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ll[Killlllllllllll

LIBRARY

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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

Shame and Guilt:
Activators, Associated Unconscious Dangers,
and Defenses

presented by

Morton Chester Mirman

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. , Psychology
degree in

 

 

 

Major pro essor

  

I (;
Elaine Donels n
Gershen Kaufman

Date 5/61/ b), "I"

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SIIAME AND GUILT:
ACT NATDRS , ASSOCIATED l/IVCUIISCIUIIS HANGERS, AND DEFENSES

BY

Horton Cites ter Ni men

A DISSfRTATIUIl

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR 0F PIII LOSUFIIY

Department of Psychology

1984

ABSTRACT
SHAH! Alla BUILT:
ACTIVATURS , ASSOCIATED ”NCO/(561003 HANGERS , Aha DHEIISf S
BY

Morton Chester Mi moon

The present research investigated the relationships between
proneness to shame or guilt and a number of variables hypothesized to be
related to these phenomena. A single shame score and a single guilt
score was obtained for each participant by standardizing and than
summing the relevant measures from the following group: The Korpi
Shame-Guilt Scales. the Cattell Embarrassing Circumstances Test, the
Revised Stanford Shyness Survey. and the Hosher Forced Choice Guilt
Scales. The relationships between these composite scores and: (a) the
scores on the subscales of the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory, and
(b) the prevalence of a variety of themes produced in TAT stories, were
then examined.

The results were mixed, although a number of interesting findings
did emerge. First, as predicted, shame-proneness correlated positively
with dependency, as well as with the prevalence of TAT "Rejection”
themes. These findings supported the notion that the experience of
shame is initially associated with an event through an experience of
rejection, and that, as a consequence, rejection becomes an unconscious

danger associated with a shame-inducing event.

Secondly, several findings converged to provide support for the
Kaufman/Tomkins model in which shame is a unitary state with a single
affect underlying its variations. and guilt refers to a group of
affective states-~shame among them--with moral transgression as the
activator unifying the category. This was in contrast to the Lewis
model in which shame and guilt are seen as different, but parallel,
unitary processes, each associated with opposite ends of a continuum of
psychological differentiation.

A third finding stemmed from an analysis of the items of the Korpi
Shame Subscale, and suggested that shame activators can be meaningfully
organized into groups of such activators to which individuals are
differentially sensitive.

Finally, though short of significance, sex diffefences emerged in
proneness to shame and to guilt. In contrast to most previous research,

males were found to be more shame-prone, and females, more guilt-prone.

To Dani:
Fan hen he£p when I asked éan it
Fan hen ematianai suppanz when I needed it
Fan hen patience when I Ahauzdn't have expected it
And flan hen £ave aLwaya.

ii

ACKNDNLMGHIHITS

I would like to first thank Professors Gershen Kaufman and Elaine
Donelson, who co-chaired my committee. It was largely through Dr.
Kaufman that I became interested in studying the experience of shame.
He-helped me to understand the profound role it plays in the development
of the self, as well as the importance of working with shame in therapy.
Dr. Kaufman's involvement in this research far exceeded that expected
of a committee member. Throughout the course of this project he
exhibited the rare capacity to be very excited by and involved in the
work, and at the same time, respectful of the fact that, at bottom, it
was really my project. This, as well as his generosity and warmth as
both friend and teacher. are deeply appreciated.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with Dr. Donelson.
Her knowledge and skill as a researcher was invaluable. The important
questions she raised. as well as her considerable editorial input were
important in shaping the final product. Perhaps even more important,
however, was her encouragement of my autonomy and the respect she showed
for my ideas. For this, along with her unwaivering support and the
considerable amount of time and energy she gave so freely, I am very
grateful.

Professors Bert Karon and John Hurley also made important
contributions in their roles as committee members. I thank Dr. Karon

for his incisive suggestions regarding my use of the TAT, for sharing

his considerable statistical expertise. and for his often needed sense
of humor. I would like to thank Dr. Hurley for his editorial input,
his attention to detail, and for his willingness to spend a good deal of
time discussing the research. particularly toward the end, when I most
needed it.

I spent many delightful hours with Hes Novak discussing my ideas
about shame and guilt. This was not only enjoyable, it was also
instrumental in helping to clarify my thinking. I also wish to thank
Richard Genirberg for his help with the RNF word processor and the small
army of research assistants who helped me with tasks ranging from coding
the data to making.eopies of questionnaires to discussing conceptual
issues.

And finally, I would like to thank my wife Dori: She willingly
made sacrifices throughout the course of this project, not the least of
which was living with an obessional, preoccupied. and generally
unavailable. husband. Dori also spent endless hours discussing many
aspects of the research, making suggestions. and toning down my often
over-intellectualized notions with the profound, grounded-in-reality

insightfulness that l treasure in her.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
[IST OF TABLES .................................................... vii
[[37 OF FIGURES .................................................... ix
lIST 0F ABBREVIATIONS ............................................... x
INTRUDNCTIUN ...... .................................................. I
Shame and Guilt: A Comparison .................................. 3
Shame and the Instincts ........................................ 7
Shame. Ego Functioning and the Self ........................... ll
Shame and Affect Theory ....................................... 20
Shame: Discussion and Synthesis ............................... 23
GUiIt 0.0.0.0.... OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 26
Previous Research .. .................. . ...... . ...... ........... 3l
Hypotheses .................................................... 36
METHOD ooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ‘6‘}
Participants .................................................. Ah
Procedure .... ........ . ........................................ hh
Testing Instruments ........................................... AS
Korpi Shame-Guilt Test ..................................... h5
Susceptibility to Embarrassment Test ....................... A6
Mosher Forced Choice Guilt Scales .......................... #7
Revised Stanford Shyness Survey .......................... .. #9
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory ......................... 50
Thematic Apperception Test ................................. Sl
TAT Ratings ...... .......... .. ........................... 53
Predictions ..... .............................................. 56
RESULTS ooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 59
Reliability of TAT Ratings .................................... 59
Descriptive Data .............................................. 60
Shame and Guilt Scores ..................................... 62
Omnibus fi-Test ....... ......................................... 65
Sex Differences ............................................ 65
Shame Group Differences .................................... 67
Guilt Group Differences .................................... 67
Interactive Effects ........................................ 70

Hypotheses ...... ..... ..... . ....... ..... ............... . ....... 70

Dimension One Hypotheses-~Precipitating Events ............. 73
Dimension Two Hypotheses-~Associated Unconscious Dangers ... 7h
Dimension Three Hypotheses--Escape Defenses ........ . ..... .. 75
Dimension Four Hypotheses--Avoidance Defenses .............. 76
Additional Results ... ....... ... ........................... .78
ozswsszon ........ _ .................................... 86
Methodological Issues ................. ............... .. ....... 87
Validity of Shame and Guilt Measures ............... ........ 87
TAT Measures .................. ............................. 89
Findings ............. ..... ... ................................. 9I
Shame and Dependency .. ....... . ................. ............ 9l
Shame and the TAT Measures ........... ... ........ . ..... ..... 9h
Sources of Shame and the Division of the Korpi Shame Scale . 95
Sex Differences ... ............... . ............ . ......... ... 97
Shame and Guilt: A Comparison of Models .. ................. IOI
Summary ..... ........ . ........................................ l03
Directions for Future Research ............................... IOA
ARPENDICES .. ...................................................... I07
APPENDIX A - Tables .......................................... I08
APPENDIX B - Figures . ..... .. ...... ... .............. . ........ . l36
APPENDIX C - Instruments ............. ................... ..... Iho
APPENDIX D - Training Manuals .............. ........ .......... I65
APPENDIX E - Research Consent Form ........ ........ ........... I77
APPENDIX F - Debriefing Form ........ . . ............ . ....... .. I79
APPENDIX G - Post Hoc Shame- -Activator Subscale Questionnaire . I8I

REFERENCES ... ..................................................... I8h

vi

IIST OF TABLES

 

Table Page
Tables in Body
I. Summary of Hypotheses ......................................... AZ
2. Inter-Scale Correlations ....... . ........ ... ................... 63
3. Number of Males, Females and Males and Females Combined
in Each of Nine Shame X Guilt Groups ...................... 66
A. Mean Scores Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness ............... 68
5. Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness . 69
6. Mean Scores Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness ..... .......... 7l
7. Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness . 72
8. Mean Scores Grouped by Gender .......... ....................... 8l
9. Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Gender ................... 82
IO. Elementary Linkage Analysis of TAT Variables .................. 83
ll. TAT Intercorrelations for Both Males and Females .............. 85

Mean Scores

Mean Number

Tables in Appendix A
for Males Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness .... 109

of TAT Themes for Males Grouped by

Level Of Shame-Proneness .....OQOOO.........OOOOOOOOOOOOOO ‘10

Mean Scores

Mean Number

for Females Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness .. III

of TAT Themes fon Females Grouped by

Level of Shame-Proneness ..................... ..... . ..... . llZ

Mean Scores for Males Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness .... ll3

Mean Number

of TAT Themes for Males Grouped by

Level of Guilt-Proneness ................. ...... ... ....... Ilh

vii

ll.
12.

‘30
IA.

IS.
I6.

17.
I8.

IS.
20.

2l.

22.

23.

2h.

25.

26.

27.

Mean Scores for Females Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness .. ll5

Mean Number of TAT Themes for Females Grouped by

Level of Guilt-Proneness ................................. ll6
Intercorrelations Among Korpi Shame Subscales ................ 117
Mean Scores on TAT Card I Grouped by Gender ............ ...... ll8
Mean Scores on TAT Card 2 Grouped by Gender ......... . ........ ll9
Mean Scores on TAT Card 3BM Grouped by Gender ...... .......... l20
Mean Scores on TAT Card 3GF Grouped by Gender ......... ....... I21
Mean Scores on TAT Card 6BM Grouped by Gender ................ 122
Mean Scores on TAT Card 7BM Grouped by Gender ................ l23
Mean Scores on TAT Card 88M Grouped by Gender ................ 12h
Mean Scores on TAT Card I3MF Grouped by Gender ............... l25
Mean Scores on TAT Card lh Grouped by Gender ... .............. l26
Mean Scores on TAT Card l8GF Grouped by Gender ...... . ........ l27

Correlations Among Males Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and Objective Dependent Variables .. ...... ......... ...... l28

Correlations Among Females Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and Objective Dependent Variables ....... ........... ..... l29

Correlations Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and Objective Dependent Variables ....................... I30

Correlations Among Males Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and TAT Variables . ........ .......... ....... ............. I3I

Correlations Among Females Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and TAT variab'es ....OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOI000...... 000000 I32

Correlations Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and TAT Variables ... .................................... I33

Correlations Between Korpi Shame Subscales
and Objective Dependent Variables ... ....... . ......... ... l3h

Correlations Between Korpi Shame Subscales
and TAT Themes ...... .... ................................ I35

viii

figure .................

I.

2.

IO.

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories

LIST OF FIGURES

....... .................................... Page

Containing Moral Transgression Themes
of Shame-Proneness and Gender ............ I37

Containing Punishment-Atonement Themes
of Shame-Proneness and Gender ..... . ...... -l37

Containing Punishment Atonement or

Compensation-Atonement Themes as a Function of
Shame-Proneness and Gender ............................. I37

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories

Containing Moral Goodness Themes
of Shame-Proneness and Gender ............ I37

Containing Inadequacy Themes
of Shame-Proneness .......... ............. I38

Containing Rejection Themes
of Shame-Proneness ........ . .............. I38

Containing Exposure Reduction

Themes as a Function of Shame-Proneness ................ I38

Number of Stories
as a Function

Number of Stories

Containing Independence Themes
of Shame-Proneness ....................... I38

Containing Positive Evaluation

Themes as a Function of Shame-Proneness ................ I38

TAT Variables Grouped by Type ...... . ...... . ..... . ......... I39

ix

[157 DE ABBREVIATIONS

Guilt ................................. ....... Composite Guilt Measure
Shame . ...... . .............. . ................. Composite Shame Measure
KG ......... ..................................... Korpi Guilt Subscale
KS ........................... ........ ........... Korpi Shame Subscale
Task Competence (TC) ................. Shame Subscale--Task Competence
Social lncongruity (SI) .......... Shame Subscale-~Social Incongruence
Body (B) ..... ..... . .............. . .............. . Shame Subscale--Body

Relationship (R) ....................... Shame Subscale-~Relationships

Feelings (F) ... .......... ................... Shame Subscale--Feelings
EMB .. .......................... Susceptibility to Embarrassment Scale
SHY . ................................. Revised Stanford Shyness Survey
MSG ... .................. . .................. ‘ Mosher Sex-Guilt Subscale
MHG ............. ........ ............. Mosher Hostility-Guilt Subscale
MMCG ....... ................. Mosher Morality-Conscience-Guilt Subscale
IEMREL ....... ......... .. ....... Emotional Reliance on Others Subscale
ILSOCO ........... ...... ...... Lack of Social Self-Confidence Subscale
IAUT .................................. Assertion of Autonomy Subscale
TAT ............. .......................... Thematic Apperception Test

Exposure of Inadequacy (TATla)
................. ........ .. TAT theme involving exposure of inadequacy

Moral Transgression (TAle)
...................... ........ TAT theme involving moral transgression

Rejection/Abandonment (TATZa)
......................... TAT theme involving rejection or abandonment

Punishment (TATZb)
................................. ...... TAT theme involving punishment

Exposure Reduction (TAT3a)
............................ TAT theme involving reduction of exposure

Punishment;Atonement (TAT3bI)
........................ TAT theme involving punishment for wrongdoing

Compensation-Atonement (TAT3b2)
...................... TAT theme involving ammends made for wrongdoing

Total Atonement (TAT3bI + TAT3b2)
........ TAT theme involving punishment or ammends made for wrongdoing

Independence (TAThaI)
'......... ...... . TAT theme involving independence, power or competence

Positive Evaluation (TAThaZ)
............ TAT theme involving positive evaluation or attractiveness

Total Nonrejection (TAThaI + TAThaZ)
.............. TAT theme involving independence or positive evaluation

Evil-Projection (TATth)
.................. TAT theme involving nonhero-originated hurtful acts

Moral Goodness (TATth)
............. .......... TAT theme involving morally good deeds by hero

Total Moral Purity (TATth + TATth)
........... ..... TAT theme involving Evil-Projection or Moral Goodness

xi

Introduction

Francis Broucek recently wrote that "shame is to self psychology
what anxiety is to ego psychology--the keystone affect" (Broucek, I982.
p. 369). Nevertheless. shame. described by Rycroft (I968) as the
"Cinderella of the unpleasant emotions" (p. I52), has received
relatively little attention in the literature and what has been written
has failed to yield a consensus as to its nature.

The sociologist Helen Merrell Lynd (I958) attributed the neglect of
shame to the lack of Clarity about the meaning of the word, which she
claimed is often used interchangeably with, or subsumed under the
heading of, "guilt." According to Lynd. guilt is about a deed or a
behavior whereas shame is about the self. Guilt is a response to moral
transgression, the commission of a wrongful act; shame entails the
exposure of a basic inadequacy of one's self. As a result of the
(neglect of this distinction in conjunction with the pervasive focus on
guilt proper by writers since Freud, shame has been largely ignored.

Helen Block Lewis (l97l) has written that the concern with
guilt--to the.neglect of shame--is a consequence of the disparate
emphases placed on two of.the mechanisms of identification, aggressive
and anaclitic. She cited three reasons for this (Lewis, I979). The
first deals with sex differences in superego development. Freud des-
cribed superego development in terms of a male model. It is formed out

of identification with the father, stemming from the internalized

castration threat. Through this process, the parental threat becomes
I

attached to certain impulses which results in the experiencing of these
impulses as wrong (i.e.. guilt). However, Freud also described
anaclitic identifications which involve the threat of loss of parental
love. The loss of parental love becomes loss of ”self-love” via loss of
esteem in the eyes of the parents. According to Lewis, both males and
females develop anaclitic identifications out of which shame arises,
but:

because the anaclitic identifications begin early in relation

to mother and because males must renounce some of their

feminine identifications (while females need not).

androcentric thinking automatically assigned shame an inferior

place to guilt in a hierarchy of controls. (Lewis, I979,

p- 379-380)

Lewis claimed that the second reason for the differential emphases
on shame and guilt concerns the dominance of an individualistic view of
human nature. She stated that:

Hartman's concept of an autonomous ego deepened psychology's

commitment to an individualistic concept of human nature. The

superego . . . is understood to function in the service of the
developing autonomy of the ego, with guilt its prevailing

mode. (p. 376)

The third reason concerns the distinction between the self and the
ego. The ego has been described as an individual's on-going ”motiva-
tional-cognitive structure built up around the self” (Chein, I9hh,

p. 3Ih), while the self has been described as a content but not a
constituent of the mental apparatus (Kohut, I982). That is, the self is
the mental representation that an individual has of himself or herself
at a particular moment in time. The study of the self has taken a back
seat to that of the ego and its negotiations with the instincts. Thus
shame, the affective response to the experience of one's self as

inadequate, has been neglected in favor of guilt, the response to one's

giving in to “bad impulses."

