Credit and blame among American and Japanese children: normative, cultural, and individual differences

Japanese and American 5th graders (N = 593 children, 198 American and 395 Japanese) assigned credit and blame to good and bad classroom deeds and performances. Theoretically, a morality of aspiration involves assigning more credit for a good deed than blame for a corresponding bad deed; a morality of duty involves assigning more blame than credit. In both countries academic achievement norms were most consistent with aspiration, moral norms were judged as duties, and procedural norms were intermediate. Japanese children's responses were more consistent with aspiration than those of Americans. Analyses also explored cultural versus individual differences in sanctioning. The conclusion addresses the relevance of the concept of aspiration to the study of achievement and other norms.     

Shame and guilt and their relationship to positive expectations and anger expressiveness

College students (174 females, 91 males) completed measures of shame, guilt, expectations for future success, and styles of anger expression. Significant gender differences were found in proneness for both shame and guilt, with young women exhibiting a greater propensity for shame and guilt than young men. For both females and males, however, shame-proneness was positively related to expressions of inward anger. Among males and females, guilt-proness was negatively related to outward anger, but positively related to anger control. For females, guilt-proness was also negatively related to expectations for future success. Multiple regression analyses indicated that for male and female late adolescents, the best positive predictor of shame-proneness was inward anger. Gender differences emerged in predicting guilt-proneness; greater anger control, lower outward anger, and lower expectations for future success significantly predicted this variable among females.     

Treating the Catholic patient: Unique dynamics and implications for psychotherapy

The Catholic patient presents a unique challenge to the therapist because of the special psychological dynamics they present. Issues such as shame, guilt, masochism, anger, sex, and magical thinking, take on a unique significance when applied to Catholic patients. These issues are a constant struggle for the Catholic because they represent “mortal sins.” Committing these sins will result, in the patient's mind, in spending an eternity in the tortures of Hell unless they can be erased by confession and appropriate penance. The therapist must actively work to “exorcise” this punitive superego in a way that may differ from psychotherapy with other patients.     

Frequent Social Comparisons and Destructive Emotions and Behaviors: The Dark Side of Social Comparisons

Social comparisons may seem to serve several positive functions, including self-enhancement. Frequent social comparisons, however, have a dark side. Two studies examined the relationship between frequent social comparisons and destructive emotions and behaviors. In Study 1, people who said they made frequent social comparisons were more likely to experience envy, guilt, regret, and defensiveness, and to lie, blame others, and to have unmet cravings. In Study 2, police officers who said they made frequent social comparisons were more likely to show ingroup bias and to be less satisfied with their jobs. The dark side of frequent social comparisons was not associated with self-esteem. Results are discussed in terms of the role of individual differences in social comparison processes.     

Humiliated fury is not universal: the co-occurrence of anger and shame in the United States and Japan

It has been widely believed that individuals transform high-intensity shame into anger because shame is unbearably painful. This phenomenon was first coined “humiliated fury,” and it has since received empirical support. The current research tests the novel hypothesis that shame-related anger is not universal, yet hinges on the cultural meanings of anger and shame. Two studies compared the occurrence of shame-related anger in North American cultural contexts (where shame is devalued and anger is valued) to its occurrence in Japanese contexts (where shame is valued and anger is devalued). In a daily-diary study, participants rated anger and shame feelings during shame situations that occurred over one week. In a vignette study, participants rated anger and shame in response to standardised shame vignettes that were generated in previous research by either U.S. or Japanese respondents. Across the two studies, and in line with previous research on humiliated fury, shame predicted anger for U.S. participants. Yet, neither in the daily diary study nor for the Japanese-origin vignettes, did we find shame-related anger in Japanese participants. Only when presented with U.S.-origin vignettes, did Japanese respondents in the vignette study report shame-related anger. The findings suggest that shame-related anger is a culture-specific phenomenon.     

Cultural affordances and emotional experience: socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States

The authors hypothesized that whereas Japanese culture encourages socially engaging emotions (e.g., friendly feelings and guilt), North American culture fosters socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride and anger). In two cross-cultural studies, the authors measured engaging and disengaging emotions repeatedly over different social situations and found support for this hypothesis. As predicted, Japanese showed a pervasive tendency to reportedly experience engaging emotions more strongly than they experienced disengaging emotions, but Americans showed a reversed tendency. Moreover, as also predicted, Japanese subjective well-being (i.e., the experience of general positive feelings) was more closely associated with the experience of engaging positive emotions than with that of disengaging emotions. Americans tended to show the reversed pattern. The established cultural differences in the patterns of emotion suggest the consistent and systematic cultural shaping of emotion over time.     

Individual Differences in Experiences of and Responses to Guilt and Shame: Examining the Lenses of Gender and Gender Role

How are experiences of and reactions to guilt and shame a function of gendered views of the self? Individual differences in guilt and shame responses were explored in a sample of 104 young adults, most of whom were European American. Results indicated that, although women reported greater proneness to guilt and shame, men reported more trait guilt. Heightened levels of guilt- and shame-proneness were observed among both men and women with traditionally feminine gender roles, whereas a more traditionally masculine self-concept was associated with decreased shame-proneness for women. Gender schematic women favored verbal responses to ameliorate the experience of guilt, whereas gender schematic men preferred action-oriented responses. These results are discussed as gendered outcomes of schematic versus aschematic gender role socialization.     

