中華心理學刊 民 112,65 卷,3 期,187-214
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2023, Vol.65, No.3, 187-214
DOI:10.6129/CJP.202309_65(3).0001
Li-Tzu Yang (Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University)；Kuang-Hui Yeh (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)
Both guilt and shame are moral emotions. Studies often distinguish the two emotions according to individuals’differing dispositions. From the perspective of social cognitive theory, this study explores how the situational factors (target of focus and evaluation source) of a wrong-doing event generate feelings of guilt and shame, and how they subsequently lead to behavioral reactions. When individuals focus on others and perceive evaluation from themselves, they are more likely to feel guilty rather than ashamed, and when individuals focus on themselves and perceive evaluation from others, they are more likely to feel shamed rather than guilty (study 1 and study 2). Furthermore, we add the characterological blame trait as a personality factor to understand how that disposition interacts with situational factors on the generation of guilt and shame. Our findings suggest that the two emotions lead to different behavioral tendencies (study 2). The results of both studies show that when individuals perceive the evaluation source from themselves and focus on others, they generate more guilty feelings than ashamed feelings; however, when they feel the evaluation source from others and the focus on themselves, more ashamed feelings are generated. Furthermore, study 2 illustrates that when the context is characterized by the fact that the individual has caused damage to others, it is difficult for the individual’s self-blame tendency to produce its strengthening or weakening effect on the generation of guilty feelings. However, when the situational characteristics are neutral or vague, the individual’s self-blame tendency affects the generation of guilty feelings. In addition, guilt leads to increased compensation behaviors and reduced denial tendencies, while shame triggers both self-enhancement and escape behaviors.
Keywords: guilt, shame, evaluation source, target of focus, self-blame tendency