Beyond these explanations, however, lies the question of
motivation: What are the dynamics behind the great concern with guilt
and the virtual neglect of shame? Guntrip (I969) wrote that we prefer
to see people as "bad but strong" rather than "weak and afraid":

Historically in ideology and psychologically in the

individual, the area of bad impulses, control, guilt and

depression lay right across the path of psychodynamic

investigation and blocked the way to deeper insight, as it was

intended to do. (p. I38)
It is less disturbing to think of our pain as stemming from the
possession of mighty animal instincts than from the fact that ”deep
within our makeup we retain a weak, fear-ridden infantile ego that we
never completely outgrow" (p. 125). This notion bears directly on the
question of why shame has been so neglected. We prefer to focus on
guilt-producing conflicts stemming from the powerful forces within us,
rather than on the shame-producing conflicts that stem from a fragile,
needy self plagued with self-doubt and the fear of rejection and
abandonment.

This research was originally intended to be a study of the
experience of shame. It soon became clear, however, that any discussion
of shame would necessitate a consideration of guilt as well. The
project thus evolved into an investigation of both shame and guilt, with

its primary focus being a side-by-side comparison of these two phenomena

along a number of dimensions to be discussed below.

El [21,” .

A number of writers have compared shame and guilt (Alexander, I938:

Lewis, l97l; Piers 8 Singer, I953; Wallace, I963). Franz Alexander

(I938) pointed out the difference between guilt and what he referred to
as "inferiority feelings"--which will be seen shortly to correspond
quite closely to later descriptions of shame. He argued that while both

inferiority feelings and guilt involve a tension between the ego and the

,- —.. .. v""““—"
.._-- - “J“;

ego ideal, they are "fundamentally different psychological phenomenon."
The sense of guilt is always felt as an unpleasant tension stemming from
the expectation of a deserved punishment. It is the "intrapsychic
reduplication of the fear of an external danger, the fear of retaliation
on the part of those persons whom one has attacked. is attacking or
wants to attack" (p. AZ), but who one believes does not deserve to be
attacked. Thus a sense of justice must be present in order for there to
be feelings of guilt.
The feeling of inferiority, on the other hand, requires no sense of
justice. According to Alexander: ‘5 4‘)
/6the feeling is not so much not being good in a moral sense but
, being weak. inefficient, unable to accomplish something. In
I inferiority feelings it is not implied, as it is in guilt
. feelIngs. that the self-condemnatIon Is the result of
wrongdoing. (p. AA)
The deepest source of inferiority feelings is the early conflict between
the wish to grow up and the regressive pull to passive dependency. The
ego. which identifies itself with the independent attitude. reacts to
intrusions of the wish to regress with feelings of inferiority. Thus
for Alexander. "inferiority feelings are pre-social phenomena, whereas
guilt feelings are results of social adjustment" (p. A7).
In a classic monograph on shame and guilt, Piers and Singer (I953)
elaborated on the difference between these experiences. Their major

distinctions can be restated in the following way. First of all. shame

stems from tension between the ego and the ego ideal and so is a

I ,
I/

response to a shortcoming--the failure to reach an ego ideal goal.
Guilt is generated by tension between the ego and the superego; it
occurs when a superego boundary is violated. .Thus "guilt accompanies
transgression: shame. failure" (p. ll). Secondly, the unconscious
threat involved in shame is abandonment--the fear of expulsion or
ostracism and its consequences for a dependent self. ,Behind the fear of
shame is the fear of parental contempt and the consequent abandonment
and death by emotional starvation. The unconscious threat involved in
guilt, on the other hand. is mutilation or castration--the fear of
active punishment by a superior. Piers and Singer also described what
they called the "shame-guilt cycle.” This refers to the situation where
shame and guilt are alternately activated. creating a spiral of
increasingly intense shame and guilt states.

=//Leon Wallace (l963) described both shame and guilt as defenses
against the feeling of annihilation. However, whereas shame protects
the individual from the loss of external narcissistic supplies (as
discussed below). guilt protects against the loss of supplies from the
superego. Shame, according to Wallace, precedes the development of the
superego and thus also guilt. It is a more primitive mechanism whose
activation decreases as superego introjections become more complete so
that the source of narcissistic supplies is shifted inward.

In Shame and Guilt in Negrosis, Helen Block Lewis (I97I) discussed
the relationship between shame, guilt, identification. and the superego.
She expanded on Freud's hypothesis that the development of the superego
involves identification as a response to the oedipal conflict.

According to Freud, by identifying with one's parents the child is able

to resolve the conflict between the love for them and the fear of

castration by them in reprisal for sexual and aggressive wishes. Lewis
described two mechanisms by which identification takes place. The first
involves the "incorporation of the castration threat, so that the person
experiences it 'from within'" (p. 20). This process is an attempt by
the child to escape from the role of passive victim by ”becoming" the
aggressor. (It should be noted that "castration anxiety", while
originally referring to the male fear of literally losing his penis, is
today more generally interpreted metaphorically. That is, it is seen as
referring to the fear of being harmed and thus losing one's power--
originally thought of as a masculine trait. Despite its original
meaning, as well as its sexist implications, it is now generally seen as
a concept relevant to both men abd women.) In this way. the threat from
the parent attaches itself to particular impulses and these impulses are
then labeled as "wrong." This is the experience of guilt. The second
mechanism of identification is the "emulation of an admired or beloved
parental figure" (p. 2I). It involves the "incorporation of an ego
ideal: an admired imago who serves as a positive model for the child's
activities" (p. 21). This identification process is an attempt by the
child to live up to this internalized, admired imago and so avoid the
loss of parental love.‘ Loss of parental love becomes loss of self-love
via loss of esteem in the eyes of the parents. This is the experience
of shame. Thus shame and guilt are seen by Lewis as different but
equally advanced superego functions developed along different routes of
identification. Both shame and guilt are superego states which, though
they differ in their phenomenology, have a common source in internalized

aggression.

Lewis explored further the relationship between shame and guilt by
looking at individuals differing in "psychological differentiation"
(i.e.. "field-dependence" versus ”field-independence“). The differenti-
ation construct, a construct that encompasses a wide range of
differences in personal style, successfully predicted that proneness to
shame or guilt would be related to other personality characteristics.
Field-dependent persons have a perceptual and cognitive style that can
be described as less differentiated than field independent-persons.

They tend, for example, to find it more difficult to perceive an item as
separate from an imbedding context, are more likely to produce human
figure drawings that lack articulation and differentiation of body
parts. and are more influenced in their judgments by the opinions of
others (Lewis. I97I: Witkin. 1950; Witkin. Lewis 5 Well, 1968). tewis
found that the experience of shame occurs within a self-organization A
pattern of field-dependence and porous self-boundaries suggesting a self
that is inadequately differentiated from the environment. The
self-organization associated with guilt. on the other hand, involves
field-independence and solid self-boundaries (Lewis, l97l; Witkin. Lewis
8 Weil, I968). These findings appear to be consistent with Wallace's
notion that individuals experiencing shame attribute selfjesteem regu-
lating capacities to the environment while those experiencing guilt

attribute it to themselves (superego).

Shame_and_the_1astiaets

.‘ J.

A number of psychoanalytic writers have described’shame_a§_afljggge

that serves to counter the instinctual drives (Fenichel, I937: Freud,

I905/l962. I9lh/l963, l92h/l963: Jacobson, l96h: Levin, I967: Mayman,
I967: Wurmser, l98l). Freud (I905/l962), in discussing the sexual
instincts. wrote that there is an aptitude for polymorphously perverse
sexuality in all of us. However, this sexual instinct has to "struggle

against certain mental forces which act as resistances" (p. 28). These,

KW
r..——‘r

 

fl

he wrote. are shame, disgust. and morality. Freud argued further that

 

while the inhibition of instinctual drives is largely learned, the
learning process is built on certain constitutional inhibitory forces
that develop as the child matures. ln I9Ih Freud elaborated on the
function of shame, writing that it serves to insure narcissistic satis-
faction by seeing to it that the ego measures up to the ego ideal. In

I92h Freud wrote that shame acts as a signal to redirect and limit the f\//

expression of sexual energy to avoid rejection.

.hifi.

Fenichel (l9h5) described shame as arising from early punishment

/ experiences in response to loss of or lack of bladder control. Shame
l//I thus becomes the ”specific force directed against urethral-erotic temp-
// I

)\\\\\

v/
tations” (p. 69)--the two-fold pleasures of phallic-sadistic intrusion

\‘

and the passive foregoing of control. Fenichel also described shame as

a motive for defense directed primarily against exhibitionism and scop-

.. ...-ov-
w

ophilia. He quoted Freud in stating that:
"I feel ashamed" means "I do not want to be seen." Therefore \</
persons who feel ashamed hide themselves or at least avert
their faces. However, they also close their eyes and refuse
to look. This is a kind of magical gesture arising from the
magical belief that anyone who does not look cannot be looked
at. (cited in Fenichel, l9h5, p. I39)

Although not explicitly stated by Fenichel, the aversion to being seen
presumably stems from prior "shaming" parental reactions to the child's

lack of bladder control. -

According to Jacobson (I96h), shame is an early reaction formation
to pregenital strivings. especially those that are anal and exhibition-
istic. It is originally provoked when one's ”loss of instinctual
control, physical defects and failures are exposed to others"

(p. h3-hh). Normally, shame reactions become early manifestations of an
internalized conflict and thus may appear whenever we become,aware of"

_. ’vw— (w .

something that others have labeled disgracefulfafter our internalization

.... .A

 

 

1””bpof that judgment.

I {i} / Sidney Levin (I967) highlighted the adaptive role of shame. Vfl

I} referring to it as a "basic component of the normal homeostatic
mechanisms regulating the sexual drive” (p. 270). The pleasantness or
unpleasantness of the affective response to sexual stimuli inform the
individual as to whether the stimulus will be satisfying or dangerous.
According to Levin, shame is one of the affects that directs the sexual
drive away from danger. The importance of shame thus lies in its
protection of the individual from “the trauma of overexposure to others
and ultimately from the trauma of rejection" (p. 268).

Martin Mayman (l97h) described shame as a reaction formation
against phallic impulses--specifically excitation. He stated that all
shame-prone people experience a heightened sense of audience that always
makes them feel on display. Behind this

anguished self-consciousness lie repressed memories of the

giddy experiences of libidinal arousal which stem from (these

phallic sources) . . . each with its own distinctive

consequences for character development. (p. 58)

At the core of phallic-exhibitionism is a sense of:

potency and magnetism of one's innate capacity to please that

person to whom one is most drawn. . . .(However), at its

height, this wish to show oneself off in all one's glory
becomes its own undoing. With the impulse to show oneself

 

l0

off. there may come a searing sense of one's ludicrous
insufficiency . . . leading to fears not only that what he
exposes will be laughed at, but that what he does with his
inadequate equipment will fall pathetically short of the
height to which he aspires. (p. 58-59)
Behind the fear of phallic-urethral excitation lies the fear of loss of
control:

a fear which, most often in women, equates sexual discharge

with the humiliating loss of bowel or bladder control, and

which in both men and women looks upon spontaneous discharge

of feelings as if it were an emotional incontinence as imper-

missible as sphincter incontinence. (p.59)

According to Mayman, the shame personality "is at heart a ham, eager to
show himself off before others . . . yet he trips over an intrapsychic
warning not to expose himself unabashedly“ (p. 59). Such phallic-
],libidinal impulses have "long since given way to reaction formation"
(p. 59-60).

More recently Leon Wurmser (I98l) has pursued Fenichel's notion of
shame as a motive for defense against scppophilia and exhibitionism. He
described scopophilia and exhibitionism as narrower versions of what he
termed. respectfully, theatophilia and delophilia. Theatophilia is
defined as ”the desire to watch or observe, to admire and be fascinated,
to merge and master through attentive looking, operating as a basic
inborn drive from earliest infancy” (p. I58). Delophilia is "the desire '
to express oneself and to fascinate others by one's self-exposure. to
show and to impress, to merge with the other through communication" u -m
(p. l58). The primary conflict involved in theatophilia is one's desire
to exert power and control over the object despite its efforts to
overpower and control oneself. The primary conflict involved in delo-

philia is the desire to love and be loved. to merge with the other in

the face of its cold disregard or its absence. According to Wurmser,

ll

whenever the demand for power or love is thwarted, shame anxiety--the
specific form of anxiety evoked by the imminent danger of shame--arises,
which leads, in turn, to the reaction formations of hiding and the

refusal to look.

El EEI" IIISIE

. ‘\.
~\\
\

Shame has also been discussed in terms of its relationship to ego i

I‘
I

A , ...rw“‘"

functioning and the self (Broucek, I982; Erikson, I950, I959; Grinker,

I955: Kaufman, I980; Kinston, I983: Lewis, I97l; Lichtenstein, I963;
Lynd. I958; Tomkins, I963; Wallace, I963; Wurmser. I98I). Erikson
(I950, I959) described eight psychosocial stages of the life cycle.
Each stage consists of a primary crisis, the resolution of which
provides the ego development necessary for facing the crisis that
emerges as the next stage unfolds. The crisis facing the child in the
second stage, roughly the second year of life, is the problem of
autonomy versus shame and doubt. According to Erikson (I959):

The overall significance of this stage lies in the maturation

of the muscle system, the consequent ability (and doubly felt

inability) to coordinate a number of highly conflicting action

patterns such as "holding on" and "letting go", and the

enormous value with which the still highly dependent child

begins to endow his autonomous will. (p. 68)
This stage becomes a battle for autonomy, and the anal zone, the arena
in which the conflict between two contradictory desires is expressed.
The role that the parents play in helping the child to acquire the
control involved in this process is an important one:

Denied the gradual and well-guided experience of the autonomy

of free choice . . . the sensitive child may turn against

himself all the urge to discriminate and to manipulate. . . .

He will develop a precocious conscience that does not let him

really get away with anything, and he goes through life
habitually ashamed. (Erikson, I959, p. 72)

l2

From a sense of self-control comes a "lasting sense of autonomy and ‘
pride: from a sense of muscular and anal impotence, of loss of
self-control, and of parental overcontrol comes a lasting sense of shame
and doubt" (Erikson, I950. p. 25h). Thus for Erikson a sense of shame
and doubt are products of an environment that failed to adequately
support ego development at a time when the child was struggling to gain
autonomy over his or her own bodily functions via holding and letting go
Q
of his or her feces.

Erikson described the experience of shame as involving the sense of
exposure: the individual is self-conscious--conscious of being looked
at. This is expressed in the impulse to “bury one's face.“ The shamed
person would like to force the world to ignore his exposure, to "destroy
the eyes of the world.” Instead he must "wish for his own
invisibility."

Grinker (I955) viewed shame as a response to a failure in realizing
one's growth potential, that is. the capacity to develop newer
organizations for the expression and satisfaction of primary desires.

He wrote that:

man, more than any other animal, is excessively and for long

periods of time dependent on parental figures. Because of

excessive dependency or restrictions on growth or because of

lack of sufficient stimulation or satisfaction, individual

inertia against personal growth often increases. For one of

such reasons the organism becomes fixed or held in a more or

less dependent position and is not capable of utilizing its

growth-potential. If it is able to develop to any degree, the

inertia or longing for its previous dependent relationships

make it vulnerable in times of stress or disappointment to

regress to the old states of dependency. (p. 2A9)

Shame arises upon recognition of one's wish to regress to a more primi-

tive psychic organization in conjunction with the belief that he or she

"ought to“ or is expected by others to have the capacity to deal with

13

the situation at hand in a more mature way than he or she wishes to do.
Helen Lynd (l958)mjisted four characteristics that she believed to
H‘____‘fl______iuem flfl_ d . ...

be essential to the experience of shame: a sense of exposure, the

.. ._,.. ......— ,-.—.- ..-r

element ofunexpegtedness. the feeling of inappropriate0e§$._and_‘

-V‘

confusion. ”Exposure refers to the exposure of "peculiarly sensitive, )//
intimate, vulnerable aspects of the self" (p. 27). Unexpectedness is
”astonishment at seeing different parts of ourselves . . . suddenly
coming together . . . with aspects of the world we have not recognized"
(p. 3“). The feeling of inappropriateness stems from the awareness of a

”discrepancy . . . between us and the social situation" (p. 35).

