Unlock the power of social judgment and shaming
Worthwhile language advice
Have a question about language at work? You can send it to admin@worthwhileconsulting.com. All questions are anonymized.
“In your LinkedIn post the other day, you said that social judgment, social shaming, and ostracism are powerful tools. Can you tell us more?”
What can you do when someone is behaving badly, maybe even criminally, but you don’t have the institutional power to hold them accountable? You might be able to leverage the hidden power of social judgment and social shaming.
Humans are social animals
Social judgment and shaming work because human beings are inherently social animals. Our communities and our social interactions are foundational to our physical and mental health.
When people feel socially supported and connected, it not only improves overall mental health, it also improves cardiovascular health, blood sugar control, cancer survival rates, PTSD symptoms, and more.
Conversely, social isolation increases your risk of heart disease and strokes (at the same rate as smoking cigarettes), increases rates of depression, cognitive decline and dementia, and shortens lifespans.
We learn through socialization
Every community has its own norms, its own standards for what is acceptable and appropriate.
We learn these norms through what anthropologists call socialization, which I also call cultural programming, since many of us think about our brains and bodies like computers.
Language plays a central role in socialization.
We learn the norms of communication. What is and isn’t ok to say? What is a regular amount of silence and what is an awkward silence? How do we encode implicit messages like “I respect you” and “I like you” and “I think we’re similar”? How do we need to change to be appropriate with different people and in different situations
Through language, we learn about the world. We learn how to sort the world around us into categories and what kind of value gets assigned to those categories. What is safe and unsafe? Who is “us” and who is “them”? What is food and what is something we don’t eat? Who is important and who is unimportant? Who do we respect and pay attention to and who do we disrespect and ignore? What behaviors do we encourage and what do we discourage?
The vast majority of our socialization is implicit. When we do hear explicit feedback, it is because there are well-established social norms that are easy to pinpoint and label. For example, saying please and saying thank you, or labeling a set of words as “curse words” that can only be used in limited circumstances.
Cultural programming and influence continues throughout our entire lives. In fact, there is an entire group we call “influencers” who through the power of words and images alone convince people to buy things, eat things, and think things. Social influence is so important that skilled people get paid to do it.
Ostracism and social stigma can be deadly
Throughout human history, isolation and ostracism have been used to maintain social norms and punish people who have behaved badly. Ostracism comes after verbal hints, explicit reprimands, and sanctions such as fines.
As I noted above, isolation is incredibly damaging to the human brain and body. Prolonged solitary confinement is so damaging that it is considered to be torture.
Social stigma also does real damage. For example, racism has been shown to damage the human body so significantly that it shortens Black American lifespans. And social stigma leads to elevated rates of suicidality for LGBTQ+ and trans youth, who are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
Use social stigma and shame for good
When I talk about stigmatized groups in my keynotes and workshops and articles, I usually focus on people who are stigmatized because of their identity. For example, people of color, women and girls, and LGBTQ+ people.
I like sociologist Erving Goffman’s definition of stigma as devaluation, where a person is “disqualified from full social acceptance.”
Now when someone is stigmatized because of their identity, it’s incredibly unfair, because they didn’t have a choice. They were born into their race, their gender, their sexual orientation. And usually, they were born into their religion, their socioeconomic class or caste, and their language and dialect.
But it is perfectly reasonable to stigmatize someone because of their behavior. Not mild or one-time behavior. But behavior that is severe or repeated. And this behavior can include holding opinions that you feel are morally wrong and should be socially unacceptable.
In a recent post on Threads, a parent wrote:
“Asking yesterday how everyone’s first day at school went and my 12yo sighs and says ‘someone I thought was cool turned out to be transphobic so that was annoying’
Turns out her ice breaker question for potential new friends was asking what their thoughts on various human rights were. All of us are at the dinner table just mouths open and she confidently says “I’m not here to make friends with someone and then find out six months later they’re racist or something 🤷🏻♀️”
Girl did not f*ck around 😅
One reply:
“Our granddaughter took rainbow bracelets she’d made to school at age 11 last June. They were gifts to her classmates to celebrate Gay Pride Month. She asked those who refused her gift directly, ‘Are you homophobic?’ Said it was easy to figure out who she did NOT want to be friends with.”
