大学生羞耻和内疚差异的对比研究

以 48名北京大学本科生为被试 ,检验羞耻和内疚差异的 3种假设 :研究一同时检验“公开化与私人化”和“个人无能与违背道德”两个假设 ;研究二检验“伤害自我与伤害他人”假设。方法是依次呈现一系列不同的负性情境 (情境事先已按要检验的假设加以控制 ) ,要求被试设想自己亲身经历该情境 ,然后回答体验到的羞耻和内疚的程度及理由。结果表明 :①“公开化与私人化”对羞耻和内疚的影响有显著差异 (p <0 0 5 ) :“有他人在场”可以易化羞耻 ,而内疚感的产生一般不需要“观众”在场。②“违背道德”在引发羞耻和内疚感上基本相等 ,而“个人无能”引起更多的羞耻感 (p <0 0 1)。③“公开化与私人化”和“个人无能与违背道德”的交互作用不显著。④“伤害自我”更多引起羞耻感 (p <0 0 5 ) ,而“伤害他人”更多引起内疚感 (p <0 0 1)。     

Personal moral philosophies and moral choice

The moral choices and post-transgression reactions of individuals who adopted varying personal moral philosophies were examined in an experimental setting that permitted the manipulation of the salience of moral norms and the nature of the consequences of one's actions. As predicted, the two situational variables had a strong impact on moral action; only 50.0% of the subjects chose to violate a moral norm when that norm was salient and they would personally benefit by their actions; this percentage increased to 76.2% in the other conditions. Personal ethical philosophies also influenced moral choices and post-transgression reactions, for more of the idealistic subjects chose to act immorally relative to the low idealists (91.66% vs 70.83%), and subjects who were low in both idealism and relativism were less likely to transgress a moral norm if they personally would benefit. The results lend support to the proposed interpersonal model of morality, particularly as applied to post-transgression reactions.     

Effects of work‐related norm violations and general beliefs about the world on feelings of shame and guilt: A comparison between Turkey and the Netherlands

This paper aimed at investigating the effects of work‐related norm violations (i.e., violations of interpersonal and work regulation norms) and individuals' general beliefs about the world (i.e., social axioms: reward for application, social cynicism) on feelings of shame and guilt in Turkey and in the Netherlands. An experimental study involving 103 Turkish and 111 Dutch participants showed that work norm violations elicited feelings of guilt and shame differently in Turkey and the Netherlands. Specifically, interpersonal norm violation in Turkey elicited feelings of shame and guilt more strongly than did violation of a work regulation norm, whereas no differential effects were found in the Netherlands. As expected, violation of a work regulation norm elicited feelings of shame and guilt more strongly in the Netherlands than in Turkey, whereas violation of an interpersonal norm elicited feelings of shame and guilt more strongly in Turkey than in the Netherlands. The findings provide further evidence for the moderating effects of social axioms: in both countries, participants high in social cynicism felt less ashamed when they violated a work regulation norm than did those low in social cynicism. Our findings are relevant for understanding the underlying mechanisms of norm violations at work, thereby offering a new avenue for investigating cultural differences in the workplace. The latter may be of particular relevance in times of globalization and diversity in the workplace.     

Social cuing of guilt by anger and of shame by disgust

Scholars have proposed a conceptual structure for the self-critical moral emotions of guilt and shame and the other-critical emotions of anger and disgust. In this model, guilt is linked with anger and shame with disgust. This relationship may express itself in asymmetrical social cuing between emotions: In a social context, other people's angry facial expressions may communicate that the target should feel guilty, and other people's disgusted facial expressions may communicate that the target should feel ashamed. We conducted two experiments, one in the United Kingdom and the other in Spain, in which participants were shown pictures of faces expressing either anger or disgust. Participants rated the degree to which the faces would make them feel guilt or shame in a casual social encounter, and they answered questions about inferences concerning the emotional expressions. In both studies, angry expressions led to greater guilt and less shame than did disgusted expressions. This relationship was explained better by the type of norm violation inferred than by whether the violation was thought to involve the target's action or personality versus the target's character.     

