| This study aims to find out the meaning of shame in the young generation of Indonesia. Shame as one of the basic emotions, continues to evolve according to the age level and social changes that occur. Its function becomes a determinant of behavior in which individuals are more easily adjusted. Shame reflects the social context of certain norms or values that can stimulate the individual to behave properly and appropriately to be more civilized. The theory used is social representation theory with approach of social representation structure that will find central core and peripheral element of shame. Research using mixed method that is, quantitative method with hierarchized evocation technique and qualitative method by conducting interview. The hierarchized evocation technique was performed on 252 participants using a questionnaire. While interviews on 13 participants who explore further about the shame. Participants were obtained by using snowball and accidental sampling technique, with the criteria that is, students, at least fifth semester and maximum age is 25. Data obtained by hierarchized evocation techniques were analyzed by performing lexical analyzes, categorization processes, calculating the percentage of category frequencies and the average ranking of those categories. While the interview data is analyzed by using content analysis. The results show that the meaning of shame in Indonesian young generation is related to self-belief, events that lead to negative judgment, unimportant physical appearance, violation of moral principles and mismatch on etiquette. These five attributes are very strongly attached to the collective memory of the younger generation. Other results are found but the nature is still changing. These attributes are low achievement, indiscipline, mistake and inactive. The younger generation view that behavior that deviates from the value of morality and ethics is a shameful behavior. In addition, the shifting meaning of shame among the younger generation of Indonesia has occurred especially when compared with the younger generation in the past. Shame to be something important in life so it needs to continue to be developed and maintained to become a culture in society |