Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The current study explored the impact that “academic” shame had on learning of the human circulatory system. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a shame induction condition or a control condition (no shame induction). Results revealed that the shame induction manipulation was related to higher levels of state shame. Additionally, it was discovered that by and large “in the moment” shame and having a proneness to experiencing shame dampened down any subsequent learning. Implications to education and future research are discussed.