Causal and moral responsibility: Antecedents and consequences of group‐based guilt

In six studies (N = 1045) conducted in three European countries, we demonstrate distinctions between causal responsibility, group‐based guilt, and moral responsibility. We propose that causal responsibility is an antecedent of group‐based guilt linking the ingroup to previous transgressions against the victim group. In contrast, moral responsibility is a consequence of group‐based guilt and is conceptualized as a sociomoral norm to respond to the consequences of the ingroup's transgressions and the current needs of the victim group. As such, moral responsibility can be stimulated by group‐based guilt and directly predicts individual action intentions. Studies 1 and 2 focus on the conceptual distinctions among the three constructs. Study 3 tests the indirect effect of causal responsibility on moral responsibility via group‐based guilt. The remaining studies explore the mediating role of moral responsibility in associations between group‐based guilt and compensatory action tendencies, that is, financial compensation (study 4), approach and avoidance tendencies (study 5) and public apology (study 6). Together these studies show that causal and moral responsibility are psychologically distinct concepts from group‐based guilt and that moral responsibility plays an important role in shaping the effects of group‐based guilt on behavioral intentions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moral Psychology of Shame in Early Confucian Philosophy

In Western philosophy and psychology, shame is characterized as a self-critical emotion that is often contrasted with the similarly self-critical but morally active emotion of guilt. If shame is negative concern over endangered or threatened self-image (usually in front of others), guilt is autonomous moral awareness of one’s wrongdoings and reparative motivation to correct one’s moral misconduct. Recently, many psychologists have begun to discuss the moral significance of shame in their comparative studies of non-Western cultures. In this new approach, shame is characterized as a positive moral emotion and active motivation for self-reflection and self-cultivation. If shame is a positive and active moral emotion, what is its moral psychological nature? In this paper, I will analyze shame from the perspective of cultural psychology and early Confucian philosophy. Unlike many Western philosophers, Confucius and Mencius discuss shame as a form of moral excellence. In early Confucian texts, shame is not a reactive emotion of an endangered self but a moral disposition that supports a self-critical and self-transformative process of moral development.     

The role of attribution in the experience of crowding

The theory that the subjective experience of crowding results from an attribution of arousal process was examined. Specifically, it was predicted that subjects who were aroused by having their personal space violated would experience less crowding if they were led to believe that some other environmental factor was responsible for the arousal. Groups of subjects were placed in a room in which their personal space was either violated or not violated. Some subjects were told that either an arousing or a relaxing subliminal noise would be played into the room. (Actually there was no noise.) Other subjects were told nothing about subliminal noise. The subjects worked on a number of tasks and were then asked to report how crowded they felt. The noise manipulation had no effect on subjects' performance nor on feelings of crowdedness when their personal space was not being violated. However, when there was a violation of personal space, subjects who felt the noise would arouse them reported being less crowded and performed better than subjects in the relaxing noise or no explanation conditions. It was suggested that subjects attributed their arousal to the “arousing noise” and hence felt less crowded.     

Assessment of shame and guilt in a psychiatric sample: a comparison of two measures

The relationship between measures of shame, guilt, and psychopathology was examined in a heterogeneous inpatient sample (n=82) using the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) and the Personal Feelings Questionnaire-2 (PFQ-2). It was predicted that both shame scales would correlate positively with measures of psychopathology. This hypothesis was supported in bivariate analyses, however, when partialed for each respective guilt scale, only the TOSCA maintained significant associations with measures of psychopathology. It was predicted that only the PFQ-2 guilt scale would correlate positively with measures of psychopathology, and this hypothesis was supported in both bivariate analyses and partial correlations, controlling for shame scores. These findings support previous work, suggesting that the TOSCA and PFQ-2 guilt scales assess different constructs of guilt. Methodological issues of shame and guilt assessment with psychiatric patients also are discussed.     

Shame and Guilt—Do They Really Differ in Their Focus of Evaluation? Wanting to Change the Self and Behavior in Response to Ingroup Immorality

Shame and guilt are often theorized to differ on a self versus behavior focus. However, we propose that this is not true when taking a group perspective. In our field study, 196 communal participants were confronted with historical ingroup immorality. Results showed that participants who were old enough to have understood what happened in that time-period felt more guilt and shame than did those who were too young. Partly due to their ingroup anger, shame motivated an intention to change the ingroup self and behavior. In contrast, partly due to personal anger, guilt motivated an intention to change personal self and behavior. This suggests that the distinction between shame and guilt are not as clear-cut as previous research have assumed.     

Empathy and the Self-Absorption Paradox II: Self-Rumination and Self-Reflection as Mediators Between Shame,Guilt, and Empathy

The present study tested the hypothesis that proneness to shame would predict self-rumination (and personal distress) whereas proneness to guilt would predict self-reflection (and perspective taking, and empathic concern). Results supported the majority of these predictions, and revealed that self-reflection mediates the relationship between guilt and perspective taking. Additional results provided some support for the hypothesis that self-rumination mediates the relationship between shame and personal distress. However, results also revealed that shame mediated the relationship between self-rumination and personal distress, suggesting that shame and self-rumination may feed each other within a reciprocal cycle that is likely to result in a maladaptive empathic response (i.e., personal distress). Empathic concern was associated with higher levels of guilt, but results failed to replicate earlier findings demonstrating a positive relationship between empathic concern and self-reflection. The present results replicate and extend past research and suggest several promising avenues for future research.     

