Children’s Proneness to Shame and Guilt Predict Risky and Illegal Behaviors in Young Adulthood

Self-conscious emotions are expected to be related to delinquency, as they guide moral decision making. In the current study, two separate multilevel meta-analyses were performed to examine the overall relation between guilt, shame and delinquency. In addition, possible moderating factors were examined. In total, 25 studies with 24 independent samples, reporting on 75 effect sizes, were included. The results showed significant negative associations between guilt and delinquency (r = -.278), and between shame and delinquency (r = -.130),indicating that higher levels of guilt and shame were related to less delinquency. Implications for theory and practice concerning the role of self-conscious emotions in delinquency and offender treatment are discussed. AbstractSelf-conscious emotions are expected to be related to delinquency, as they guide moral decision making. In the current study, two separate multilevel meta-analyses were performed to examine the overall relation between guilt, shame and delinquency. In addition, possible moderating factors were examined. In total, 25 studies with 24 independent samples, reporting on 75 effect sizes, were included. The results showed significant negative associations between guilt and delinquency (r = -.278), and between shame and delinquency (r = -.130),indicating that higher levels of guilt and shame were related to less delinquency. Implications for theory and practice concerning the role of self-conscious emotions in delinquency and offender treatment are discussed.

Shame has emerged as a particularly relevant emotion to the maintenance and exacerbation of borderline personality disorder (BPD) features; however, little attention has been paid to the potentially differing effects of other forms of self-conscious affect. While guilt has been demonstrated to have adaptive functions in the social psychology literature, it has not been previously explored whether a lack of socially adaptive guilt might also contribute to BPD-related dysfunction. The present study examined the relationship between BPD features and self-conscious emotions in a sample of undergraduate students (n=839). Increased shame and decreased guilt independently accounted for significant variance in the association between BPD features and anger, hostility, and externalization of blame. Only increased shame significantly mediated the association between BPD features and anger rumination, and only decreased guilt significantly mediated the relationship between BPD features and aggression. These findings suggest BPD and its associated problems with anger and externalizing may be characterized not only by high levels of shame, but also by lower levels of guilt. Clinical implications include the need to differentiate between self-conscious emotions and teach adaptive responses to warranted guilt.

The self-conscious emotions of guilt and shame are typically experienced in situations in which some moral standard is violated and this transgression is visible to other people [1]. While guilt and shame share similar features, evidence has accumulated indicating that both emotions also show some critical differences. That is, whereas guilt is concerned with a negative evaluation of a specific behavior (''I did that wrong''), shame pertains to a negative evaluation of the global self (''I did that wrong''). Thus, in guilt the person is feeling regret and remorse over the bad thing done, wishing that he had behaved differently, and thinking of how he could undo the harm. In contrast, shame is typically characterized by a feeling of inferiority and worthlessness, leading to a desire to escape or to disappear [1,2]. These differences also become manifest in the functionality of both emotions: guilt motivates reparative behavior by making apologies and engaging in attempts to fix the situation, while shame motivates defensive and avoidance behavior, possibly serving as an innate mechanism of communicating submission [3].Although guilt and shame primarily are functional and adaptive in nature, it has also become clear that some people display an excessive proneness to experience these self-conscious emotions, which means that they strongly dominate the person's affective, cognitive and behavioral responding. In other individuals, guilt and shame are so weakly present that that their adaptive function is no longer realized, and so morally inacceptable behaviors are no longer corrected or repaired. Not surprisingly, such dysregulations of self-conscious emotions have been associated with various types of psychopathology. Research has shown that shame is positively related to a wide range of psychological problems including aggression, depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and personality pathology. The relation between guilt and psychopathology is more ambivalent, but in general the literature is indicating that this self-conscious emotion is only maladaptive when it is experienced in a ruminative way or fused with feelings of shame [1]. Otherwise, the prevailing notion is that guilt plays an important role in the development of empathy and conscience and thus prevents the occurrence of socially problematic behaviors such as aggression and delinquency [4].So far most research on guilt and shame and psychopathology has been conducted in adult populations. In the meantime it is clear that rudimentary forms of these selfconscious emotions start to emerge during toddlerhood as a result of socialization processes and gradually develop and differentiate during further childhood as a result of cognitive maturation. Muris and Meesters [5] identified 22 studies that examined the relation between guilt and shame and psychological problems in children and adolescents. Overall, this research revealed a highly similar pattern of results as documented in the adult literature. That is, data generally indicated that shame w...