Content area
Full Text
Guilt and shame are self conscious, moral emotions felt upon personal failures or mistakes. They are both negative emotions that involve self evaluation and they have a major role in the regulation of social behavior (Moll, de Oliveira-Souza and Eslinger, 2003; Schulkin, 2004). Despite these similarities, these two emotions can be distinguished from each other in many aspects. One approach in the differentiation of guilt and shame is the public/private distinction, which states that shame is experienced in the presence of others while guilt is a private emotion (Ausubel, 1955; Benedict, 1946; Combs, Campbell, Jackson and Smith, 2010; Smith et al., 2002). This approach, however, is no longer valid since both shame and guilt were shown to appear in the presence of others (Tangney, Wagner, Hill-Barlow, Marschall and Gramzow, 1996). A more valid approach is the self/behavior distinction, which states that in shame the focus is the self while in guilt the focus is the behavior (Lewis, 1971; Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1989; Wicker, Payne and Morgan, 1983). In shame self is perceived as small, worthless and weak, which makes it a stronger and more painful emotion compared to guilt (Lewis, 1971; Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1989; Tangney, Wagner and Gramzow, 1992b; Wicker et al., 1983). As a result of this, shame leads to escape and hiding behavior, while guilt encourages confession, apologetic behavior and compensation of the damage given to others (de Hooge, Zeelenberg and Breugelmans, 2007; Ketelaar and Au, 2003; Lewis, 1971; Sheikh and Janoff-Bulman, 2010; Tangney et al., 1996; Wicker et al., 1983).
Individuals show different tendencies in terms of guilt and shame. Shame proneness is associated with anger, aggression, hostility, personal distress, low self-esteem and neurotisizm (Cohen et al., 2011; Tangney, 1991; Tangley et al., 1992a). Guilt prone people, on the other hand, tend to react less aggressively and are less involved in criminal behavior (Stuewig et al., 2010; Stuewig and McCloskey, 2005; Tangney et al., 1996). They are also less likely to repeat criminal behavior if they committed any crime (Tangney, Stuewig and Martinez, 2014).
Cultural Differences
The emotions guilt and shame show differences in different cultures in terms of the concepts they are associated with and the intensities they are experienced. Differences can be well observed between the Western cultures, which...