Confusion is understood as a ”loss of identity one thought one had"

«4"

 

" ' -.-—p-rn-a' "

(p. 37). Thus Lynd concludes that ”shame is an experience that affects
and is affected by the whole self" (p. A9)Y/ Like most other writers in

the area Lynd acknowledged the painful character of the experience of

 

shame, but unlike others, she saw in the experience of shame the
opportunity to realize one's uniqueness: "If experiences of shame can be
fully faced. if we allow ourselves to realize their import, they can
inform the self and become a revelation of oneself” (p. 7l). She
claimed that the transformation of the whole self brought about by such,
an experience could be described "in Plato's words, (as) a turning of I
the whole soul toward the light" (p. 5I).

Tomkins (I963) also described shame as a central motive that stands\J

_ _. up... .---"""

close to the self. He wrote that this is because the self lives in the

vfiv

face, and in particular, in the eyes. "Shame turns the attention of the

self and others away from other objects and to this most visible

b.—

residence of the self, increases its visibility and thereby generates

the torment of self-consciousness" (p. I33). Shame is an experience of

 

WM

/ .

lh

the self by the sejf. It is felt as a sickness within the self. In

 

shame, one wishes to look and be looked at, but at the same time does

 

not want to do so. It is primarily a response of facial communication

my

 

reduction involving an ambivalent turning away of the eyes from the

w”

object and toward the self and the primary locus of the self, the face.
Blushing is thus a consequence of, as well as a further cause for,
heightened self-consciousness.

Wallace (l963) described shame as an inborn physiological response
in service of the ego. It is involved in the effort to gain narcis-

sistic (oral) supplies. Thus shame is a "defense against the feeling of

#n’
'—

 

annihilation that occurs if . . . (external) supplies are withdrawn”

--.. 01-.wava

 

(p. 82). He regarded as inadequate Piers' notion that shame is the

direct result of the tension between the ego and the ego ideal, claiming
that this fails to take into account the element of the feeling of being
looked at. According to Wallace, the fantasy of being looked at--albeit
laughed at or despised--is an inportant element in the shame experience,
but painful though the experience may be, it constitutes the fulfillment

of a wish. Thus. he considered the feeling of being looked at as "an

effort to receive narcissistic supplies (affectIon or approval) after

__i ‘ r'w-q-“

_.——-——‘-—~—--
,‘w- ”v

 

the narcissistic loss involved in . . . failure" (p. 83). The feeling

f... - _ _ #— ___.___,__,

of being small and the desire to hide--further aspects of shame-f

r..M—« '-

‘constitute the fear of being abandoned and helpless.‘ At the same time.

..__._...- - -‘ "

it is a way of gaining the approval of the other via: (a) self-imposed
punishment. and (b) a willingness to remain childlike. In short. shame,
for Wallace, is related to the oral Stage of psychosexual development.
It is involved in seeking libidinal supplies from an external person so

that:

15

the fantasy of being looked at in shame is primarily the ful-

fillment of a wish to be looked at and loved. along with the

fear of abandonment: and secondarily, a self-imposed

punishment and confession in the pursuit of external libidinal

supplies. (p. 85)

Heinz Lichtenstein (l963) postulated that a person lives in a
constant state of tension between identity maintenance and the
temptation of what he termed "metamorphosis." the loss or abandoning of
the human quality of identity. According to Lichtenstein, shame is a
"sudden. unexpected break-through of yearnings to yield to the ever-
present temptation to abandon human identity, i.e., to accept metamor-
phosis as an alternative” (p. Zlh). The physiological symptoms of
blushing, warmth, etc., reflect the “powerful urge to yield to this
temptation and indicate the lustful anticipation of the 'marvelous
death' of one's identity" (p. Zlh). Instead of viewing shame as a
tension between the ego and the ideal. as suggested by Piers, he claimed
that it is the breakdown of the capacity for identity maintenance. A
person who has exposed something of himself or herself for which rejec-
tion is feared yearns for a shortcut to a ”reunion with the matrix"

It» 215) .

Shame, according to Lewis (I97I), "is about the self." It is a
narcissistic reaction triggered by a deviation from the ego ideal. She
cites R. D. Lang (I960) in stating that in shame there is an "implosion
of the self." At the same time that the self attempts to disappear, it
may be dealing with an excess of autonomic stimulation that is exper-
ienced as a flood of sensations. In shame the self is divided. It is
simultaneously experiencing condemnation and acute self-awareness, which

together make it difficult for the self to function effectively. The

self feels overwhelmed and paralyzed by the hostility directed against

l6

The self feels small, helpless and childish. Hostility

against the rejecting other is almost always evoked but this

shame-based rage is readily turned back against the self, both

because the self is in a passive position vis-a-vis the other

and because the self values the other. (Lewis, I97l, p. 37)

In shame, unlike guilt, the content of consciousness is likely to be
about the sense of identity. This automatically disturbs the "sense of
identity that normally functions silently" (p. 65). In guilt, on the
other hand, identity is not relevant. Thus the self functions more
smoothly when feeling guilty than when feeling shamed.

Gershen Kaufman (l97ha, l97hb. I980) has written about the
relationship between shame and the self. According to Kaufman, shame is
originally induced interpersonally, when the interpersonal bridge with a
significant other--typically a parent or parental figure-~is broken by
the other. He wrote that:

the interpersonal bridge is built upon certain expectations

which we have come to accept and to depend on. . . . Shame is

likely whenever our most basic expectations of a significant

other are exposed as wrong. (Kaufman, I980, p. l5)

Thus, for example, a child whose need for affection is responded to with
anger, scorn, or neglect will convert the need to a bad feeling and so
experience shame.

Although originally induced interpersonally, shame is later inter-
nalized and thus able to be activated by the self without an inducing
external interpersonal event. Prior to internalization, shame is
generated and then passes on; once it has been internalized, it becomes
part of one's identity. It is no longer one affect among many. It
becomes linked to drives, needs or other affects so that the awareness

of these parts of one's self triggers a shame response. Shame that has

been internalized produces a sense of one's self as defective. Exposure

17

of one's self becomes exposure of one's inherent defectiveness as a
human being. Kaufman described a number of strategies that are then
employed to protect the individual from the shame of exposure. These
include: the interpersonal transfer of shame, rage, contempt, striving
for power. striving for perfection. the transfer of blame. and internal
withdrawal.

Internalization of shame can lead to what Kaufman called the “dis-
owning of the self.” The child learns to treat part of himself or
herself in the same way that his or her parents do. The child attempts
to maintain the interpersonal connection with the parents by splitting
his or her self into a part that is "not-me” and a part that becomes the
parents' ally. It is as if the child is saying, "Don't reject me; we'll
all unite and reject that other bad self.”

Wurmser (I98I) also discussed the relationship between shame and
the self. The threat in shame, he claimed, is contemptuous rejection
and thus isolation. The basic fear is loss of love, a version of
separation anxiety. Thus the fear, ultimately, is loss of self. ‘While
shame functions as a motive for defense, in content it is the pain of
feeling unloved and unlovable. Centered around this feeling is the
belief that one is weak. dirty, and defective. The individual is thus
faced with the paradox that he or she desires attachment but must hide
to avoid being rejected because of his or her repulsiveness.

Francis Broucek (I982) described shame as an important factor in
the development of the self. The child is able to experience shame
prior to the development of objective self-awareness, but with the
advent of this new ability, which ordinarily occurs between I8 and 2h

months of age, the shame experience acquires new meaning. There is a

l8

"painful, heightened awareness of the self as an object of observation
for others, with an attendant wish to withdraw or hide oneself"

(p. 37l). Thus abandonment and isolation anxieties associated with
"large toxic doses” of shame may lead to clinging attachment behavior
and so undermine the separation-individuation process. On the other
hand, in "small doses" shame assists the individuation process because
it involves awareness of one's separateness from the significant other.
Moderate shame experiences may thus enhance self and object differ-
entiation.

Broucek also looked at the role of shame in the development of
narcissistic personality types. Shame disrupts the ”silent automatic
functioning of the self" so that shame is, for Broucek, the ”basic form
of unpleasure in disturbances of narcissism" (p. 376). The grandiose
self, the pathologically exaggerated ideal self or ego ideal, is thought
to be a compensatory formation which develops largely in response to
primitive shame experiences. As the child acquires the capacity for
.objective self-awareness. the inevitable discrepancy between the gran-
diose self and objectively derived notions about the actual self gives
rise to a shame crisis. The grandiose self is then either incorporated
in the central sector of the personality which then refuses to recognize
negative information about the "actual self" or else the central sector
refuses recognition of the grandiose self leading to its dissociation.
The first defensive maneuver leads to what Broucek referred to as the
"Egotistical Type" and is the "type of narcissist who is unabashedly
self-aggrandizing and . . . utterly shameless" (p. 376). The second
defensive strategy leads to the ”Dissociative Type." In these indi-

viduals the central sector of the personality recognizes the actual self

_ _"

l9

and disowns the grandiose self. The split-off grandiose self is then
projected in the form of an idealized and omnipotent object. The
central sector of the personality identifies with the depreciated actual
self resulting in low self-esteem.

Warren Kinston (I983) has recently written that shame appears in
the state of "self-narcissism" associated with the urge to move to

"object-narcissism." He defined self-narcissism as any activity (mental

'__.

or physical) which serves to ”maintain a self-representation which is
integrated, has continuity over time and can be given a positive
(affective) value" (Kinston, I980, p. 38h). Object narcissism is
defined as a defensive mode of object relating that isolates the
"needy-dependent-emotional part of the person from potentially meaning-
ful and gratifying relationships” (p. 38h). Drawing from the work of
Lichtenstein, Kinston writes that persons oscillate between individua-
tion and self-assertion, on the one hand, and symbiosis encouraged by
the parent, on the other. Shame is the signal, affective and cognitive,
that the individual:

faced with painful self-awareness (similar to "identity” in

Lichtenstein's terminology) and still with the capacity to

relate meaningfully to another, wishes to abandon this and to

adopt a state of mind which is . . . characterized by a denial

'of all that is human: need, dependency, conflicts, meaning,

imperfection. (Kinston, I983, p. 2l7)
Once the person has moved to object-narcissism the experience of shame
recedes. Shame, he argued, is not experienced simply because of
discrepancies between how one is and how one would like to be: nor is it

"an unpleasurable experience associated with the maintenance of narcis-

sistic equilibrium" (p. 22h).

20

Wham

A number of writers have described shame as a primary affect that
can be experienced prior to the development of a sense of self (Broucek,
I982: Kaufman, I980; Tomkins. I963). Tomkins (l963) presented a general
model of the human being in which the affects comprise a separate
motivational system. He argued that the affect system is the primary
motivational system and that the drive system is secondary because the
drives require amplification from the affects. He conceived of affects
as primarily facial expressions which, when fed back and transformed
into conscious form, have characteristics that can be either punishing
or rewarding. He identified seven primary affects--two positive and
five negative. One of the negative primary affects he labeled
"shame-humiliation.“ According to Tomkins' theory (I963), shame,
shyness. and some experiences of guilt (Tomkins, personal communication,
November 20. I982) while experienced differently on a conscious level,
are not distinguishable from each other at the level of affect: the
affect of shame-humiliation is a component of all three of these. It
arises in the wake of negatively attenuated positive affect. The
general sources of shame are the barriers to objects of excitement or
enjoyment which "reduce positive affect sufficiently to activate shame
but not so completely that the original object is renounced” (p. l85).
Thus shame is activated by the incomplete reduction of interest: for
example, the sudden realization that a person one has greeted is a total
stranger. Tomkins hypothesized that since an unanticipated friend-
stranger differential can elicit shame, as soon as the infant is able to

distinguish the face of the mother from the face of a stranger--approxi-

2l

0'

mately seven months old--the infant becomes vulnerable to shame.
"Henceforth," he writes, "shame is inevitable for any human being
insofar as desire outruns fulfillment sufficiently to attenuate interest
without destroying itf (p. l85).

Kaufman (I980), while writing about shame in terms of its relation-
ship to the self, agreed with Tomkins' view that shame is a primary
affect that is activated before the development of self. According to
Kaufman, shame is a pre-verbal experience that is early on activated
interpersonally. This affective response can then become attached to
other affects, drives, or needs and may eventually be internalized and
made a part of one's identity. but it is a primary affect. Thus there
is a distinction between shame as one affect among several that is
activated and then passes, and shame as an affect that becomes part of
and thus poisons the self.

Broucek (I982) wrote that if shame arises from contact with
strangers, as thought by Tomkins, then:

it seems likely that shame can also arise in the infant's

contacts with the mother at those times when mother becomes a

stranger to her infant. This happens when the infant is

disappointed in his excited expectation that certain communi-
cative and interactional behavior will be forthcoming in

response to his communicative readiness. (p. 370)

Broucek suggested that, in addition to shame arising in interactions
with strangers or the ”strange mother," there are other situations that
produce what appear to be shame reactions in infants. These situations
are characterized by:

acute distress associated with the infant's inability to

influence, predict or comprehend an event which the infant

expected, on the basis of previous experiences, to be able to
control or understand. (p. 370)

There is, wrote Broucek, an element of ”cognitive shock” involved in the

22

release of shame-~"whether it be the shock of the face of the stranger
or the shock of failed efficacy expectations vis-a-vis the environment"
(p- 370) .

In contrast to the above affect theorists who describe shame as a
primary affect, Leo Spiegel (I966) has posited a theory of affects in
which shame is a "dampened" affect. According to Spiegel, desire,
anxiety. longing, and pain are affects that correspond to absolutes--the
absolute possession of a love object or the absolute loss of the object.
However, we are often faced with situations that are less extreme:
object possession and object loss are usually more or less partial.
Partial object loss is also accompanied by painful affect. but it is an
affect that is less painful than the anxiety and pain which are
associated with absolute object loss. It is the "narcissistic affects
of humiliation and shame", he suggests, "which represent dilution of the
more powerful unpleasurable affects of anxiety and pain" (p. 8b). The
mechanism by which the person is able to attenuate the object loss (and
thus the unpleasure of associated negative affect) arises via the intro-
duction of the ego ideal into the mental apparatus. The ego ideal,
which arises from the memory traces of the early coupling of efficacy in
object attainment with gratification and inefficacy in object attainment
with pain. serves to hold off the effect of external object loss from
the ego for a period of time. Absolute loss is thus converted into
diluted loss and the affect which results from this relative
independence from the external object is no longer pain, but rather.
humiliation. Shame, for Spiegel, is humiliation experienced when some-

one else looks on.

23

El ,2. . [E I'

There is considerable overlap among the various theories of shame.
However there are a number of discrepancies as well. Some of these
diffeeences can be accounted for, in part, by the lack of clarity in the
use of the term "shame." An important distinction that is generally
overlooked is that between shame affect proper and shame anxiety. Shame
anxiety is not the actual experience of this affect; rather, it is the
cue that serves to help avoid a shame-inducing event or escape from
shame that is already being experienced (Wurmser, l98l). It is likely
that Freud, when referring to shame as “a signal that serves to redirect
and limit the expression of sexual energy in order to avoid rejection"
was describing shame anxiety and not shame proper. Thus. rather than
shame itself being a reaction formation against instinctual drives
(e.g., Jacobson, l96h), it may be that anxiety 2222; shame gives rise to
reaction formations. These then serve as a defense against the shame
potentially triggered by responses to instinctual-drives.

An apparent distinction between two shame experiences that may not
really be separate phenomena is that between shame as an affect
involving the self in relation to others, and what appears to be an
earlier, more primitive version of this affect. This "primitive" shame
is a primary affect that is released by the cognitive shock involved in
an infant's "inability to influence. predict or comprehend an event
which the infant expected, on the basis of previous experience, to be
able to control or understand" (Broucek, I982, p. 370). It results
according to Tomkins (I962) from the incomplete reduction of positive

affect so that excitement or enjoyment is reduced but the object of

2h

excitement is not renounced. Shame as an interpersonal phenomenon has

been described as the affective response to the breaking of the inter-

“fiwnfifl ._-- .

personal bridge with and by a significant other (Kaufman, I980) and as

J, ,mflwprfi'—

the loss of self- love  resulting from the loss of esteem in the eyes of
fflfi_fl#,__niii-

the parents (Lewis, I97l). The apparent gap between these shame

.... Wfi,._—-—

 

experiences is bridged by the fact that both involve a violated
expectation about the world that disrupts the ”silent automatic
functioning of the sense of self which is unself-conscious, that is, not
aware of itself as an object of observation" (Broucek, I982. p. 372).
The "primitive” shame experience involves the violation of a more

general expectation whereas the ”interpersonal” shame experience has to

do with violated interpersonal expectation. In either case, the

.3..

