Transcript Guilt - POSbase

Shame and Guilt
Shame and guilt are moral, self-conscious, negative emotions.
Moral emotions are those that are linked to the welfare of
others, such as the society or other person outside the one that
acts, judges, and feels the emotion in question.
Self-conscious means that they include self-reflection and selfevaluation.
Shame and guilt are often used interchangeably, but there has
been found an important difference between the two:
Contributor
© POSbase 2007
Shame and Guilt
Helen Lewis Block (1971) distinguished between:
Shame: Negative evaluation of the global self
I did that horrible thing.
Guilt: Negative evaluation of specific behavior
I did that horrible thing.
This has the following consequences:
© POSbase 2007
Shame and Guilt
People who experience shame, compared to guilt:
 Tend to hide, deny, or escape the shame-
inducing situation (Tangney et al., 1996) and
show immunological consequences (Dickerson
et al., 2004; Grunewald et al., 2004).
 Show self-oriented distress and less empathy
for others (Tangney, 1991).
© POSbase 2007
Shame and Guilt
People who experience shame, compared to guilt:
 Show destructive reactions to anger, such as
externalization of blame, intense anger, and
aggression.
 Guilt-prone individuals show constructive
behaviors toward correcting the wrongdoing
(Tangney & Dearing, 2002).
© POSbase 2007
Shame and Guilt
People who experience shame, compared to guilt:
 Show a variety of psychological symptoms: Low selfesteem, depression, anxiety and eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PSTD), and suicidal ideation.
 Findings for guilt-prone individuals are more equivocal;
there may be found maladaptive guilt by chronic self-blame
and obsessive rumination over one’s transgressions. Else,
guilt has adaptive functions, particularly for interpersonal
behavior.
© POSbase 2007
Shame and Guilt
People who experience shame, compared to guilt:
 Shame-proneness in childhood later predicted
risky driving behavior, earlier initiation of drug
and alcohol use, and lower likelihood of
practicing safe sex.
 In contrast, guilt has a protective function; guiltprone fifth-graders free of self-shame were, in
adolescence, less likely to be arrested,
convicted, and incarcerated (Tangney &
Dearing, 2002).
© POSbase 2007