On differentiating shame and shyness

To differentiate shame from shyness on the Differential Emotions Scale, the shame adjectives—ashamed, disgraced, humiliated—were distinguished from the shyness adjectives—shy, sheepish, bashful. The Differential Emotions Scale was completed by 127 males and 130 females for six randomly ordered emotions in life situations: shame, shyness, embarrassment, guilt, anxiety, and depression. In life situations, the situation of shame in comparison to shyness was more unpleasantly experienced with significantly higher elevations on shame, guilt, distress, anger, disgust, surprise, and contempt factors, and significantly lower levels on shyness, interest, embarrassment, and enjoyment factors. The rank-order correlation between the emotional profiles in the shame and shyness situations was inverse and nonsignificant. The experiences of shame and shyness occurred at significantly different intensities within life situations epitomizing shame, shyness, embarrassment, guilt, and depression. Some sex differences in emotional experience emerged. The results strongly supported the empirical proposition that shame and shyness can be differentiated on the Differential Emotions Scale and weakly supported the proposition that shame and shyness are different theoretical constructs within differential emotions theory.     

Shamed into anger? The relation of shame and guilt to anger and self-reported aggression.

The relation of shame and guilt to anger and aggression has been the focus of considerable theoretical discussion, but empirical findings have been inconsistent. Two recently developed measures of affective style were used to examine whether shame-proneness and guilt-proneness are differentially related to anger, hostility, and aggression. In 2 studies, 243 and 252 undergraduates completed the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory, the Symptom Checklist 90, and the Spielberger Trait Anger Scale. Study 2 also included the Test of Self-Conscious Affect and the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory. Shame-proneness was consistently correlated with anger arousal, suspiciousness, resentment, irritability, a tendency to blame others for negative events, and indirect (but not direct) expressions of hostility. Proneness to "shame-free" guilt was inversely related to externalization of blame and some indices of anger, hostility, and resentment.     

Toward Forgiveness: The Role of Shame,Guilt Anger,and Empathy

This research explored forgiving and its relationship to adaptive moral emotional processes: proneness to shame, guilt, anger, and empathic responsiveness. Gender differences associated with forgiving were analyzed. Participants were 138 graduate students in a large northeastern urban university. Results revealed that guilt‐proneness was positively related to Total Forgiveness, as were Empathetic Concern and Perspective Taking. A positive relationship between anger reduction and Overall Forgiveness was found. Guilt‐proneness, anger reduction, and detachment informed the process of forgiveness for women. For men, age, shame‐proneness, and pride in behavior informed the process of forgiveness. Implications and possible research are discussed.     

The Experiences of Guilt and Shame: A Phenomenological–Psychological Study

This study aims at discovering the essential constituents involved in the experiences of guilt and shame. Guilt concerns a subject’s action or omission of action and has a clear temporal unfolding entailing a moment in which the subject lives in a care-free way. Afterwards, this moment undergoes a reconstruction, in the moment of guilt, which constitutes the moment of negligence. The reconstruction is a comprehensive transformation of one’s attitude with respect to one’s ego; one’s action; the object of guilt and the temporal-existential experience. The main constituents concerning shame are its anchorage in the situation to which it refers; its public side involving the experience of being perceptually objectified; the exclusion of social community; the bodily experience; the revelation of an undesired self; and the genesis of shame in terms of a history of frozen now-ness. The article ends with a comparison between guilt and shame.     

Turkish Children's Expression of Negative Emotions: Intracultural Variations Related to Socioeconomic Status

The goal of the present study was to examine intracultural variations in Turkish children's emotion expression in relation to socioeconomic status (SES) characteristics, alone and in combination with child gender and their interaction partners. Children's expectations about outcomes from expressing and their reasons for hiding their felt emotion in situations that involved unfairness, disappointment, public failure and a mishap were also delineated. A total of 123 school‐aged Turkish children responded to hypothetical vignettes. Boys and girls from middle‐high SES families were equally likely to endorse shame expression. However, lower SES boys were more likely to endorse hiding shame than lower SES girls. Middle‐high SES children showed a tendency for expressing anger and sadness more than lower SES children. Turkish children primarily expected interpersonal support from emotion expression. Upon anger, disappointment and sadness expression, Turkish children expected instrumental support more from their parents than their peers. The intracultural differences are discussed in light of sociodemographic changes accompanied by cultural value shifts that differentially impact socialization goals and practices of families with different SES. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender Differences in Value Priorities, Guilt, and Shame Among Finnish and Peruvian Adolescents

Cultural and gender differences in guilt and shame (Tangney’s TOSCA) and value priorities (the Schwartz Value Survey) were studied in samples of Finnish (N?=?156) and Peruvian (N?=?159) adolescents. As expected, the Peruvians were more collectivistic and traditional than the Finns. In line with hypotheses derived from previous research, gender differences were larger and more stereotypical among the Finns than among the Peruvians. Finnish girls were more prone to guilt and shame than boys were, whereas among the Peruvians there was no gender difference in guilt, and boys were more shame-prone than girls. Gender differences in values were smaller for the Peruvians than for the Finns. The results support the view that psychological gender differences are largest in modern, individualistic societies.     