Reappraising the Moral Nature of Emotions in Decision Making: The Case of Shame and Guilt

Emotions play a crucial role in moral behavior. The present paper does not contest this point but argues that qualifications of certain feelings such as shame and guilt as moral emotions should not exclusively be based on a proximal analysis of their function. A proximal analysis details how moral emotions produce moral behavior. Emotions are qualified as moral when they are elicited by concerns for others rather than the self and produce prosocial action tendencies. Although researchers have acknowledged that moral emotions may also have an ultimate function that details why it is in the individual interest that these moral effects occur, they have neglected to translate such ideas into testable hypotheses. Using guilt and shame as an example, we show how an analysis of ultimate functions accommodates recent findings, which contest the view that guilt is more moral than shame and provides new insights as to when and why moral emotions will produce moral effects.     

大学生心理控制源与内疚感和羞耻感对反事实思维的影响

研究以128名大学生为研究对象,采用2 (心理控制源: 外控型、内控型)×2 (自我道德感: 内疚感、羞耻感) 两因素被试间实验设计,考察了外控和内控大学生在内疚感和羞耻感两种不同的自我道德情感下反事实思维内容的差异。结果表明:(1) 心理控制源对大学生反事实思维不同内容的诱发具有重要的影响:外控者更倾向于产生行为和情境导向的反事实思维,而内控者更倾向于产生自我导向的反事实思维。内疚感和羞耻感对大学生反事实思维内容的产生没有直接的影响;(2) 反事实思维内容的产生受到了心理控制源与内疚感和羞耻感两种自我道德情感的交互影响:外控者在羞耻感的启动条件下比在内疚感的启动条件下表现出了更多的行为和情境导向的反事实思维,而内控者在内疚感的启动条件下比在羞耻感的条件下表现出了更多的自我导向的反事实思维。研究结果有助于解释以中西方不同被试而得出的内疚感和羞耻感与反事实思维关系的矛盾结论。     

Moral affect: the good, the bad, and the ugly

The relations among 3 moral affective personality characteristics--shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and empathic responsiveness--were examined in 4 independent studies of undergraduates. Results indicate that shame and guilt are distinct affective experiences that have important and quite different implications in the interpersonal realm. There was a substantial positive correlation between shame-proneness and guilt-proneness. Nonetheless, as predicted, other-oriented empathic responsiveness was negatively related to proneness to shame but positively correlated with proneness to guilt. In contrast, an index of more self-oriented personal distress was positively linked to shame-proneness. Taken together, these results add a new dimension to the ugliness of shame but suggest that guilt may not be that bad after all, at least in the interpersonal domain.     

Lingering guilt and shame: Emotional burdens upon those who intended but failed to apologize

ABSTRACT

Prior research has shown that greater willingness to apologize for an offense is prompted by greater guilt but lesser shame. Yet little work examined whether apologies indeed resolve moral emotions. This study investigated how the absence of apology psychologically affects harm-doers when they recall a past offense. Undergraduates (N = 284) were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions wherein they recalled a past incident in which they hurt, offended, angered, or had some other negative effect on another person. Harm-doers who intended but failed to apologize reported greater PFQ-2 state guilt and shame, compared to others who refused to apologize or whose apologies were rejected. However, similar results were not found for ESS state shame. Results suggest that failing to apologize may impede transgressors from relieving moral emotional burdens, but only for those who intended to apologize.     

Shame and guilt development in preschoolers: The role of context,audience and individual characteristics

The study examined the early development of shame and guilt, the individual differences related to them and the role of situation and audience. Fifty-eight children aged 3 to 5 years were observed in two paradigms: moral, in which they were led to believe that they had broken an object, and non-moral, in which they failed an easy task. Each session was led twice, with an adult and with a peer. Temperament and conduct were assessed through parental reports. Results showed that older children expressed more guilt than younger children. Shame-proneness was characterized by bodily tension, reticence and gaze avoidance, whereas guilt-proneness by latency to repair and confession. Children were able to distinguish the moral from the non-moral situation and, only in the former, shame was associated with difficult temperament and with emotional problems, whereas guilt was correlated with adaptive characteristics. Finally, children mainly expressed distress with the adult, who holds the authority.     

