If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment.

This line is associated with Brené Brown’s public teaching on shame resilience, where she uses a laboratory metaphor to explain how shame intensifies in certain social conditions. Brown frequently delivered this idea in talks and interviews while translating her qualitative research on shame into practical language for broad audiences. In that framework, she contrasts the “growth conditions” for shame—keeping experiences hidden, not speaking about them, and anticipating condemnation—with the antidotes she emphasizes elsewhere: empathy, connection, and bringing shame into the open through trusted conversation.

Using the laboratory image of a Petri dish, Brown frames shame as something that “cultures” under particular conditions rather than as an inborn, fixed trait. The three “nutrients”—secrecy, silence, and judgment—describe the social ecology in which shame intensifies: it thrives when experiences are hidden, when people feel unable to speak, and when they anticipate condemnation (from others or themselves). The implication is practical and therapeutic: shame is weakened by counter-conditions such as openness, naming what happened, and receiving empathy instead of judgment. The quote encapsulates Brown’s broader argument that vulnerability and connection are antidotes to shame’s isolating power.