And another:
“My daughter, who is 14, recently found out a friend supports ice. She came home to tell me how the girl can’t be reasoned with, & my daughter is now distancing herself from her. I was so proud.”
If the kids can do it, you can do it too.
What can you do?
Your use of social norms enforcement, stigma, and ostracism should be sensitive to who you are dealing with.
Is there hope that you can pull someone back?
Then I recommend using clear, plain, and maximally factual language to lay out what you think is unacceptable about their words, behavior, or opinions.
Avoid using stigmatized labels and avoid using high-level labels. Research has shown that people will deny that they have done something if it is described using a stigmatized label but may admit that they have done it if it is described in a more granular way using plainer language.
For example, in my Principles of Optimized Language, I say things like “show respect” and not “avoid inappropriate stigmatization and devaluation.” I recommend plain language like unfair and frightening and unacceptable.
A conversation where you are trying to shift someone’s opinion or behavior may have you biting your tongue. A recent SNL sketch, Mom Confession (described by some commenters as “scarily accurate”), shows a MAGA mom slowly, and with great fragility, opening up a conversation with her family on how she has started to think things like, “I feel now… like he might be… bad for our country.” She tells her kids that if they don’t “give her grace” she’s probably “going back” (to her MAGA ways).
Decide if your emotional labor and the need to mask your hurt and anger in order to shift someone’s behavior is worth it.
_____
Should someone be punished for behaving in criminal, extrajudicial, and authoritarian ways?
Then you don’t have to hold back in your language, and you can use any label you want to name and shame.
Let’s say, for example, that someone works for ICE or supports their unlawful murder, sexual assault, maiming, kidnapping, disappearing, and inappropriate deportation of US residents. Here are some suggestions from Charlotte Clymer on actions you can take to “make their lives as miserable as possible” by using ostracism and social stigma and shame:
Shun them socially. They don’t get invited to your parties, you walk away from them if you encounter them, and you treat them like they are invisible and don’t exist.
Instead of blocking them on social media, let them see what your life is like without them being a part of it. If they comment, simply delete their comment without response.
Don’t go to social events that they are attending. Tell the hosts that you won’t be coming and why, and that you refuse to socialize with people who do or support what they do.
Tell friends, family, and neighbors that they can choose. They can socialize with the person in question or they can socialize with you. They can’t do both.
Do not communicate directly with the person. They can only contact you in writing (like a written letter) or through an intermediary.
Clymer concludes that these people “are not entitled to your kindness or attention or space…They need to be so stressed from the social pressure, so tired of the isolation and shunning, that they decide it’s not longer worth it to be employed by the American Gestapo.”
_____
Depending on how much time you spend online, you can also:
Negatively comment on a post celebrating someone’s murder by ICE, celebrating and encouraging violence, or sharing an opinion you think violates social norms and should be shamed
Screenshot inappropriate posts, comments, and DMS and send them to the person’s employer. Suggest that they are violating the organization’s code of conduct and doing damage to their brand reputation.
Leave negative Google and Yelp reviews for businesses that support, feed, and house ICE
Post on social media and write emails to organizations letting them know you are ostracizing them by withholding your business
As more names come out of emails to and from Jeffey Epstein, you can find where people who are incriminated work and write to the universities and organizations employing them and suggest sanctions (such as being fired, or starting the due process for evaluating the employment of a tenured professor).
Shame, stigma, and ostracism are genuinely powerful tools. Societies and communities without formal legal systems currently use and historically have used these tools to enforce social norms and punish or remove people doing anti-social things.
If you are feeling powerless or wish someone would just do something, you can use your voice and take action to show what should and should not be acceptable in your community and your country. When enough people say again and again, “this isn’t ok”? This is when we see change.
Copyright 2026 © Worthwhile Research & Consulting
Do you hear communicators, executives, managers, or HR staff asking, “Is it ok to say that?” Could your organization use some guidance when it comes to what language is or isn’t acceptable?
Worthwhile offers Language Guidance consulting packages. Buy our expertise in bundles of 10 or 20 hours. Then, whenever you have a question on “Is it ok to say that?”, reach out and get a science-based answer and supporting explanation that lets you move forward with confidence.
Email admin@worthwhileconsulting.com to learn more.