My.

individual is unreflectively depending on events to proceed in a way
that will not disrupt his or her narcissistic expectations. Shame
experiences jolt the individual out of what Winnicott (l963) referred to
s "going-on-being." Broucek (I982) has written that shame is the basic
form of unpleasure in disturbances of narcissism. This unpleasantness
serves as a painful reminder of one's self as a separate. finite being

in a world that cannot be trusted to support one's dependency, and gives

 

rise to shame anxiety. the force behind the control of impulses that are
potentially shame-inducing.

Shame has been discussed in connection with the displeasure’/
associated with being looked at or caught looking at someone else
(Fenichel, l9h5: Kaufman, I986; Wallace. I963; Wurmser, l98l). Despite
the pain associated with being looked at or being caught looking, behind

this is a wish to look and be looked at. For Wurmser both of these

wishes are part of the wish to merge with another. The wish to look

25

(scoptophilia or theatophilia) is essentially the desire to merge by
identifying with and becoming part of the other. The wish to be looked
at (exhibitionism or delophilia) is the desire to merge by absorbing the
other into one's self. But psychological merging leaves one vulnerable
to shame because of the ease with which this “going-on-being” may be
suddenly disrupted. Thus there arises shame anxiety over the possible
shaming consequences of either form of merging. This leads, in turn, to
the reaction formations of the avoidance of looking and the avoidance of
being looked at.

In sum, it is thought that shame, more than any other affect.
involves the self. Triggered initially by violated expectations of
one's world. shame jolts the individual out of what Winnicott referred
to as "going-on-being." It disrupts the silent automatic functioning in
which there is no consciousness of oneself as a separate being, and in
so doing assists in the development of a conscious sense of self. Shame

is thus a painful reminder of the fact that despite one's regressive

—-—v~......_..— ’,

wishes to escapethesolitude of identitiy, psychological merging will
be supported conditionally, at best. Still, the wish to merge remains,
and so the avoidance of shame becomes a motive for the erection of
defenses aganst vulnerability to shame. The wish to merge through the
absorbing of the other--expressed as exhibitionism-~and the wish to H
merge by becoming part of the other--expressed as scopophilia--are
defended against through the reaction formations of hiding and the
refusal to look. The avoidance of shame also becomes a motive for the
hiding of parts of oneself that have come to be associated with

rejection. Thus the exposure of inadequacies and the expression of

feelings or needs which have been associated with rejection--either

26

active rejection, or the absence of a validating response, a reaction
also experienced as rejection--are avoided in an effort to protect

against the experience of shame.

Guilt

According to Freud (I930/l962), guilt. the price paid for civili-
zation. is the feeling produced by the tension between the ego and the
harsh superego. In an effort to retain the love of a person who one is
dependent on for protection--especially from punishment--one's own
aggression is internalized. That is, it is directed towards one's own
ego. It is, in fact, taken over by a portion of the ego as a superego.
It is now able to activate against the ego the same harsh aggressiveness
that it originally would have liked to turn against others. This
tension is experienced as a need for_punishment and, while initially is
triggered only in response to actual transgressions, as the superego
develops this phenomenon may take place in the absence of overt
behavior; that is, guilt is now experienced in response to forbidden
wishes or impulses as well as in response to forbidden behaviors.

Freud summarized the process as, first, the renunciation of
instinct owing to fear of aggression by the external authority. This is
followed by the erection of an internal authority, and renunciation of
instinct owing to fear of it, at which point bad intentions are equated
with bad actions, either of which produces a sense of guilt and a need
for punishment. Thus:

A threatened external unhappiness--loss of love and punishment

on the part of external authority--has been exchanged for a

permanent internal unhappiness, for the tension of the sense
of guilt. (p. 75)

27

Alexander (l9h8/l963) also wrote that guilt feelings originate in
the child-parent relationship: "if the child does something which has
previously evoked parental disapproval and punishment he reacts to it
with the fear of punishment“ (p. ll8). He atones by being punished and
a good relationship with the parents is refestablished. This sequence
of events--misbehavior, anxiety. punishment and atonement, forgive-
ness--is repeated. The expectation of punishment leads to the need for
punishment because only in this way can the anxiety caused by
transgression be reduced. After parental attitudes have been
incorporated in the conscience, the whole process is internalized.
Thus, not only do acts which were once punished cause anxiety, but every
impulse to commit such acts as well. This "fear of one's conscience,”
claimed Alexander, "is . . . the sense of guilt" (p. II8).

In a discussion of guilt and superego development, Fenichel (l9h5)
wrote that an important step in maturation occurs when prohibitions set
up by one's parents become effective in their absence. This
internalization of the parents takes place through the introjection of
proscriptions and prohibitions and marks the beginning of the formation
of the superego. Fenichel referred to these_introjects as "anti-
instinctual forces” and wrote that they "have an instinctual character
because they are derivatives of instincts” (p. l03). One's instinctual
attitudes (typically of the child toward the parents) are "turned into
forces hostile to the instincts. . . . Through the influence of the
external world, instinctual impulses have been transformed into
anti-instinctual impulses" (p. l03).

With the establishment of the superego, anxiety about external

dangers--loss of love or castration--becomes secondary to guilt feelings

28'

about inner dangers--the inner representation of loss of love or
castration. The loss of the superego's protection or the inner
punishment performed by the superego is felt as a painful decrease in
self-esteem and, in extreme cases, as the feeling of annihilation.
According to Fenichel, as long as this fear exists one feels the need to
abolish it:

just as urgently as it feels an instinctual drive. . . . (The

ego thus) develops a need for absolution. . . . The pain of

punishment is accepted or even provoked in the hope that after

the punishment the greater pain of guilt feelings will

cease. (p. I05)

Erikson (I950) suggested that a ”sense of guilt” is a possible
outcome of an inadequate resolutiom of the developmental crisis facing a
child of four or five years of age, that of initiative vs. guilt. The
child, energized by the successful resolution of the crisis of autonomy
vs. shame and doubt directs energy outward in the form of planning and
attacking. "The danger of this stage," wrote Erikson, "is a sense of
guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in one's
exuberant enjoyment of new locomotor and mental power" (p. 255). He
suggested that initiative brings with it "anticipatory rivalry" with
better equipped elders who often possess that which one's initiative is
directed toward. Infantile jealousy and rivalry ”now come to a climax
in a final contest for a favored position . . . (with) the usual failure
lead(ing) to resignation, guilt and anxiety" (p. 256). This stage is,
for Erikson, the point at which:

infantile sexuality and incest taboo, castration complex and

superego all unite . . . to bring about that specifically

human crisis during which the child must turn from an

exclusive, pregenital attachment to his parents to the slow
process of becoming a parent, a carrier of tradition. (p. 256)

29

As mentioned earlier, Piers and Singer (1953) echoed the notion
voiced by Freud and Fenichel that guilt is generated by tension between
the ego and the superego. For these writers guilt is the affect of the
superego while shame is a more primitive phenomenon which arises prior
to the development of the superego. Whereas Freud and Fenichel did not
.see the fear of loss of love and the fear of punishment as distinct from
each other, for Piers and Singer they were not only distinct, but they
provided an important way of distinguishing conceptually between guilt
and shame. In guilt the unconscious threat is punishment by a superior;
in shame it is abandonment and the consequent death by emotional
starvation.

Lewis (1971) also described guilt as the internalization of the
castration threat in an effort to protect oneself against the external
threat. Like Piers and Singer, she drew a distinction between the fear
of loss of love and the fear of punishment, with the former associated
with shame, and the latter, with guilt. Her theory departed from that
of Piers and Singer in its view of superego development. Whereas Piers
and Singer saw the superego as the source of self-esteem and internal
punishment only, both of which arise through the internalization of the
castration threat, for Lewis the superego develops through two mecha-
nisms of identification. The first, guilt, involves the incorporation
of the castration threat in an effort to escape from the passive role of
victim in the external world. The second, shame, involves the incorpor-
ation of the standards of an admired image in an attempt to avoid the
loss of parental love.

According to Tomkins (personal communication, November 20, 1982)

guilt does not describe a unitary affective experience. Rather, it

30

refers to a group of affective inner states. all of which concern, or
are activated by, moral infractions. Guilt comprises any of the
following experiences: (a) shame about moral matters: (b) self-disgust,
contempt against the self by the self, or what Tomkins called
self-dissmell, all for moral infractions: (c) anger at the self for
moral infractions; (d) distress at the self for moral infractions;

(e) fear at the self for moral infractions: (f) any combination of these
affects and judgements against the self by the self; or (g) any of these
experienced as coming from an internalized "other" toward the self. The
critical feature of guilt, he claimed, is the ethical judgment of
immorality. The affects can be quite varied, producing a broad spectrum
of inner states, all of which are usually referred to as "guilt.” To
Tomkins' list of guilt states Kaufman (1980) added "self-blame'I for
moral infraction.

It should be noted that it is primarily the phenomenon of guilt
that sets apart the theories of Kaufman and Tomkins, on the one hand,
and that of Lewis, on the other. While all three theorists have
described shame as a single affective state, they differ on this issue
in regard to guilt. First, Lewis described guilt as a unitary affective
state, different from, but parallel to, the experience of shame.

Kaufman and Tomkins, on the other hand, conceive of guilt as a group of
affective states with moral wrongdoing serving as the trigger common to
them all. Secondly, Lewis has claimed that proneness to guilt is
associated with "field-independence" while shame-proneness is associated
with "field-dependence"; thus shame and guilt are seen as different
states. Kaufman and Tomkins, on the other hand, have described the two

experiences as

3l

overlapping. That is, it is thought that shame is often the affective

component of the experience of guilt.

Weed

To date, though a moderate amount of research has been published
which studies the experience of guilt (e.g., Galbraith 8 Mosher, I970;
Gambaro 5 Rabin, 1969; Janda 5 Magri, I975: Mosher, I966: Otterbacher 8
Munz, I973: Persons, 1970), very little empirical work has dealt with
shame (Pilkonis, l977a, l977b, l977c; Zimbardo. 1977). or studied the
two phenomenon in tandom (Perlman, I958; Witkin, Lewis 8 Well, I968).
Much of what has been done are unpublished Doctoral dissertations and
Master's theses (Binder, I971: Crouppen, I977; Glassman. 1975; D. Jones,
1981: J. Jones, 1980: Korpi, 1977: Negri. l97h, 1978; Smith, I972:
Weigel, l975).

Mesher and his colleagues found that: guilt over hostility
prevented the eXpression of verbal hostility in a verbal conditioning
paradigm (Mosher, 1965): individuals predisposed to feeling guilty
showed significant increases in guilt over hostility after being
aggressive in a laboratory experiment (Okel 8 Mosher, I966); inmate
scores on a morality-guilt scale were correlated with a number of the
subscales of the MMPI in a pattern that supported the notion that guilt
acts as an inhibitor (Mosher 8 Oliver, 1968): higher sex-guilt was
associated with attenuated sexual arousal and reduced enjoyment and
increased frequencies and/or intensities of guilt, shame, distress,
fear, surprise, disgust, anger, and contempt in response to erotic
guided imagery (Mosher 8 White, 1980): and high hostility-guilt men

increased in affective guilt following participation in an experimental

32

condition in which they unfairly distressed a stranger. The affective
guilt of these same high hostility-guilt men declined after they
submitted to a procedure involving self-punishment through painful
electric shocks (Mosher, O'Grady 5 Katz, I980).

Gambaro and Rabin (1969) found that low-guilt experiment partici-
pants exhibited significant decreases in diastolic blood pressure after
committing an aggressive act toward someone who had just frustrated
them, whereas high-guilt participants exhibited a nonsignificant
increase under the same conditions.

Fehr and Stamps (I979) found scores on the Mosher sex-guilt,
hostility-guilt, and morality-conscience-guilt scales to be positively
correlated with measures of religiosity.

Zimbardo (1977) and Pilkonis (l977a, l977b, l977c) have
investigated a trait that is closely related to shame--that of shyness.
Shyness might be thought of as an interpersonal style that evolves so
that the individual can avoid the exposure of self associated with
shame. Pilkonis used a revised version of the Stanford Shyness Scale
developed by Zimbardo and found that participants who described
themselves as "shy persons" had lower scores on a measure of
extroversion, and higher scores on measures of neuroticism,
self-monitoring, self-consciousness and social anxiety (Pilkonis,
l977b). He also found that self-described shy persons were less likely
than non-shy persons to initiate and structure conversations, and that
there were sex differences in the manner in which shyness was expressed.
During interactions with a confederate, shy males became more withdrawn
and avoidant, while shy females made more efforts to be pleasing,

showing increased head nodding and smiling.

33

Perlman devised an objective measure of proneness to shame- or
'guilt-anxiety (Attitude Anxiety Survey) in order to look at differences
between guilt-prone and shame-prone individuals. His findings suggested
that the central problem for guilt-prone persons had to do with the~
struggle for control over aggressive impulses whereas the central
problem for shame-prone persons appeared to relate to questions about
adequacy.

As mentioned earlier, Witkin, Lewis and Weil (I968) coded
transcripts of therapy tapes according to the prevalence of shame- or
guilt-related themes. Patients who had been found to be field-
independent were more prone to feelings of guilt, while those who were
field-dependent were more prone to feelings of shame.

Binder, in a dissertation at the University of Michigan (Binder,
1971) also looked at differences between shame-prone and guilt-prone
individuals. None of his hypothesized differences in character style
were supported. He did find. however, that woman tended to be more
shame-prone, while men tended to be more guilt-prone.

A dissertation by Robert Smith (1972) used a modified version of
the Beall Shame-Guilt Test (Beall, 1972) and found that: (a) shame-prone
individuals tend to be more intropuntive than guilt-prone individuals,
while guilt-prone individuals tend to be more extrapunitive than
shame-prone individuals: (b) shame-prone individuals tend to be more
depressed than guilt-prone individuals; and (c) shame-prone, depressed
individuals tend to have a passive-aggressive-hysterical character
structure, and guilt-prone, depressed individuals tend to have an

obsessive-compulsive-paranoid character structure.

3h

The results of a dissertation by Glassman (1975) led him to
conclude that shame feeling states can be more adequately understood in
terms of "the development and viscissitudes of the self and its
strivings for autonomy than in terms of object-instinctual or narcis-
sistic conflicts." He found that the participants experienced K'
themselves as devalued when ashamed. Prior to the experience of shame
they felt themselves as somehow different from others: this was accom-
panied by a sense of separateness and loneliness. at which point they
felt they were different, but not devalued, in relation to others. By
devaluing themselves, the participants were able to establish a type of
bond with others while they were ashamed which relieved their sense of
isolation at the expense of denying or obscuring ways in which they were
different.

In a dissertation at Michigan State University, Weigel (1975) used
the Cattell Susceptibility to Embarrassment Test to measure proneness to
shame and found that: (a) women are more prone to shame than men, and
.(b) the threat of loss of the father's relationship via love withdrawal
appears to have a negative impact on the development of guilt feelings
'in middle class boys.

In a dissertation by Crouppen (1977). visual field orientation was
found to be a valid indicator of whether participants were more prone to
experiencing shame or guilt, with field-dependence predicting
shame-proneness and field-independence predicting guilt-proneness.

A dissertation by Korpi (1977) using a different modification of
the Beall Shame-Guilt Test than that used by Smith (1972) failed to
support hypothesized relationships between proneness to guilt or shame

and political ideology.

35

In his Master's thesis at Michigan State University, Negri (l97h)
found that individuals could be classified into a group of those who
were more likely to create TAT stories with references to shame themes,
and a group of those who were more likely to produce stories with
references to guilt themes. Negri also studied shame and guilt in his
dissertation (1978) and found that contrary to his predictions:
proneness to both shame and guilt, as measured by the Attitude Anxiety
Survey developed by Perlman, were positively associated with a sensi-
tization (as opposed to repression) style of defense, as well as with a
field-independent perceptual style. Another unexpected finding was that
femininity was positively associated with guilt. and masculinity, with
shame.

The results of a dissertation by Jeanne Jones (1980) suggested that
there is a systematic relationship between mother and daughter shame-
basedness. Mothers and daughters who scored high on the shame scale of
the Smith Shame-Guilt Test were found to make fewer positive statements
and more negative statements about themselves than mother/daughter pairs
who scored low on this same test of shame-proneness.

A related dissertation conducted by Dick Jones (1981) investigating
the relationship between nonverbal interaction patterns between mothers
and daughters and proneness to shame (as measured by the Smith
Shame-Guilt Test), found that high-shame mother/daughter pairs made
fewer gesticulations than low-shame pairs. and that they oriented their

heads more directly in line with each other.

