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.
Tangney
J P
JP
Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030.
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D009042:Motivation; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D012752:Shame