The who and whom of help giving: An attributional model integrating the help giver and the help recipient

In this article, we investigate the influence of responsibility, moral emotions, and empathy on help giving for stigmatized persons in need. Both characteristics of the recipient of help and the help giver are analyzed within a general theoretical framework. Based on an online study (N = 332), structural equation models confirm and extend an attributional explanation of help‐giving, based on a thinking‐feeling‐acting model. Conditions promoting help giving are identified: (i) A potential help giver who regards himself or herself as responsible for the recipient's misfortune is likely to experience guilt, regret, and shame, thus increasing the likelihood of help. (ii) A potential recipient of help who is regarded as being not responsible for his or her plight elicits sympathy and is thus more likely to receive help. In contrast, when the person in need is regarded as being responsible for his or her plight, anger and even schadenfreude are elicited, and likelihood of help giving decreases. (iii) Different aspects of empathy as a stable personal characteristic exert direct and indirect (i.e., emotionally mediated) effects on help giving. Using structural equation modeling, we outline an attributional model of helping conceptualizing helping behavior within an actor–observer system integrating a variety of moral emotions involved in help giving.     

When feeling bad makes you look good: guilt, shame, and person perception

In two studies, we examined how expressions of guilt and shame affected person perception. In the first study, participants read an autobiographical vignette in which the writer did something wrong and reported feeling either guilt, shame, or no emotion. The participants then rated the writer's motivations, beliefs, and traits, as well as their own feelings toward the writer. The person expressing feelings of guilt or shame was perceived more positively on a number of attributes, including moral motivation and social attunement, than the person who reported feeling no emotion. In the second study, the writer of the vignette reported experiencing (or not experiencing) cognitive and motivational aspects of guilt or shame. Expressing a desire to apologise (guilt) or feelings of worthlessness (private shame) resulted in more positive impressions than did reputational concerns (public shame) or a lack of any of these feelings. Our results indicate that verbal expressions of moral emotions such as guilt and shame influence perception of moral character as well as likeability.     

When feeling bad makes you look good: Guilt,shame, and person perception

In two studies, we examined how expressions of guilt and shame affected person perception. In the first study, participants read an autobiographical vignette in which the writer did something wrong and reported feeling either guilt, shame, or no emotion. The participants then rated the writer's motivations, beliefs, and traits, as well as their own feelings toward the writer. The person expressing feelings of guilt or shame was perceived more positively on a number of attributes, including moral motivation and social attunement, than the person who reported feeling no emotion. In the second study, the writer of the vignette reported experiencing (or not experiencing) cognitive and motivational aspects of guilt or shame. Expressing a desire to apologise (guilt) or feelings of worthlessness (private shame) resulted in more positive impressions than did reputational concerns (public shame) or a lack of any of these feelings. Our results indicate that verbal expressions of moral emotions such as guilt and shame influence perception of moral character as well as likeability.     

Collective guilt,moral outrage,and support for helping the poor: A matter of system versus in‐group responsibility framing

We examined how the framing of responsibility for reducing socio‐economic inequality affects individuals' emotional reactions towards the poor and the willingness to engage in prosocial actions. Attribution of responsibility to either the system (government and institutions), the less deprived in‐group, or the disadvantaged out‐group (poor) was measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2). Consistent with our hypotheses, moral outrage was higher than collective guilt when system responsibility for inequalities was put forth, but collective guilt arose to reach the level of moral outrage when in‐group responsibility was emphasized. Moreover, distinguishing between collective guilt for action and for inaction, we found guilt for inaction more difficult and thus less likely to arise, unless responsibility was put on the in‐group. Collective emotions were also found to be negatively linked to system justification motivation illustrating the palliative function of legitimization processes. Finally, moral outrage predicted the willingness to act upon socio‐economic inequalities both when the system's and in‐group's responsibility was emphasized, whereas collective guilt for action (but not for inaction) predicted support for prosocial actions only when the in‐group's responsibility was engaged. These findings suggest that the specific group‐based emotions in response to poverty depend on whether the system or the in‐group is held responsible and differentially predict individuals' commitment to act.     

Mediators of the shame-guilt-psychological adjustment relationship

Lynch, J. S., Hill, E. D., Nagoshi, J. L. & Nagoshi, C. T. Mediators of the shame-guilt-psychological adjustment relationship. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 437-443. A college student sample (109 women, 90 men) was administered measures of psychological adjustment, shame, guilt, personal fear of invalidity, and aspects of empathy, including personal distress in emergencies and fantasy involvement. Consistent with previous studies, shame but not guilt was significantly positively correlated with poor psychological adjustment. Path analyses with bootstrapped mediation tests indicated that the shame-adjustment relationship was significantly mediated by fear of invalidity, personal distress, and fantasy involvement. A novel finding was that the relationship between guilt and maladjustment was significantly mediated by proneness to fantasy. The findings are discussed in terms of an integrated theory of the shame-fear/distress-maladjustment relationship as a framework for understanding the maladaptive, individualistic shame experience.