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In this study, we translated into Chinese the Test of Self-Conscious Affect Version 3 (TOSCA-3) and examined the reliability and validity using 3 independent samples of Chinese young adults. The Chinese version (TOSCA-3C) showed acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability in all its subscales except for the 2 pride scales. Shame-proneness was found to be positively correlated with trait shame, state anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. Shame-proneness was found to be negatively correlated with self-esteem. Guilt- proneness was not correlated with any of the measurements. Shame-proneness was also a significant predictor of depression symptoms 2 weeks after the first assessment for depressive symptoms, with self-esteem as a full mediator of this relationship.
Keywords: Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA-3), scale translation, shame, guilt, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, reliability, validity, Chinese young adults.
Over recent decades, researchers have increasingly paid attention to self-conscious emotions; these emotions require self-awareness and complex processes of self-evaluation and have been found to play important roles in regulating individuals' behavior in the complicated social world (Lewis, 2003; Tracy & Robins, 2007).
Shame and guilt are the two most frequently studied emotions in the self-conscious group. Focusing on the individual's appraisal of events has been used to distinguish shame and guilt, and findings in empirical studies of Western cultures have supported this distinction (Tangney, 1996; Tracy & Robins, 2004) when focused on the individual's appraisal of events. Lewis' (1971) highly influential notion states that the difference lies in how individuals evaluate themselves. Shame involves stable and global negative evaluation of the self, whereas guilt involves negative evaluation of the specific behavior or action. Following this line, Tracy and Robins (2004, 2007) argued that the elicitation of self-conscious emotions is based on appraisals indicating that one's self-identity is being threatened or is under evaluation. An internal, stable, uncontrollable, and global attribution about self will elicit shame whereas internal, unstable, controllable, and specific attributions about self will elicit guilt.
Shame and guilt have also been found to have different impacts on psychological adjustments and psychopathologies. As one of the most frequently used measurements for shame-proneness and guilt-proneness, the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA; Robins, Noftle, & Tracy, 2007) has been used to explore the relationships between these two emotions and different forms of psychopathologies....