 23. The Self‑Conscious and Social Emotions  509
heightened physiological responses indica -
tive of embarrassment (i.e., blushing) follow -
ing an embarrassing situation.
Are Self‑Conscious Emotions  Evolved?
Most theoretical accounts of self-  conscious 
emotions view these states as evolved re -
sponses to the environment, which function 
to send important messages about one’s so -
cial worth and status to the individual ex -
periencing the emotion and to others, typi -
cally through a distinct nonverbal display 
(e.g., Keltner & Buswell, 1997; Tracy, 2016; 
Tracy & Robins, 2004a). Indeed, one of the 
most prominent “gold standard” criteria to 
determine whether a particular emotion is 
likely to be evolved is whether it has a dis -
tinct, cross-  culturally recognized nonverbal 
expression. Although pride and shame were 
not included in the pantheon of emotions 
originally thought to meet this criterion, in 
recent years, evidence has emerged for cross- 
cultural, reliably recognized expressions of 
both. The prototypical pride expression 
includes both the body (i.e., expanded pos -
ture, head tilted slightly back, arms akimbo 
with hands on hips or raised above the head 
with hands in fists) and the face (i.e., small 
smile; Tracy & Robins, 2004b), and is reli -
ably recognized and distinguished from sim -
ilar emotions by individuals across cultures, 
including several highly isolated, largely 
preliterate, traditional small-scale societ -
ies (Tracy & Robins, 2008; Tracy, Shariff, 
Zhao, & Henrich, 2013). In educated North 
American samples, pride-  recognition rates 
are comparable to rates found for most basic 
emotions (e.g., anger, sadness).
Importantly, the recognizable pride ex -
pression is also spontaneously displayed  in 
pride-  eliciting situations, by successful chil -
dren as young as 3 years old (Lewis, Ales -
sandri, & Sullivan, 1992; Stipek, Recchia, 
& McClintic, 1992), high school students 
who have performed well on a class exam 
(Weisfeld & Beresford, 1982), and victori -
ous adult Olympic athletes from countries 
all over the world, as well as congenitally 
blind athletes across cultures, who could not 
have learned to display pride through visual 
modeling (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008). To -
gether, these findings suggest that the pride 
expression is likely to be a human univer -sal, and even an innate behavioral response 
to success. It is unlikely that the expression 
would (1) be recognized so consistently and 
robustly, (2) by individuals who could not 
have learned it through cross-  cultural trans -
mission (e.g., films, magazines), or (3) be re -
liably and spontaneously displayed in pride- 
eliciting situations by individuals who have 
never seen others display it, if it were not a 
basic part of human nature.
Shame is also associated with a recogniz -
able nonverbal expression that comprises 
essentially the opposite set of behaviors as 
pride: head tilted downward and lowered 
eye gaze, along with slumped posture (Izard, 
1971; Keltner, 1995; Tracy, Robins, & 
Schriber, 2009). The shame expression can 
be reliably distinguished from similar emo -
tions, such as embarrassment and sadness 
(Keltner, 1995). Shame-  recognition rates in 
North American samples are typically lower 
than those observed for pride, but not sub -
stantially lower than rates often found for 
certain basic emotions, such as fear (Haidt 
& Keltner, 1999; Keltner, 1995; Tracy, Rob -
ins, et al., 2009).
Shame-  recognition rates are considerably 
lower in non-  Western cultures (e.g., Chung 
& Robins, 2015), but significantly-  greater- 
than-  chance recognition was observed in the 
same two traditional small-scale societies 
in which pride recognition was examined, 
providing evidence for universality (Tracy 
& Robins, 2008; Tracy et al., 2013). In ad -
dition, the recognizable shame expression 
is spontaneously displayed in the shame- 
eliciting situation of failure. Head tilt down -
ward and slumped posture or narrowed 
shoulders have been documented in response 
to failure or loss of a fight in children as 
young as 2.5–3 years old (Lewis et al., 1992; 
Stipek et al., 1992), older children ages 3–10 
(Strayer & Strayer, 1976), high-  school stu -
dents (Weisfeld & Beresford, 1982), and 
adult Olympic athletes from a wide range of 
countries (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008). In -
terestingly, these athletes reliably narrowed 
their chests and slumped their shoulders in 
response to defeat only if they were from 
countries outside  of North America and 
Western Europe. This cultural difference— 
an absence of failure-  based shame displays 
by individuals from the most individual -
istic and self-  expression-  valuing Western 