Shame, tonic immobility, and reactions to stressful events as phylogenetically conserved submissive defense mechanisms.

Abstract

Shame, tonic immobility, and passive reactions to stressful events are phylogenetically conserved, obligatory, submissive defense reactions. Behavior, biology, genetics, evolutionary theories, and theories of humans as ultra-social animals are integrated to expand the understanding of these defense reactions in ways that are missing from current theories. In Study 1, 445 undergraduates selected the event that caused them the most shame, the event that produced their greatest inability to move or speak, and the stressful event that bothered them the most. Event-specific measures included the severity, centrality to identity, and effects of the event. In Study 2, 300 of these participants answered individual-differences measures. In Study 3, 350 Prolific workers rated the same events and the events that produced the most verbal disagreement and the most pride, control events that involved fewer phylogenetically conserved, obligatory, submissive defense reactions. The added events generally produced the lower effects as predicted. Preregistered predictions of a high degree of similarity among shame, tonic immobility, and reactions to stressful events were supported, including similar correlations among event-specific measures in each type of event, between the same event-specific measures across event types, and between event-specific and individual-differences measures. For factors involving shame, tonic immobility, and reactions to stressful events, this framework increases scientific understanding and offers support to individuals who are left to interpret their responses as signs of personal weaknesses. Such factors include sexual assault, genocide, war, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, addiction, poverty, and professional duties. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).