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. 2022 Mar 9:13:822725.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.822725. eCollection 2022.

Childhood Disorder: Dysregulated Self-Conscious Emotions? Psychopathological Correlates of Implicit and Explicit Shame and Guilt in Clinical and Non-clinical Children and Adolescents

Eline Hendriks  1 , Peter Muris  1   2 , Cor Meesters  1 , Katrijn Houben  1
Affiliations

Childhood Disorder: Dysregulated Self-Conscious Emotions? Psychopathological Correlates of Implicit and Explicit Shame and Guilt in Clinical and Non-clinical Children and Adolescents

Eline Hendriks et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study examined psychopathological correlates of implicit and explicit shame and guilt in 30 clinical and 129 non-clinical youths aged 8-17 years. Shame and guilt were measured explicitly via two self-reports and a parent report, and implicitly by means of an Implicit Association Test (IAT), while a wide range of psychopathological symptoms were assessed with questionnaires completed by children, parents, and teachers. The results showed no differences of implicit and explicit shame and guilt between the clinical and non-clinical group, implying that dysregulation of these self-conscious emotions is not per definition associated with psychopathology. Correlational analyses indicated that self-reported explicit shame was positively associated with a broad range of internalizing psychopathology, while self-reported explicit guilt was associated with higher levels of anxiety and to some extent lower levels of externalizing psychopathology. Correlations with parent-rated shame and guilt revealed the same pattern of results but were in general weaker. Furthermore, implicit shame and guilt did not show significant correlations with the various measures of psychopathology. It can be concluded that the link between shame and guilt and psychopathology is complex, and partly dependent on the disorder under study and context-related factors defining the maladaptive nature of these self-conscious emotions.

Keywords: adolescents; children; implicit and explicit measurement; psychopathology; shame and guilt.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mean scores (with standard error bars) on various explicit and implicit measures of shame and guilt in the clinical and non-clinical group. BSGQ-C, Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children; IAT, Implicit Association Test; TOSCA-C, Test of Self-Conscious Affect for Children. The IAT D600 represents the contrast between the self- conscious emotions and pride. The negative values indicate that in general there was a stronger association with the attribute ‘pride’ than with the self-conscious emotions of ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.001.
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