36

wettest;

Shame and guilt appear to be distinct phenomena. each of importance
both theoretically as well as clinically and thus the neglect of their
empirical study is in need of change. This research was an attempt to
study these two frequently confused phenomena by looking at a number of
dimensions of these experiences. Of particular interest was the
activator of each, the unconscious fear or threat associated with each,
and the defenses used to both escape from and avoid these experiences.

The study of these phenomena is made difficult, however, by two
related problems. As mentioned earlier, Piers and Singer (I953) have
discussed what they termed the ”shame-guilt cycle", in which a
particular situation can alternately activate both shame and guilt. The
implications of this for the study of shame or guilt in isolation is
obvious. An additional complication results from a similar problem
discussed by Lynd (I958). Guilt is triggered by an immoral act while
shame is triggered by the exposure of an inadequate self. An immoral
act, however, will often trigger involvement of the self. Thus, hurting
a friend may trigger guilt about one's deed, but it may also trigger the
self-statement "How could I be such a person?" and thus induce shame as
well. Despite these complications, as well as the capacity of all of us
to experience. at various times, both shame and guilt, previous research
has shown that some individuals are more prone to experiencing one or
the other of these two states (Lewis, 1979; Negri, l97h, 1978). This
suggests that shame and guilt might be investigated by studying persons
differing in their propensity to experience one or the other of these

two states.

37

The few measures of shame and guilt known to the author (Korpi,
I977; Perlman, 1959: Smith, 1972) all measure proneness to guilt or
shame by listing a number of situations that have been pre-rated as
“shame-inducing" or "guilt-inducing” and requesting the respondents to
indicate how disturbing each of these situations would be. High scores
on the latter items indicate proneness to guilt, high scores on the
former, proneness to shame.

The Random House Dictionary defines shame as "the painful feeling
arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper or
ridiculous" and guilt as "a feeling . . . of remorse for . . . having
committed some offense, crime, violation or wrong especially against
moral or penal law.” These definitions are consistent with the notions
of shame and guilt discussed above. In light of these definitions. as
well as the theories described above, the following hypotheses were

generated:

I) a) Shame is triggered by the awareness of one's inadequacy, de-
fectiveness or social inapppropriateness. Thus shame-
proneness is positively associated with preoccupation with
these themes.

b) Guilt is triggered by moral transgression. Thus guilt-
proneness is positively associated with preoccupation with

this theme.

As mentioned earlier, Lewis and her colleagues (Lewis, 1971;
Witkin, I950; Witkin, Lewis 8 Weil, 1968) found that psychological

differentiation was related to proneness to shame or to guilt.

38

Shame-proneness was found among individuals with a self-organization
pattern of field-dependence and porous self-boundaries, suggesting a
self that is inadequately differentiated from the environment. The
self-organization associated with proneness to guilt. on the other hand,
was found to involve field-independence and solid self-boundaries. In
the present study it was inferred from this that individuals prone to
shame would be more dependent on othere.than guilt-prone individuals.

It was thus hypothesized that:

2) a) The unconscious danger associated with shame is rejection or
abandonment. Thus:
1. Shame-proneness is positively associated with
preoccupation with rejection or abandonment.
2. Shame-proneness is positively associated with level of

interpersonal dependency.

Guilt has been described as the experience of the need for
punishment by Freud (1930/1962) and Alexander (19u8/1963). and more
recently, as the expectation of punishment by Persons (1970). Thus it

was hypothesized that:

2) b) The unconscious danger associated with guilt is punishment.
Thus guilt-proneness is positively associated with

preoccupation with punishment.

Shame has been described as the feeling of wanting to hide or "bury
one's face" (Kaufman, 1980: Tomkins, 1963). A related possibility is

that the wish to hide is an attempt to protect oneself from further

39

I‘lv/ "
exposure, to escape from or reduce the experience of shame. Shame stems

from the belief that "there is something wrong with me and it is being
exposed." Thus there is no immediate way to rectify this: one can only
attempt to hide one's inadequate self. Guilt, on the other hand, can be
atoned for because it is not associated with one's self, but rather,
with an immoral act or behavior that one has performed (Lynd, 1958).

One cannot immediately change or make up for an inadequate self, but an
immoral act can be atoned for. Guilt has been described as anxiety
about punishment (Freud, 1930/1962; Alexander, 19h8/l963)--an anxiety
which ceases once the transgressor has received his/her punishment, or
acts in such a way as to make ammends for the wrongdoing. This led to

the following hypotheses:

3) a) Shame can be reduced by reducing exposure of the self. Thus
shame-proneness is positively associated with the wish to
reduce self-exposure.

b) Guilt can be reduced through an act of atonement. Thus
guilt-proneness is positively associated with preoccupation
with atonement. This can be of two sorts:

1) Receiving punishment for moral wrongdoing.
2) Attempting to compensate or make ammends for moral

wrongdoing.

The focus of shame is one's self, a self that is experienced as
"rejectable." Attempts to aggjg the experience of shame (in contrast to
the defensive maneuvers described in number three above, which are of an
escape nature) lead to a defensive style which protects the individual

from the pain of rejection. This can be accomplished in two ways.

\

#0

First of all there is the denial of the need for others. By striving to
be strong and powerful, rather than weak and in a position of
dependency, the individual attempts to protect himself or herself from
the pain associated with interpersonal rejection. Secondly, one may
strive to be positively evaluated, likeable, or attractive, in an
attempt to protect oneself from actual rejection. By being attractive
to others one protects against rejection and thus vulnerability to
shame.

The focus of guilt. on the other hand, is one's immoral deed(s).
Thus it was felt that a compensatory defensive style would be
characterized by concern with the morality of deeds and behaviors. The
wish or impulse to behave in a way that violates one's superego
proscriptions triggers guilt, the anxiety signalling punishment, and so,
is a source of pain. Such impulses are the target of one's contempt and
are experienced phenomenologically as ”evil.” The avoidance of guilt is
thus attempted through the externalization of these unacceptable,
dangerous impulses, as well as through the “moral cleansing of the self"
via the doing of morally good deeds. Individuals prone to experiencing
guilt would thus be expected to be more likely to see "immoral" behavior
and/or intentions in others, and would be expected to strive for
"purity" of their own thoughts and behaviors--both of which are
performed in an attempt to rid oneself of "evil" and thus the threat of

guilt. It was hypothesized that:

I
I
.‘

kl

h) a) Shame can be avoided by protecting against the pain of
rejection. Thus shame-proneness is positively associated
with the preoccupation with the avoidance of the pain of
rejection. This entails:

I) Striving for perfection, power. and independence in an
attempt to neutralize the impact of rejection.

2) Striving to be liked, positively evaluated, or attractive
to others in an attempt to avoid actual rejection.

b) Guilt can be avoided by the avoidance of "immoral" thoughts
or deeds. Thus guilt-proneness is positively associated with
the preoccupation with the "moral purification of one's
self.” This entails:

1) Projection of ”evil” impulses onto the external world.
2) Acting in "morally pure" ways--for example. doing "good

deeds” for others.

These hypotheses are summarized in Table I on the following page.

It was also hypothesized that proneness to shame and to guilt would
be related to gender. Previous findings have, for the most part.
suggested that males are more guilt-prone, and females, more shame-prone
(Binder, I971: Weigel, 1975: Witkin, Lewis 8 Weil, 1968). In addition,
proneness to shame and to guilt have been found to correlate with
psychological differentiation, with field-dependence correlated with
shame-proneness and field-independence correlated with guilt-proneness
(Crouppen, I977: Witkin, Lewis 8 Weil, I968). Field-dependence is
conceptually linked to nurturance and communality--personality traits

found to be more prevalent among women--while field-independence is

Table 1

Summary of Hypotheses

 

Shame

Guilt

 

Activator/Trigger
(precipitating
event)

Associated
Unconscious
Threat or Danger

Escape
Defenses

Avoidance
Defenses

Exposure of inadequacy,.

failure or social
inappropriateness

Rejection or abandonment
(stemming from high
level of dependency)

Wish to reduce exposure'

Striving to avoid the

pain of rejection:

(1) Denying weakness,
need, and
dependency to
neutralize the
power of rejection

(2) Becoming "lovable"
to avoid actual
rejection

Violation of one's
moral code

Punishment

Wish to atone:

(1) Receiving
punishment for
moral wrong-
doing

(2) Attempting to
make amends
for moral
wrongdoing

Striving for "moral
purity":

(1) Projection of
"evil" onto
external world

(2) Acting in
"morally pure"
ways

 

42

1&3

conceptually linked to instrumentality and agency-~traits found to be
more prevalent among men (Bem, l97h; Berzins, Welby 5 Wetter, 1978).
Thus, despite an unexplained finding by Negri (1978) that femininity was
correlated with guilt. and masculinity, with shame, it was predicted
that in the present study, males would be more guilt-prone, and females,

more shame-prone.

Methodology

El"!

The participants were 107 introductory psychology students at
Michigan State University who were given extra credit for their
participation in this two-hour study. Five participants omitted items
or pages of items so their data was excluded from the analyses. The
final total sample was composed of the remaining 102 participants (51

females, 51 males).

Energise:

The measures were administered in a group setting with groups com-
posed of approximately five to ten students. They were each provided
with a pen, blank lined paper for their TAT stories, and copies of the
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory, the Korpi Shame-Guilt Test, the
Cattell Susceptibility to Embarrassment Test. the Mosher Forced Choice
Guilt Scales and the Revised Stanford Shyness Survey (all described
below). The participants were administered the TAT first, after which
they were given a short break. Following the break the objective
questionnaires were administered with their order counterbalanced across
all participants, with the exception of the Revised Stanford Shyness

Survey, which was administered last for every participant.

Ah

‘15

The TAT cards were presented via slide projector onto a screen at

the front of the room. The participants were read the following

instructions prior to beginning:

read

For the first hour or so you will be looking at some pictures

which will be shown on the screen at the front of the room and
making up stories for each. Following this you will be given

a short break. The second hour you will be asked-to complete

several questionnaires.

In a moment a number of pictures will be shown one at a time
on the screen. Your task is to write down as dramatic a story
as you can for each. Please write what has led up to the
event in the picture, describe what is happening in the
moment-~including what the characters are thinking and
feeling--and give some kind of outcome for the story. Write
the thoughts as they come to you. You will be given up to
about five minutes per story. but the slides will be changed
once the entire group has completed the task so please signal
when you have finished your story by quietly placing your pen
on the desk in front of you. Are there any questions? Okay,
we'll begin. Remember to let your imaginations go and please
write neatly.

After the subjects returned from their post-TAT break they were
the following instructions:

You will notice that you each have in front of you a set of
questionnaires. Please read the instructions for each
questionnaire and record your answers in the spaces allotted
on each questionnaire. Be sure to do them in the order that
they have been arranged. When you have completed one
questionaire you may read the instructions to the following
questionnaire and begin it. Once you have finished a
questionnaire please consult me if you decide you would like
to change any of your answers to a previous questionnaire.
You will note that none of the questionnaires begin with the
number one-~don't worry about that. Be sure to respond to
every single item. Feel free to ask any questions now or
whenever they come up. Are there any questions? Okay, begin.

Wt:

II .2! -E'ZIZ I

The Korpi Shame-Guilt Test is a revision of the Beall Shame-Guilt

Test (Beall, I972), a Likert format test that presents 103 situations

A6

and requires the respondent to evaluate, on a one through five scale,
how upsetting each would be for him or her. Beall developed her item
pool and then had several clinicians rate each item as either
shame-inducing or guilt-inducing to establish content validity. She
removed items that were not classified as either. Shame items were
defined as situations that implied exposure of self, failure to live up
to an ideal, self-deficiencies and being embarrassed. The guilt items
were situations involving violations of moral code and injury to self
and others (Jones, 1981). Beall's test was the basis for two subsequent
revisions: the 36-item Korpi Shame-Guilt Test (Korpi, I977). and the
hO-item Smith Shame-Guilt Test (Smith, 1972). None of these three tests
have been published and the present author found only the Beall Test
cited in published research (Wood, Pilusuk 8 Uren, 1973).

In the present study the length of the testing session was of
concern so a decision was made not to use the Beall Test. The rationale
for the use of the Korpi S-G Test rather than the Smith Test was based
on the preliminary findings of a study (Bupp. personal communication.
June 20, 1983) which found that the correlation between shame and guilt
scores on the Korpi Test was lower than that for the Smith Test (data
unavailable as of yet).

Korpi (1977) performed a multiple regression analysis on the Beall
Test to reduce its length. His final form was a 36-item test with a

Cronbach-alpha reliability coefficient of .76 (cited in Jones, I981).

E I'l'l'l El Z

The Susceptibility to Embarrassment Test (Embarrassing Circum-
stances) is a 56-item test that lists potentially embarrassing

situations and asks the respondents to indicate for each whether he or

‘17

she would consider it ”not embarrassing," ”somewhat embarrassing," or
"very embarrassing" if it were to happen to him/her.

The test is one of ten scales which comprise the Cattell Objec-
tive-Analytic Anxiety Battery (Note: this is to be distinguished from
the Cattell Objective-Analytic Personality Factor Battery). According
to Cattell and Scheier (1960), more than three decades of interlocking
research identified and replicated several dozen personality factors
measurable by objective test procedures. Each of these is identified by
a Universal Index number (U.I.), one of which is U.I. 25, or Anxiety.
One of the subscales of the Anxiety subtest is the Susceptibility to
Embarrassment Test. The authors reported that in the two studies
conducted on the subtest, Susceptibility to Embarrassment, the average
loading was .39 and its average split-half corrected reliability
was .90.

Although not explicitly a measure of proneness to shame, the
Susceptibility to Embarrassment test appears to have good face validity
as a measure of this trait and has been used as such in previous I

research (Weigel, 1975).

M l E I'El . E 'II S I
The Mosher F-C Guilt Scales are two forms (male and female) of a
guilt inventory developed by Donald Mosher (I966, 1968) to measure "the
personality disposition of guilt." They each contain a number of
.sentence stems followed by two completion choices. There are 78 items
in the female form (77 of which were used in the present study--the item
"Women who curse: (a) usually want to bring attention to themselves, or
(b) in private are still ladies”, was eliminated because it was thought

to be outdated) and 79 items in the male form, both of which are derived

h8

from the Mosher Incomplete Sentences Test (MIST), a guilt inventory
composed of three subscales: sex-guilt, hostility-guilt, and
morality-conscience-guilt (Mosher, I961).

The male form (1966) was developed by selecting 50h completed
sentences from the MIST and asking 100 male students to indicate, for
7 each item, whether or not that was true for them. This yielded three
'guilt scores for each participant. An item analysis based on a
comparison of the upper and lower 27 percent of the participants was
conducted for each of the three subscales. Of the 50k items, a total of
.328 was found to discriminate between these two groups for the three
subscales. A separate group of 129 male students was administered the
50h completed MIST items with instructions to indicate whether the items
‘would be regarded as reflecting a desirable or undesirable viewpoint by
a majority of college men. A social desirablity rating was computed for
each item by finding the percentage of the males who regarded the item
as reflecting a socially desirable opinion. The forced-choice guilt
inventory was constructed by taking guilty and nonguilty completions to
the same stem which had been found to discriminate on the item analysis
and which were matched within fifteen percent on their social desir-
ability ratings. This yielded a total of 79 items: 28 sex-guilt items,
29 hostility-guilt items and 22 morality-conscience-guilt items.

The female form (Mosher, 1968) was developed by selecting 809
completed sentences from the MIST and administering them to 100 female
students using a true/false format. Guilt subscale scores were computed
jand internal consistency item analyses were conducted for each of these
three subscales via a comparison of the upper and lower 27 percent of

the scores. Items were retained if they both: (a) differentiated the

“9

extreme groups, and (b) did not pull greater than 75 percent of the
responses of the "extreme” participants. The latter restriction was
employed as a way of eliminating the social desirability procedure used
in the previous study since independent social desirability ratings in
the earlier analysis of male guilt completions eliminated items of this
sort. The forced-choice inventory was constructed by selecting 78
guilty and nonguilty responses to the same stem from these items (39
sex-guilt items. 22 hostility-guilt items, and I7 morality-conscience-
guilt items). It should be noted that Hosher used a weighted scoring
system for this inventory but later found that guilt scores computed
with weightings correlated .99 with the scores computed without the
weightings (Mosher, personal communication, October 6, I983).

The Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Scales have been used fairly widely
as a research instrument. The utility of the subscales has been demon-
strated in a number of studies which have found the subscales to be
correlated with such traits as religiosity (Fehr 8 Stamps, 1979),
several of the 15 manifest needs of the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule (Abramson, Mosher, Abramson G Woychowski, 1977), and affective
and behavioral responses following commission of a hostile act (Mosher,

O'Grady 8 Katz, 1980).

