Psychosocial Impact of Smart-Shaming Among Students in the HEIs

Smart-shaming, defined as an individual's disregard and lack of interest in intellectual pursuits and critical thinking, has become a common attribute among college students. The initial aim of this study was to determine the psychosocial impact of smart-shaming on college students. Respondents were chosen randomly from among the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) located in Metro Manila. The study was based on Brown's Shame Resilience Theory, which said that the impacts of shame might result in possible response through psychosocial aspects such as personal vulnerability, critical awareness, reaching out, and speaking shame. A total of 403 respondents with the age range 16-21 years old participated in this study. The researchers made use of frequency and percentage and Analysis of Variance (One-way ANOVA) to measure the variables. The respondents were occasionally subjected to smart shaming. Findings revealed that these psychosocial aspects have many impacts in terms of smart-shaming among college students.Smart shaming may be seen as the outcome of inferior intellectual judgment which affects personal and societal issues. According to the findings, smart-shaming may be classified as both a negative feeling and a distinctive social occurrence. It is hoped that through this study, students may be taught about smart shaming to recognize their limits and improve their character and personality toward shaming others and that students who are subjected to smart shaming would come to terms with shame. Keywords: critical awareness, psychosocial impact, personal vulnerability, smart-shaming, speaking shame.