Concept
Indignation
Overview
Indignation is a complex and discrete emotion that is triggered by social emotions and social environments. The Standard Dictionary describes indignation as a "feeling involving anger mingled with contempt or disgust".
The feeling of indignation can occur when one is mistreated by another or negative feelings are sparked when a situation is out of the normal realm of society. When situations or actions that are considered to be unjust behavior occur, the feeling of indignation is experienced. With unjust actions and behaviors comes to blame. Blame also helps to make up the emotion of indignation. When blameworthy actions take place, the emotion of indignation occurs and negative feelings are projected onto the person who is to blame. Which can be brought on by disturbances that go against social normatives. According to Claude Miller, "indignation is defined as a non-primary, discrete, social emotion, specifying disapproval of someone else's blameworthy action, as that action is explicitly viewed to be in violation of the objective order, and implicitly perceived as injurious to the perceiver's self-concept". Indignation is experienced when violations are made to our daily lives. Indignation is an emotion that is considered to be an adaptive behavior. Social environment and social emotions being a stimuli for indignation. Our emotions and behaviors adapt depending on certain situations. Internal and external social norms play a part in experiencing the emotion of indignation. It is expected that everyone coexists and follows the social normative behaviors society has put in place. When something disrupts what is considered to be a social norm, a violation occurs, both internally and externally. A range of feelings are experienced internally, as well as a desire to be removed from the situation externally. When norms are disrupted, offense is taken and the emotion of indignation is ignited.
The attribution process is integral in the development of indignation. It is the split-second assessments a person makes (attributions) about their own behavior or in the behavior of others in order to figure out the reason or cause behind it. Behaviors can be classified as situational (external) or dispositional (internal). Fritz Heider wrote that people tend to view behavior in one of two ways; the cause of situational factors or of dispositional factors. From this, an individual is either an Entity theorist or an Incremental theorist when considering event or categorization but is not exclusive to either group. According to one scholar, "People's implicit theories create a framework for processing information, forming inferences, determining attributions, shaping predictions, understanding others' behaviors, and construction representations of social events". Taking this into account and based on a person's classification of entity or incremental theorist (which delineates how a person views behavior in relation to its driving factors), research demonstrates that said person is inclined to experience indignation with more or less frequency and severity respectively.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Indignation is discussed.
LIII. Indignation is a kind of speech by which the effect produced is, that great hatred is excited against a man, or great dislike of some proceeding is originated. In an address of this kind we wish to have this understood first, that it is possible to give vent to indignation from all those topics which we have suggested in laying down precepts for the confirmation of a speech. For any amplifications whatever…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
names the idea; states what it is
Anger and Indignation. Plate VI Rage, anger, and indignation are exhibited in nearly the same manner throughout the world; and the following descriptions may be worth giving as evidence of this, and as illustrations of some of the foregoing remarks. There is, however, an exception with respect to clenching the fists, which seems confined chiefly to the men who fight with their fists. With the Australians only one of…
Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Only the most intellectual of men have any right to beauty, to the beautiful; only in them can goodness escape being weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum_:[30] goodness is a privilege. Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees _ugliness_--or indignation against the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; so is…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist
states what it is; names the idea
But indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our thoughts to be occupied with an evil world; and in the fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs there is a kind of self-assertion which it is necessary for the wise to overcome. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires; the Stoic freedom in which wisdom consists is found in the submission of our desires, but not of our…
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
states what it is; names the idea
An augmentation, or a direct raising of the denomination of the coin, always is, and from its nature must be, an open and avowed operation. By means of it, pieces of a smaller weight and bulk are called by the same name, which had before been given to pieces of a greater weight and bulk. The adulteration of the standard, on the contrary, has generally been a concealed operation. By means of it, pieces are issued…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Indignation
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Heraclitus.