Wear

The Stanford Shyness Survey is a hh-item questionnaire developed by
Philip Zimbardo that asks the respondents a number of objective and
open-ended questions about the nature and degree of their shyness. A
shortened version of this survey was used by Paul Pilkonis who found a
relationship between shyness and social anxiety, neuroticism (as

measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory). public self-conscious-

SO

ness, introversion, and proficiency at monitoring one's own behavior
(Pilkonis, I977a, l977b) as well as a relationship between shyness and
speech anxiety and the ability to initiate and structure conversations
(l977c). Approximately Al percent of all of these participants
responded "yes" to the question, "Do you consider yourself to be a shy
person?" This single yes/no variable was found to correlate negatively
with extraversion, sociability, and capacity to monitor social behavior,
and positively with social anxiety and neuroticism (Pilkonis, l977b).
On the basis of these results, although six of the items from the
original Stanford Shyness Survey were included in the present study,
this single yes/no item was used as one of the measures of proneness to

shame, a phenomenon closely related to that of shyness.

Wanton:

The Interpersonal Dependency Inventory is a h8-item Likert-type
self-report instrument that assesses interpersonal dependency in adults
(Hirschfeld, Klerman, Gough, Barrett, Korchin 5 Chodoff, 1977).
Participants are requested to indicate, on a four point scale ranging
from "not characteristic of me” to "very characteristic of me," the
degree to which each item describes them. On the basis of a factor
analysis performed by Hirschfeld et al., three subscales emerged, each
of which measures a different component of interpersonal dependency.
These components were described in the following way: (a) Emotional
Reliance on Another Person (IEMREL)--assesses the degree and intensity
of a relationship to a single other person. It is a scale which
measures "a wish for contact with and emotional support from specific
other persons, . . . (the) dread of loss of that person. (and a) general

wish for approval and attention from others" (Hirschfeld et al., 1977):

5i

(b) Lack of Social Self-Confidence (ILSOCO)--addresses the relationship
to people in general. It is a scale which measures "a wish for help in
decision-making, in social situations, and in taking initiative”
(Hirschfeld et al., I977); (c) Assertion of Autonomy (IAUT)--addresses
the degree to which an individual is indifferent to or independent of
the evaluations of others. It is a scale that measures "preferences for
being alone and for independent behavior", and expresses the conviction
that one's "self-esteem does not depend on the approval of others"

(Hirschfeld et al., 1977).

[I I. I I. Z I CZITI

The TAT, conceived by Henry Murray in 1935, has not only been
widely used in clinical practice and research, but it has served as a
model for the development of many other instruments (Anastasi, 1971).

It has been employed as a method to help make inferences about themes in
a person's life--the salient “needs" and "presses" in the underlying
dynamics of his or her personality (Rapapport, Gill 5 Schafer, I9h6).

In the present study ten TAT cards (Cards 1, 2, 38M, 3GF, 68M, 78M,
88M, I3MF, 1h, l8GF) were used to measure the presence of a number of
different issues which preoccupy the psyches of the participants. The
cards were selected from among the total set in the following way: A
study by Negri (I97h) employed six TAT cards in studying proneness to
shame or guilt among college students. His criteria for the presence of
a shame or guilt theme in a story was fairly broad but essentially
followed traditional thinking about these phenomena. For each card he
listed the number of stories, from among his total sample, that were
scored as containing a shame or a guilt theme. The cards chosen for the

present study were those cards for which more than 25 percent of the

52

stories written were rated as containing a shame or guilt theme. There
were four such cards (1, 38M, 3GF, 78M). The remaining six cards used
in the present study were selected simply on the basis of what appeared,
in the clinical judgement of the experimenter, to be the apparent
capacity of these cards to pull for themes related to shame and guilt.
The issues of interest to be examined via the TAT stories are
described below: the criteria used to determine tneir presence can be

found in the rater training manuals in Appendix D:

l) a) Inadequacy--Any reference to inadequacy, failure, deficiency,
social inappropriateness, defectiveness, or negative
evaluation.

b) Moral Transgression--Any reference to the violation of a
moral code or a transgression against another person by the

hero.

2) a) Reiection--Any reference to rejection or abandonment of the
hero.
b) Punishment-~Any reference to the hero being hurt or punished
by someone or something with some power in relation to him or

her.

3) a) Exposure Reduction--Any reference to the hero hiding himself
or herself (face. body, property, work, etc.) or avoiding

others.

53

b) Total Atonement
l. Punishment-Atonement--Any reference to some form of
punishment for moral wrongdoing.
2. ggmpehsation-Atonement--Any reference to compensation by a

wrongdoer, that is. making ammends for a wrongdoing.

h) a) legal Nonrejection
1. Independence--Any reference to power, ambition,
achievement, perfection, independence, or competence of
the hero.
2. Positive Evaluation--Any reference to positive evaluation
or attractiveness of the hero.
b) Total Moral Purity
1. Evil-Projection--Any reference to bad, evil, immoral or
hurtful actions or intentions by characters other than the
hero.
2. Moral Goodness--Any reference to morally good deeds by the

hero.

Mm.

Sixteen undergraduate psychology students received course credit in
exchange for serving as raters. They were trained in the interpretation
of the TAT stories in groups of four, with each group learning a differ-
ent set of variables (The training manuals can be found in Appendix D).
Training consisted of three or four two-hour sessions for each group,
with the number of sessions depending on an assessment of each group's

coding skills. When the experimenter determined that all four members

5A

of a particular group were coding the sample stories in a manner
consistent with that intended, the training for that group was
terminated. Following the completion of the training sessions the
raters were free to score the stories on their own but met as a group
for weekly "refresher" training sessions.

There were 1020 stories in all--ten stories by each of the 102
experiment participants--with each rater coding 510 of these. The
stories were assigned to the raters in such a manner that each set of
variables in every story was coded by two raters, with different
combinations of raters scoring those variables for each story. For
every story a score was computed for each theme by averaging, for the
two raters, the number of times that theme was scored as present.
Average scores for each story thus ranged from zero to one. The'scores'
within each category were summed across the ten stories, yielding
fourteen TAT scores per participant. Thus the scores for each-
participant could range from zero (if no story received a "present"
rating) to ten (if all ten stories received a ”present" rating by both

raters). The four groups rated the following variables:

Group I (Activator/Trigger):
a) Concern with inadequacy

b) Concern with moral transgression

Group 2 (Unconscious Threat/Danger):
a) Concern with rejection

b) Concern with punishment

55

Group 3 (Escape Defenses):
a) Concern with exposure
b) Concern with atonement
l) Punishment for wrongdoing

2) Making ammends for wrongdoing

Qgppp h (Avoidance Defenses):
a) Striving to avoid pain of rejection
l)Neutralizing impact of rejection via denial of
dependency, weakness
2)Preventing rejection by being attractive, liked by
others
b) Striving for ”moral purity” of the self
l)Projection of evil

2)Moral Goodness

At this point it would be of interest to comment briefly on the
experimenter's impressions of the rater training system devised for the
present study. In general, the raters employed in the present study
appeared to be conscientious about their task, and all sixteen of them
completed coding their 510 stories within the four weeks required of
them. It is now felt that 510 stories may have been an excessive number
for each rater to code. It is possible that this resulted in a decrease
in overall inter-rater reliability due to what one of the raters
described as an increasing amount of boredom with the task. It was,

however, not possible to verify this empirically.

56

While there are no statistics available to confirm this, it
appeared that the weekly refresher training sessions were important in
minimizing the extent to which the raters diverged in their scoring
patterns following each of group session. On the basis of this
impression, it is suggested that future training of raters include such

refresher sessions.

2 I. I.
The predictions generated by the primary hypotheses are presented

below. They are presented along with the hypotheses from which they

were generated.

I) a) Shame is triggered by the awareness of one's inadequacy, de-
fectiveness or social inapppropriateness. Thus shame-
proneness is positively associated with preoccupation with
these themes. Prediction: Proneness to shame will be
positively associated with Inadequacy scores.

b) Guilt is triggered by moral transgression. Thus guilt-
proneness is positively associated with preoccupation with
this theme. Prediction: Proneness to guilt will be

positively associated with Moral Transgression scores.

2) a) The unconscious danger associated with shame is rejection or

abandonment. Thus:

b)

3) a)

b)

57

l. Shame-proneness is positively associated with
P'mww“ "It“ [9195:3929 ahanéowet- Pred‘cmm
Proneness to shame will be positively associated with
Rejection scores.

2. Shame-proneness is positively associated with level of
interpersonal dependency. Prediction: Proneness to shame
will be positively associated with IEMREL and ILSOCO. the
objective measures of dependency.

The unconscious danger associated with guilt is punishment.

Thus guilt-proneness is positively associated with

preoccupation with punishment. Prediction: Proneness to

guilt will be positively associated with Punishment scores.

Shame can be reduced by reducing exposure of the self. Thus
shame-proneness is positively associated with the wish to
reduce self-exposure. Prediction: Proneness to shame wilI be
positively associated with Exposure Reduction scores.

Guilt can be reduced through an act of atonement. Thus

guilt-proneness is positively associated with preoccupation

with atonement. This can be of two sorts:

1) Receiving punishment for moral wrongdoing. Prediction:
Proneness to guilt will be positively associated with
Punishment-Atonement scores.

2) Attempting to compensate or make ammends for moral
wrongdoing. Prediction: Proneness to guilt will be

positively associated with Compensation-Atonement scores.

58

A) a) Shame can be avoided by protecting against the pain of

b)

rejection. Thus shame-proneness is positively associated

with the preoccupation with the avoidance of the pain of

rejection. This entails:

l) Striving for perfection, power, and independence in an
attempt to neutralize the impact of rejection.

Prediction: Proneness to shame will be positively
associated with Independence scores.

2) Striving to be liked, positively evaluated, or attractive
to others in an attempt to avoid actual rejection.
Prediction: Proneness to shame will be positively
associated with Positive Evaluation scores.

Guilt can be avoided by the avoidance of "immoral" thoughts

or deeds. Thus guilt-proneness is positively associated with

the preoccupation with the ”moral purification of one's
self." This entails:

1) Projection of "evil” impulses onto the external world.
Prediction: Proneness to guilt will be positively
associated with Evil-Projection scores.

2) Acting in "morally pure" ways--for example, doing I'good
deeds" for others. Prediction: Proneness to guilt will be

positively associated with Moral Goodness scores.

Results

8 l' l'l' E III 8‘

As described in the Method section above, each of the 1020 TAT
stories was rated by two of the four possible raters for each of the
eleven simple variables. Reliability scores for these ratings were
computed in the following way. For each story, one of the raters was
arbitrarily designated as Rater A, and the other, Rater B. Each parti-
cipant, having written ten stories, received ten ratings from rater A
and ten ratings from Rater 8. Since each rating was of a present
(I point) or absent (0 points) nature, the sum of each rater's ten
'scores was an integer between zero and ten.

The final TAT scores for each participant were computed by
averaging both raters' total scores for that participant. Reliability
scores were determined for each of the eleven TAT variables by first
correlating the two summed scores, and then using this correlation to
compute the Spearman-Brown Reliability Coefficient, a coefficient which
reflects the increased reliability resulting from the use of two raters.

The inter-rater correlation coefficients computed for these
variables were as follows: (la) Exposure of Inadequacy, L . .53:

(lb) Moral Transgression, L 8 .83; (2a) Rejection/Abandonment. 5 a .67;
(2b) Punishment, E - .52: (3a) Exposure Reduction, L - .A7;

(3bl) Punishment-Atonement, 5 - .65; (3b2) Compensation-Atonement,

59

60

L - .19; (Aal) Independence. 5 8 .55; (AaZ) Positive Evaluation,
5 - .5A; (Abl) Evil-Projection, 1 - .A0; and (Ab2) Moral Goodness,
5 . .A3. O

The corrected inter-rater reliability coefficients computed for
these variables were as follows: (la) Exposure of Inadequacy, 5 - .70;
(lb) Moral Transgression, 5 - .91; (23) Rejection/Abandonment. L - .80;
(2b) Punishment, 1 . .68: (33) Exposure Reduction. E - .6A;

(3bl) Punishment-Atonement, L - .79: (3b2) Compensation-Atonement,

L ..,32; (A31) Independence. L - .71; (Aa2) Positive Evaluation,
L I .70; (Abl) Evil-Projection. L = .57: and (Ab2) Moral Goodness,
E a .60.

2.:.2:

The results are presented and elaborated on in later sections of
this chapter. However, for the sake of increased clarity most of the
descriptive data is also presented in Tables 2 through 11 below and in
Tables 1 through 27 in Appendix A. The organization of the tables is
described briefly below.

Mean scores on all of the variables of interest for males, females,
and both males and females combined can be found in Tables 8 and 9
below. Those sex differences that were statistically significant are
marked as such. Previously obtained norms for comparable populations
were included when such data was available. The results were largely
quite close to these norms with the exception of the IEMREL scale of the
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory. The IEMREL scores obtained in the
present study appear to be somewhat higher than those obtained by

Hirschfeld et al. (1977). The results presented in these tables are

61

discussed below.

Mean scores for each of the eleven simple TAT variables for males,
females, and both males and females combined, for each of the ten TAT
slides, are presented in Tables 10 through 19 in Appendix A. The
numbers presented are the mean scores for an individual participant and
are thus quite small. The total number of times that a particular theme
was scored for all males, all females, or all participants can be
determined by multiplying these numbers by 102, 102 or 20A,
respectively.

Intercorrelations between the various simple and complex measures
of shame and guilt can be found in Table 2 below. Significant
correlation coefficients are marked as such, with the level of
significance indicated as well. These correlations are discussed below.

Correlations of the various simple and complex measures of shame
and guilt, with both the objective and projective (TAT) dependent
variables for males. females, and both males and females combined, are
presented in Tables 20 through 25 in Appendix A. The level of signi-
ficance is indicated for those correlations that were found to be
statistically significant. These correlations are discussed at length
below.

The distribution of participants into the various Shame x Guilt
groups is shown in Table 3 below, with the frequencies presented for
males, females, and both males and females combined. This is discussed
below.

Tables I through 8 in Appendix A and Tables A through 7 below
present the mean scores on all of the variables of interest for males.

females, and both males and females combined, broken down by Shame group

62

or by Guilt group. Differences between Shame or Guilt groups that are
statistically significant are marked as such. These results are also
discussed below.

Intercorrelations between Korpi Shame subscales, and correlations
between these subscales and the remaining measures of interest can be
found, respectively, in Tables 9, 26 and 27 in Appendix A. Significant
correlations are marked as such. These are discussed below.

The intercorrelations between the TAT measures for males and
females combined, as well as separated, are presented in Table 10 and 11
below. These correlations and the results of an elementary linkage

analysis of these variables are discussed below.

W

In general the simple shame scales were found to correlate more
highly with each other than with the simple guilt scales, with the
intra-shame scale correlations ranging from 5 = .27 to L = .58 (the
median correlation was g I .33). and the correlations between shame
scales and guilt scales ranging from a low of L = -.07 to 5 - .29 (the
median correlation was L = .18). Similarly, the guilt scales were found
to correlate more highly with each other than with the shame scales,
with the intra-guilt scale correlations ranging from 5 - .21 to 5 a .58
(the median correlation was 5 a .39). In addition, composite Shame
scores were found to be significantly correlated with Composite Guilt
scores, 5 - .32, p < .001. These correlations are presented in Table 2
on the following page.

Composite Shame and Guilt scores were determined as follows: A
total Guilt score was computed for each participant by standardizing

each of the four guilt measures (Mosher's Sex-Guilt [MSG], Hostility-

Table 2

Inter-Scale Correlations

 

 

 

Shame KS EMB SHY Guilt KG ZMSG ZMHG ZMMCG

Shame -
KS .82*** -
EMB .80*** .58*** _
SHY .69*** .33*** .27** -
Guilt .32*** .23** .30*** .20* -
KG .15 .13 .28** -.07 .59*** -
ZMSG .23** .12 .16 .26** .78*** .21* -
ZMHG .21* .13 .16 .19* .75*** .22** .50*** -
ZMMCG .34*** .29** .28** .22* .81*** .31*** .58*** .47*** -
Note. The Masher Guilt Scales (ZMSG, ZMHG, ZMMCG) were standardized
within sex.