What does it mean to be angry at yourself? Categories, appraisals, and the problem of language

According to appraisal theorists, anger involves a negative event, usually blocking a goal, caused by another person. Critics argue that other-agency is unnecessary, since people can be angry at themselves, and thus that appraisal theory is wrong about anger. In two studies, we compared anger, self-anger, shame, and guilt, and found that self-anger shared some appraisals, action tendencies, and associated emotions with anger, others with shame and guilt. Self-anger was not simply anger with a different agency appraisal. Anger, shame, and guilt almost always involved other people, but almost half of the occurrences of self-anger were solitary. We discuss the incompatibility of appraisal theories with any strict categorical view of emotions, and the inadequacy of emotion words to capture emotional experience.     

Unwanted Identities: A Key Variable in Shame–Anger Links and Gender Differences in Shame

The present study examined the role that unwanted identities play in accounting for extant findings concerning gender differences in shame-proneness. The construct of unwanted identities was also used to explain why powerful associations have been found between shame and anger. College students (48 men, 84 women) rated their feelings of shame, guilt, anger, and unwanted identities in response to the TOSCA-2 scenarios, known to yield robust gender differences in shame, and to new scenarios, meant to be more threatening to men's than women's identities. Even after accounting for shared variance between shame and guilt, evidence supported the conclusion that women's greater shame-proneness than men's could be an artifact, reflecting the more threatening nature of previous situations to women's identities. Mediational analyses also confirmed that unwanted identities elicit shame, which, in turn, is a powerful instigator of anger. Discussion focuses on inconsistencies between the present results and expectations based on previous theory and research.     

At the Point of Death—A Case Study

In 1979 Pastoral Psychology published my first autobiographical case study: the story of a near-fatal automobile accident, collateral damage of a high speed police chase in downtown Chicago. Providence was evident in my survival of that collision, as well as in the present case study: a massive heart attack during a psychotherapy session in 2001. By comparing these two crises, I find that I must call into focus a psychological propensity: if a near-fatal experience occurs from the “outside in” (e.g. automobile accident), guilt may well surface as the emotion of conflict; but if a near-fatal experience occurs from the “inside out” (e.g. heart attack), the emotion of conflict may emerge as shame. In the former the body is assaulted; in the latter it revolts.     

Are Gay Men in Worse Mental Health than Heterosexual Men? The Role of Age, Shame and Guilt, and Coming-Out

Previous studies reporting that gay individuals are in worse mental health than heterosexuals have typically employed young or mixed-age samples, ignoring the role of age. Mental health problems may show greater age-related improvement among gay than heterosexual men as indicated by the findings of the present study. In this study, the following indices of mental health are examined, and found to be comparable, among 86 heterosexual and 81 gay men aged 18–48: depression, suicidality, anger, anxiety, negative self-esteem, emotional instability, and lack of emotional responsiveness. Most indices show age-related effects among gay men, with less severe symptoms reported by older individuals. Among heterosexual men, effects of age are less widespread, although older men do report fewer symptoms of anger. Chronic shame and chronic guilt are related to mental health problems and a lessening in shame accounted, in part, for the age-related decline in depression among gay men. Different approaches to disclosing/concealing sexual identity are also linked with shame, guilt, and mental health among gay men.     

Reassessing the dimensionality of the moral emotions

The dimensionality of the moral emotions was tested to examine whether theoretical distinctions between specific emotions were empirically supported. A total of 720 drink‐driving offenders indicated the degree to which they experienced feelings associated with the moral emotions, in an interview conducted after attending court or a restorative justice conference. Expected distinctions between shame and guilt were not found. Instead the principal components analysis identified three factors: shame‐guilt, embarrassment‐exposure, and unresolved shame. The results also show that shame‐guilt was related to higher feelings of empathy and lower feelings of anger/hostility. It is concluded that differences between shame and guilt may be overstated. Furthermore, it is suggested that the relationship between situational experiences of shame and the disposition to feel it may be more complicated than initially thought.     

Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: development of the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory

Individual differences in proneness to shame and proneness to guilt are thought to play an important role in the development of both adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal and intrapersonal processes. But little empirical research has addressed these issues, largely because no reliable, valid measure has been available to researchers interested in differentiating proneness to shame from proneness to guilt. The Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory (SCAAI) was developed to assess characteristic affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses associated with shame and guilt among a young adult population. The SCAAI also includes indices of externalization of cause or blame, detachment/unconcern, pride in self, and pride in behavior. Data from 3 independent studies of college students and 1 study of noncollege adults provide support for the reliability of the main SCAAI subscales. Moreover, the pattern of relations among the SCAAI subscales and the relation of SCAAI subscales to 2 extant measures of shame and guilt support the validity of this new measure. The SCAAI appears to provide related but functionally distinct indices of proneness to shame and guilt in a way that these previous measures have not.