to further isolate him or her. They also can help explain a lifetime of anger, aggression and violence.