* < .05

** < .01
***p_< .001

63

6A

Guilt [MHG], and Morality-Conscience-Guilt [MMCG] Scales, and the Korpi
Guilt Scale [KG]) and then summing these standard scores (ZMSG + ZMHG +
ZMMCG + ZKG). A total Shame score was computed for each participant in
a similar manner by standardizing and then summing the scores of the
three shame measures (Cattell's Susceptibility to Embarrassment Scale
[EMB], the Korpi Shame Scale [KS], and the revised Stanford Shyness
Survey [SHY]). It should be noted that the male and female versions of
the Mosher Guilt scales are not identical. Thus, unlike the other'
measures, which were standardized for all participants, the scores on
these scales were standardized within sex.

A frequency analysis was made of these scores. on the basis of
which the participants were then grouped into high, medium and low
shame-proneness and also into high, medium and low guilt-proneness
groups of approximately equal size. This was done for males, females,
and both males and females combined. It should be mentioned, however,
that the analyses performed within gender failed to yield any findings
of note. Consequently most of the analyses performed were done with
males and females combined.

For the analyses with males and females combined, participants with
shame scores greater than .A29, less than or equal to .A29 but greater
than -.A87, or less than or equal to -.A87, were assigned to the high,
medium, or low shame groups, respectively. Participants with guilt
scores greater than .298, less than or equal to .298 but greater than
-.3A5, and less than or equal to -.3A5, were grouped as high, medium, or
low in guilt.

‘Male participants with shame scores greater than .A29, less than or

equal to .A29 but greater than -.295. or less than or equal to -.295,

65

were classified as having, respectively, a high, medium, or low
proneness to experiencing shame. Similarly, males with guilt scores
greater than .298, less than or equal to .298 but greater than -.3A5,
and less than or equal to -.3A5, were classified as high, medium, or low
in proneness to guilt.

Female participants with shame scores greater than .A07, less than
or equal to .A07 but greater than -.55A, or less than or equal to -.55A,
were classified as having a high, medium, or low proneness to
experiencing shame. respectively. Similarly, females with guilt scores
greater than .253, less than or equal to .253 but greater than -.356.
and less than or equal to -.356, were classified as high, medium, or low
in proneness to guilt. The number of males, females, and males and
females combined in each of the nine cells in this shame level x guilt

level matrix can be found in Table 3 on the following page.

QoeLILILLL-Leet
An omnibus 2 x 3 x 3 F-test with gender, level of shame-proneness.
and level of guilt-proneness as the independent variables was performed
for each of the dependent variables. This section describes the results
of these fi-tests by presenting the significant main effects of sex,

shame group and guilt group, followed by the significant interactive

effects.

Micaela:
A significant main effect (p < .05) of gender was found for the

following dependent variables: Assertion of Autonomy (IAUT)

(fiEMaIeJ . 29.90, fi[Female] - 25.72), [(1,8A) - 9.73, p - .002; Moral

Number of Males, Females, and Males and Females
Combined in Each of Nine Shame x Guilt Groups

Table 3

 

LEVEL OF GUILT-PRONENESS

 

 

Low Medium High Total

M 4 9 5 18

High F 2 5 10 17

M + F 6 I4 15 35

M 7 10 20

Medium F 6 5 13

LEVEL M + F 13 15 33
9f.

M 6 4 3 13

M; Low F 9 10 2 21

PRONENESS M + F 15 I4 34

M 17 I6 18 51

Total F 17 17 I7 51

M + F 34 33 35 102

 

 

66

67

Goodness (TATAb2) (M[Male] - 1.36, MEFemale] - 2.26), £(l,8A) - 16.16,
p . .001), and Total Moral Purity (TATABI + TATABZ)(M[MaIe] - 3.26,

MEFemale] - A.51), [(1,8A) - 15.17, E - .001.

WWW

A significant main effect (p < .05) of level of shame-proneness was
found for a number of the variables hypothesized to be related to
shame-proneness. These findings support the predicitve validity of the
composite shame measure used. As predicted, a significant main effect
for shame group was found for: Emotional Reliance on Others
(IEMREL)(§[High] - A8.u3, MEMedium] . A2.9A, MELow] - u0.26),
£(2,8A) - 7.07, p . .001: and Lack of Social Self-Confidence (ILSOCO).
(MEHith - 3A.O9, MEMedium] - 27.15, MELow] - 26.03), fi(2,8A) - 15.56,
p - .001. Significant shame group effects were also found for: Shy
Intensity (S72) (fiEHith - 3.A3, fiEMedium] - 2.90, fiELow] - 2.A7),
£(2,8A) - A.Ol, p 8 .02; Shy Frequency (S73) (MEHith - 3.17,
.MEMedium] - 2.A8, MELow] - 1.85), [(2,8A) - 11.80, p - .001; Shy
Comparison (57A) (fiEHith . 3.26, MEMedium] - 2.79, fiELow] - 2.06),
£(2,8A) - 10.36, p - .001; Shy Problems (S75), (M[High] - 3.51,
fl[Medium] - 2.A6, MELow] - 1.85), £(2,8A) - 17.65, 2 - .001;
Introversion (S76) (M[High] - A.ll, MEMedium] . 3.39, fl[Low] - 2.85),
[(2.8A) - A.02, p - .02; and Total Moral Purity (TATAbI + TATAbZ)
(MEHith - 3.8A, fl[Medium] - 3.29, M[Low] - A.50), [(2,8A) - A.AO,

p - .02 (see Tables A and 5 on the following pages).

5 'II E 2.5:
A significant main effect (p < .05) of guilt-proneness was found

for the following dependent variables: Lack of Social Self-Confidence

Table 4

Mean Scores Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness

 

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame
Korpi Shame (KS) 59.37 51.91 44.26
Korpi Guilt (KG) 60.86a 60.88a 58.76a
Catte11 Embarrassabi1ity 118.91 109.27 96.47
(EMB)
Mosher Sex-Guilt (ZMSG) .20a .13a -.33
Mosher Hosti1ity-Gui1t .12a .13a -.25a
(ZMHG)
Mosher Mora1ity-Conscience- .41a .09a -.51
Guilt (ZMMCG)
Emotional Reliance on 48.43 42.94a 40.26a
Another Person (IEMREL) -
Lack of Social Se1f- 34.09 27.15a 26.03a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 27.54a 27.42a 28.47a
(IAUT) ’
SHY (571) 1.80 1.42 1.03
Shy Intensity (S72) 3.43b 2°90a,b 2.47a
Shy Frequency (S73) 3.17 2.48 1.85
Shy Comparison (S74) 3.26a 2.79a 2.06
Shy Problems (S75) 3.51 2.46 1.85
Introversion (S76) 4.11b 3'39a,b 2.85a

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

68

Table 5

Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Level

of Shame-Proneness

 

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame
Exposure of 1.07 .61 1.00
Inadequacy (1a) a b a, b
Moral 2.37a 2.33a 2.76a
Transgression (1b)
Rejection/ 3.70a 3.14a 3.37a
Abandonment (2a)
Punishment (2b) 1.74a 1.94a 2.00a
Exposure Reduction (3a) .66a .50a .53a
Punishment- .90a .82a 1.26a
Atonement (3b1)
Compensation- .04a b .02a .12b
Atonement (3b2) ’
Total Atonement .94 .83 1.38
(3b1 + 3b2) 3’ b a b
Independence (4a1) 2.30a 2.42a 2.46a
Positive Eva1uation (4a2) .66a .76a .69a
Total Nonrejection 2.96 3.18a 3.15a
(4a1 + 4a2) a
Evil-Projection (4b1) 1.963 b 1.83a 2.43b
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) 1.89a b 1.45a 2.09b
Total Mora1 3.84a b 3.29a 4.50b
Purity (4b1 + 4b2) ’

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group
statistically significant (p < .05).

69

differences were not

70

(lLSOCO) (fiEHith I 32.29, [[Medium] I 28.94. [[Low] I 26.15),
[(2.84) I 5.36. p I .006; and Shy Comparison (S74) (MEHith I 2.89.
[[Medium] I 3.00. [[Low] I 2.24). [(2.84) I 3.56, p I .03 (see Tables 6

and 7 on the following pages).

W

A significant interactive effect (p < .05) of sex x level of
shame-proneness was found for the following dependent variables: Mora1
Transgression (TAle). [(2.84) I 4.41. p I .02; Punishment-Atonement
(TAT3bl). [(2.84) I 3.47. p I .04; Total Atonement (TAT3b1 + TAT3b2).
[(2.84) I 3.25. p I .04; and Moral Goodness (TAT4b2). [(2.84) I 3.83.

p I .03. For the all four of these variables. sex differences were
minimal for both low and high shame participants. 0n the other hand.
medium-shame males scored higher than medium-shame females on Moral
Transgression. Punishment-Atonement. and Total Atonement. and lower than
medium-shame females on Moral Goodness. This pattern is shown
graphically in Figures 1 through 4 in Appendix B.

No significant interactive effects (p < .05) of sex x level of
guilt-proneness. level of guilt-proneness x level of shame-proneness. or
sex x level of guilt-proneness x level of shame-proneness was found for
any of the dependent variables. (Mean scores broken down by sex and
grouped by shame-level or guilt-level are presented in Tables 1 through

8 in Appendix A.)

Madam

The primary hypotheses were organized around four dimensions

thought to be of relevance to shame and guilt. The four dimensions of

Table 6

Mean Scores Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness

 

 

High-Guilt Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt
Korpi Shame (KS) 54.20a 51'67a, b 49.82b
Korpi Guilt (KG) 63.71a 61.94a 54.79
Cattell Embarrassability 111.66a 108.12a b 105.06b
(EMB) ’
Mosher Sex-Guilt (ZMSG) .84 -.14 -.72
Mosher Hostility-Guilt .81 -.08 -.76
(ZMHG)
Mosher Morality-Conscience- .99 -.16 -.86
Guilt (ZMMCG)
Emotional Reliance on 45.63a 43.85a 42.26a
Another Person (IEMREL)
Lack of Social Self- 32.29 28.94a 26.15a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 27.26a 29.30a 26.94a
(IAUT)
SHY (S71) 1.51a 1.46a 1.29a
Shy Intensity (S72) 3.06a 3.12a 2.65a
Shy Frequency (S73) 2.54a 2.67a 2.32a
Shy Comparison (S74) 2.89a 3.00a 2.24
Shy Problems (S75) 2.91a 2'73a, b 2.2lb
Introversion (S76) 3.9la 3.27a 3.l8a

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

71

Table 7

Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Level
of Guilt-Proneness

 

High-Guilt Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt

 

Exposure of .83a .94a .93
Inadequacy (1a) ' a
Moral 2.30a 2.50a 2.68a
Transgression (1b)

Rejection] 3.40a 3.64a 3.19
Abandonment (2a) a
Punishment (2b) 1.90a 1.85a 1.93a
Exposure Reduction (3a) .63a .58a .49a
Punishment- .91a 1.08a 1.00a
Atonement (3b1) V

Compensation- .03a .05a .10a
Atonement (3b2)

Total Atonement .94 1.12 1.10
(3m + 3b2) 5‘ a I“
Independence (4a1) 2.33a b 2.02a 2.82b
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .64a .85a .62a
Total Nonrejection 2.97 2.86 3.44
(4a1 + 4a2) 3' a 5‘
Evil-Projection (4bl) 1.89a 2.21a 2.13a
Moral Goodness (4b2) 2.00a l.73a l.7la
Total Moral 3.89a 3.94a 3.84a

Purity (4bl + 4b2)

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

72

73

interest were: (a) precipitating events: (b) associated unconscious
dangers; (c) escape defenses: and (d) avoidance defenses. The
hypotheses. the predictions generated by them. and the relevant results

are discussed below.

2' .25! :1 --E "Il'E

(a) lnadeguacz. Shame was hypothesized to be activated by the
awareness of one's inadequacy. defectiveness. or social inappro-
priateness so that shame-proneness was thought to be associated with a
preoccupation with these themes. Thus it was predicted that shame-prone
individuals would show a greater preponderance of these themes in their
TAT stories.

The results were not as predicted. The results of a Duncan
multiple range test--which controls the error rate to take into account
the number of groups being compared--found inStead that both high
(M I 1.07) and low shame (M I 1.00) participants wrote a greater number
of stories containing these themes than medium shame participants
(M I .61). [(2.99) I 3.27. p < .05. (Note: The Duncan multiple range
test was employed for all of the multiple comparisons described below.)

(b) Moral Transgression. Guilt was hypothesized to be triggered by
moral transgression so that guilt-proneness was thought to be positively
associated with a preoccupation with this theme. Thus it was predicted
that highly guilt-prone individuals would have a greater number of
stories containing this theme than less guilt-prone participants.

The results failed to support this hypothesis. Differences in
Mora1 Transgression scores failed to reach significance for the three

guilt groups.

74

2. . Z x 1 --l . E H . 2

(a) It was hypothesized that the unconscious danger associated with
shame is rejection or abandonment:

(al) Reiection. It was thought that shame-proneness would be
positively associated with a preoccupation with rejection or
abandonment--a preoccupation which would be reflected in a greater
number of TAT stories containing these themes for shame-prone
participants than for those less prone to experiencing shame.

The differences between shame groups on this variable failed to
reach significance. However a pattern of relationships similar to that
between shame-proneness and number of Inadequacy stories (described
above) was found between shame-proneness and number of Rejection
stories. High shame-prone persons wrote an average of 3.7 stories
containing this theme. while medium and low shame-prone persons wrote an
average of 3.1 and 3.4 such stories. respectively. Despite the lack of
significant difference scores on the ANDVA. Rejection scores were found
to correlate significantly with shame-proneness. [ I .13. p-< .05.

(a2) IEMRELI ILSDCD. It was further hypothesized that shame-prone
individuals' sensitivity to rejection would be a reflection of a greater
level of interpersonal dependency. Thus it was predicted that
shame-prone ihdividuals would have higher scores on the following Inter-
personal Dependency lnventory scales: Emotional Reliance on Another
Person (IEMREL) and Lack of Social Self-Confidence (ILSOCO).

The results were largely as predicted. High shame participants
received significantly higher IEMREL scores (M I 48.43) than either
medium shame participants (M I 42.94) or low shame participants

(5 - 40.26). {(2.99) - 8.92, E < .001.

75

High shame participants received significantly higher lLSDCD scores
(M I 34.09) than either medium shame participants (M I 27.15) or low
shame participants (fl - 26.03). [(2.99) - 19.91, 2 < .0001.

(b) Punishment. It was hypothesized that the unconscious danger
associated with guilt is punishment. Thus it was thought that
guilt-proneness would be associated with a preoccupation with
punishment. and would be reflected in a preponderance of TAT stories
containing this theme for guilt-prone participants.

The results failed to support this hypothesis as guilt group
differences in number of punishment stories failed to reach

significance.

MW

(a) Exposure Reduction. It was hypothesized that shame is reduced
by a reduction in the exposure of the self. Thus it was thought that
individuals prone to shame would be more concerned with hiding
themselves and that this would be reflected in a relatively high number
of TAT stories concerned with hiding. withdrawal. and escape.

The results failed to support this hypothesis. While high
shame-prone participants told a greater number of stories containing
this theme (M I .66) than either medium (M I .50) or low shame-prone
participants (M I .53). none of these differences were statistically
significant. It is interesting to note. however. the similarity in the
pattern of relationships between these variables and that between
shame-proneness and the number of both Inadequacy and Rejection stories.

with all three producing V-shaped curves.

76

(b) It was hypothesized that guilt can be reduced via an act of
atonement. Thus it was thought that individuals prone to guilt would be
concerned with atonement and that this would be reflected in a
relatively high number of TAT stories containing atonement themes. Two
types of atonement were postulated:

(bl) [pnishment-Atongmgpp. Punishment for moral wrongdoing.

(b2) Compensation-Atonement. Making ammends to the victim of a ‘
moral wrongdoing.

The results failed to support the hypothesized relationships
between proneness to guilt and atonement of either type. No significant
differences were found between any of the guilt groups for number of
Punishment-Atonement stories. Compensation-Atonement stories. or Total
Atonement stories combined. However. it should be kept in mind that the
corrected inter-rater reliability coefficient for Compensation-Atonement

was only [ I .32.

2. . E H ll '"l .E 2 E

(a) It was hypothesized that shame can be avoided by protecting
against the pain of rejection. Thus it was thought that individuals
prone to experiencing shame would be concerned with the avoidance of the
pain of rejection. Two ways of avoiding this pain were suggested:

(al) lndependenc . Attempt to neutralize the importance and thus
the hurtfulness of rejection by striving for power and independence. It
was predicted that this would be reflected in a greater number of TAT
stories written by shame-prone participants containing themes of power

and independence.

77

(a2) Positive Evaluation. Attempt to avoid actual rejection by
striving to be liked. positively evaluated. or attractive to others. It
was predicted that this would be reflected in a preponderance of stories
containing these themes for shame-prone participants.

Neither of these hypotheses (4al, 4a2) were supported by the
results as no significant differences between shame groups were found
for either of these two TAT variables. Nonetheless, it should be noted
that the pattern of relationships between shame-proneness and number of
Positive Evaluation stories (inverted V-shaped curve) was the opposite
of those found between shame-proneness and the number of Inadequacy.
Rejection. and Exposure stories (V-shaped curves). Similarly. the
relationship between Independence scores for medium and high shame
individuals was also the opposite of that for inadequacy. Rejection. and
Exposure Reduction stories. The mean Independence scores for high.
medium and low shame-prone participants were 2.30. 2.42 and 2.46.
respectively. The mean Positive Evaluation scores for high. medium and
low shame-prone participants were .66. .76 and .69. respectively. These
relationships are shown graphically in Figures 5 through 9 in Appendix
B.

(b) It was hypothesized that guilt can be avoided through the
avoidance of "immoral” thoughts or deeds. Thus it was thought that
proneness to guilt would be associated wih a concern for the "moral
purification of the self." This entails:

(bl) [vil-Prgjection. The projection of ”evil" impulses onto the
external world. a process that was predicted to be reflected in a
greater number of TAT stories with ”evil“ in the external world among

guilt-prone individuals.

78

(b2) Moral Goodness. The striving for ”moral purity” via acting in
morally good ways. Thus it was predicted that guilt-prone participants
would write more TAT stories with morally good heroes.

No significant differences were found between any of the guilt
groups for Evil-Projection. Mora1 Goodness. or Total Moral Purity
(Evil-Projection + Mora1-Goodness). However. while short of
significance. the pattern of scores for Moral Goodness was as predicted.
with high. medium. and low guilt group means of 2.00. 1.73. and 1.71.
respectively. Evil-Projection scores were 1.89. 2.21. and 2.13. for the

high. medium and low guilt groups. respectively.

ll! 1' l 3 ll

The relationships between the above discussed variables were also
examined by looking at the correlation coefficients between proneness to
shame and : (a) Emotional Reliance on Another Person (IEMREL); (b) Lack
of Social Self-Confidence (ILSOCO); (c) Inadequacy: (d) Rejection;

(e) Exposure Reduction; (f) Independence; (9) Positive Evaluation: and
(h) Total Nonrejection. It was predicted that the correlations between
these Variables and shame-proneness would be significantly greater than
that between these variables and proneness to guilt.

Only ILSDCD was found to have a correlation with shame-proneness
that was significantly greater than its correlation with guilt-proneness
(p I .56 vs. [ I .37. p I .025). The correlation between Shame and
IEMREL ([ I .35) fell just short of being significantly greater than the
correlations between Guilt and IEMREL (p I .18). p I .06. However when
the correlation between Shame and IEMREL was computed with Guilt

partialed out (p I .32). it was found to be significantly greater

79

(p I .03) than the correlation between Guilt and IEMREL with Shame
partialed out (p I .08). The differences between correlations with
Shame and correlations with Guilt were not significant for Inadequacy.
Rejection. Exposure Reduction. Independence. Positive Evaluation. or
Total Nonrejection. even with the appropriate factors partialed out.

The relationships between proneness to guilt and the following
variables were predicted to be significantly greater than that between
these variables and proneness to shame: (a) Moral Transgression:

(b) Punishment: (c) Punishment-Atonement: (d) Compensation-Atonement:
(e) Total Atonement: (f) Evil-Projection: (g) Mora1 Goodness: and
(h) Total Mora1 Purity.

None of these variables were found to have a correlation with Guilt
that was significantly greater than their correlation with Shame.
However. the correlation between Guilt and Moral Goodness ([ I .15) fell
just short of being significantly greater than the correlation between
Shame and Moral Goodness ([ I -.01. p I .06). In addition. when the
correlation between Guilt and Moral Goodness was computed with Shame
partialed out (p I .18). it was found to be significantly greater than
the correlation between Shame and Moral Goodness with Guilt partialed
out (p I -.06. p I .03).

Proneness to shame and guilt were also thought to be related to
gender. Males were hypothesized to be more guilt-prone than females.
with females more shame-prone than males. It was predicted that this
would be reflected in higher guilt scores for males and higher shame
scores for females. Three of the four measures of guilt were standard-
ized within sex and were thus not amenable to cross-sex comparisons.

Thus gender differences in proneness to both shame and guilt were

80

investigated by looking at the remaining simple measures of shame and
guilt individually.

While none of the differences between males and females reached
significance on the [-tests performed (p < .05). differences on all four
simple measures were found to be in the direction opposite of that
predicted. Mean Korpi Guilt Scale scores for males and females were
59.28 and 61.06. respectively. On the other hand. Korpi Shame. Cattell
Embarrassability. and Shyness scores were 53.37 and 50.47. 108.67 and
107.96. and 1.47 and 1.37. for males and females. respectively. Mean
objective and TAT scores grouped by sex are presented in Tables 8 and 9
on the following pages.

Correlations between gender and Shame scores. as well as that

between gender and the sole guilt measure amenable to such a
correlation. the Korpi Guilt Scale. were also computed. While both
correlations failed to reach significance (Shame and sex. [ I .13.
p I .09: Korpi Guilt and sex. L I -.13. p I .10). the difference between
these correlations was found to be significant (p < .05). In short. the
data suggest that contrary to expectation. females may be slightly more
prone to experiencing guilt than shame. while males may be more prone to
experiencing shame than guilt.

An additional finding was the result of an elementary linkage
analysis (see McQuitty [1957] for a description of the procedure) of the
eleven TAT simple variables. The results of the analysis. presented in
Table 10 on the following page and Figure 10 in Appendix B. suggested
that the variables clustered into two groups. The first. and more
typally relevant group. was composed of the following six variables

(their typal relevancies are in parentheses): Punishment-Atonement

Table 8

Mean Scores Grouped by Gender

 

 

 

Males Females A11
Shame (composite score) .101 -.102 .000
Guilt (composite score) -.032 .032 .000
Korpi Shame (KS) 53.37 50.47 51.92
Korpi Guilt (KG) 59.28 61.06 60.17
Cattell Embarrassability (EMB) 108.67 107.96 108.31
Masher Sex-Guilt (MSG) l.40 l.24 --
Mosher Hostility-Guilt (MHG) 1.64 1.50 --
Masher Morality-Conscience- 1.60 1.31 --
Guilt (MMCG)
Emotional Reliance on 44.49 43.37 43.93
Another Person (IEMREL) 38.2a 39.7a 39.2a
Lack of Social Self— 29.90 28.41 29.16
Confidence (ILSOCO) 30.1a 29.7a 29.8a
Assertion 0f Autonomy (IAUT) 29.99* 25.7% 27.8;

31.6 29.4 30.2
SHY (S71) l.47 1.37 } 4lb
Shy Intensity (S72) 3.02 2.86 2.94
Shy Frequency (573) 2.69 2.33 2.51
Shy Comparison (S74) 2.72 2.69 2.71
Shy Problems (575) 2.76 2.47 2.62
Introversion (576) 3.76 3.16 3.46
Note. -- indicates that a value was not recorded because such a value

is not meaningful.

aNorms obtained from Hirschfeld et a1. (1977).
Norm obtained from Pilkonis (1977b).

b
*E.< .01 (sex differences).

81

Mean Number of TAT Themes Grouped by Gender

Table 9

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (1a) .85 .94 .90
Mora1 Transgression (1b) .71 2.27 2.49
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .17 3.55 3.42
Punishment (2b) .03 1.76 1.89
Exposure Reduction (3a) .59 .54 .56
Punishment-Atonement (3b1) .09 .90 1.00
Compensation-Atonement (3b2) .03 .09 .06
Total Atonement (3b1 + 3b2) .12 .99 1.05
Independence (4a1) .33 2.45 2.39
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .61 .79 .70
Total Nonrejection (4a1 + 4a2) .94 3.25 3.09
Evil-Projection (4bl) .90 2.25 2.07
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) .36* 2.26 1.81
Total Mora1 Purity (4bl + 4b2) .26* 4.51 3.89

 

fp.< .001 (sex differences)

82

Table 10

Elementary Linkage Analysis of TAT Variables

 

3bl

lb

2b

4bl

3b2 3a 4b2 2a

4a2 4al la

 

Punishment-
Atonement
(3b1)

Mora1
Transgression
(lb)

Punishment
(2b)

Evil
Projection
(4bl)

Compensation-
Atonement
(3b2)

Exposure .09
Reduction
(3a)

Positive -.06
Evaluation

(4b2)

Rejection] .07
Abandonment
(2a)

Positive
Evaluation
(4a2)

-.06

Inde endence .13
(4a1

Exposure of .13
Inadequacy

(la)

.24** .15

.20*

-.16

.03

-.05

.04

.15

.52***.52**1.788l)

.4l***.35*** .48***(.

.12

.05

-.20*

-.07

-.12

.19*

.19*

(.9267) .65*** .52*** .41*** .24** .09

.65**l.8779) .52*** .35***

.48"*

3547)

.16* (.1397) -.14

.Ol -.14

.24**

.ll

.20*

.04

.12 .05 -.20* -.07

.16* .Ol

.16* .02

.06 .19*

-.06 .07 -.06 .13 .13

.15 .20* -.16 .03 -.05 .04 .15

-.12 .19* .19*

.08 .24** -.ll .20* .04

.16* .06 .06 .19* -.08

(.0521) .02 .19* -.07 -.19* .10

(.2791) .37*** .26** .25** -.11

.37*(t1439) .05 -.01 .22*

.25** .05 (.1178) .21* .05‘

.2s**-.01 .21* (.1148) -.09

.22* .06 -.09 (.0722)

 

Note.

variable to the type it is in.

Parenthesized numbers in the diagonal represent the typal relevance of that
This is computed by summing the squares of the correlations

between that variable and each of the other variables in that type.

*p_< .05
**p_< .Ol

**fp < .001

£33

84

(.9267). Mora1 Transgression (.8779). Punishment (.7881).
Evil-Projection (.3547). Compensation-Atonement (.1397). and Exposure
Reduction (.0521).

The second group was composed of the following five variables:
Moral Goodness (.2791). Rejection/Abandonment (.1439). Positive
Evaluation (.1178). Independence (.1148). and Exposure of Inadequacy
(.0722).

It was thought that there might be sex differences in the way in
which these TAT variables clustered together. This possibility was
investigated by comparing all 55 intercorrelations across sex. Of
these. only three had sex differences that were significant at the
p < .05 level. However this was approximately the number of significant
differences expected on the basis of chance alone. For this reason. in
addition to the fact that: (a) two of these three differences involved
the variable Compensation-Atonement. a variable that was found an
average of only .06 times per participant, and which had a corrected
inter-rater reliability coefficient of only [ I .32. and (b) none of the
differences were significant at the p < .05 level. these sex differences
in TAT intercorrelations were not pursued further. All of these inter-
correlations are presented broken down by sex in Table 11 on the

following page.

TAT Intercorrelations for Both Males and Females

Table 11

 

3bl

lb

2b

4b1

3b2

3a

4b2

2a

4a2

4a1

1a

 

Punishment-
Atonement
(3bl)

Mora1
Transgression
(1b)

Punishment
(21))

Evil
Projection
(4bl)

Compensation-
Atonement
(302)

Exposure
Reduction
(34)

Positive
Evaluation
(4b2)

Rejection/
Abandonment
(24)

Positive
Evaluation
(4a2)

Independence
(4al)

Exposure of
Inadequacy
(1a)

.62

.03

.51

.31

.12

.11

.18

.13

.68

.50

.41

.24

.19

.06

.06

.12

.05

.01

.47

' .55

.62

.20

.03

.14

.15

.11

.21

.24

.34

.35

.37

.36*

-.12

-.21

.06

-.09

.27

.09

.23

.12

.09

.03*

.08

.16*

.15

.08

.12

.01

.06

.21

.06

.15

.19

.22

.25

-.02

-.10

.05

-.04

.31*

.54*

.20

.31

.05

.05

.10

.42

.22

.15

.13*

.06

.07

.22

.11

.16

.11

.17

.12

.11

.26

.01

.24

.01

.07

.04

.18

.08

.27

.32

.18

'.15

.17

.06

.14

.29

.17

-.01

-.14

.14

-.19

.22

.10

-.27

 

Note.

Eélow the diagonal.

* Indicates that sex differences for that correlation were significant at'p < .05.

85

Correlations among females are presented above the diagonal; correlations among males.

Discussion

The present research investigated the experiences of shame and
guilt by looking at the relationships between proneness to shame or
guilt and a number of other variables hypothesized to be related to
these phenomena. The primary issues of interest were: (a) precipitating
events. that is. what it is that triggers each of these experiences:

(b) associated unconscious dangers (and for shame-proneness. a related
personality trait); (c) escape defenses. that is. how one escapes from.
or reduces the intensity of. these experiences: and (d) avoidance
defenses. that is. how one protects oneself from experiencing shame or
guilt altogether. Also of interest were sex differences in proneness to
shame and to guilt as well as in characteristics thought to be related
to shame and guilt.

Overall the results were mixed. although a number of interesting
findings did emerge. First. as predicted. shame-proneness was found to
correlate with dependency. Secondly. several findings converged to
provide support for the Kaufman/Tomkins notion that while shame is a
unitary affective state. the term guilt refers to a group of states. one
of which has shame as its affective component. A third set of findings
(albeit short of significance) were interesting by virtue of the fact
that the trends were in the direction opposite of that predicted. Males
were found to be more shame-prone than females. while females were more
guilt-prone than males. And fourth, an analysis of the items of the

Korpi Shame scale suggested that shame activators can be meaningfully

86

87

organized into groups of activators to which individuals are differ-
entially sensitive. Before discussing the results it will be important
to look at a number of methodological issues relevant to the interpret-

ation of the data.

1411!!" ll

ICZ'I'I [El 15'! 11

This research was exploratory. Shame and guilt--particularly
shame--have received little attention by researchers and there are few
measures of guilt and even fewer measures of shame. For this reason the
present study used several measures of shame and several measures of
guilt chosen largely on the basis of what appeared to be good face
validity. As mentioned earlier. both the simple and complex shame and
guilt measures were found to have significant'intra-trait correlations.
In addition. while not all of the simple shame and guilt measures had
significant inter-trait correlations with each other. the composite
shame and guilt measures did link significantly. It cannot at this time
be determined which of the following this was a result of:.

(a) a tendency by some participants to endorse negative items and a
tendency in others to endorse positive items: (b) a factor unrelated to
either shame or guilt despite its presence in both measures;

(c) a factor correlated with both shame and guilt present in both
measures; and/or (d) a direct relationship between shame and guilt.
Support for the latter notion is discussed below.

While two of the three measures of shame have been cited in
published research (Cattell's Susceptibility to Embarrassment and SHY

[Do you consider yourself to be a shy person?]). neither was actually

88

designed to be used as a measure of proneness to shame. per se. The
third. the Korpi Shame Scale was intended to measure shame but has yet
to be empirically validated. Consequently. the composite Shame measure
requires validation so that the results of this study. as well as any
other studies employing these scales to measure shame-proneness. must be
interpreted cautiously.

On the other hand. of the four simple measures of guilt. the three
Masher scales were designed to measure proneness to guilt and have been
validated in a series of studies by their author and'others (Abramson
et al.. 1977; Fehr 5 Stamps, 1979; Masher. 1966. 1968: Persons. 1970).
Still. the inter-scale correlations among the simple guilt scales ranged
from 5 I .58 to as low as 5 I .21. and their correlations with the shame
scales varied considerably. The range of correlations between the
simple guilt measures and Shame. the Korpi Guilt Scale (KS).
Embarrassability (EMB). and SHY was 5 I -.07 to p I .28. with
considerable variation within specific simple shame measures (see Table
2 above). These discrepancies. in combination with the results of the
validity studies mentioned above. suggest that these scales are
measuring either: (a) different types of guilt; (b) different components
of guilt: (c) different correlates of guilt; or (d) some combination of
these.

The question of the validity of the measures of shame and guilt was
not addressed in the present study. Instead. the data was discussed in
light of the assumption that the validity of the measures is open to
question. and that the measures are in need of refinement. Thus the
interpretations of the data vis-a-vis the hypotheses were tempered to

allow for the problems in measurement.

39

For example. a number of relationships involving level of
shame-proneness support to the hypotheses generated in the present study
if the low shame group is excluded from the analyses (see Figures 5
through 9 above). While the specific results will be discussed below.
the question that this raises is why the low shame groups did not fit
the hypothesized larger patterns. It is possibile that while persons
receiving high shame scores were indeed relatively high in their
proneness to experiencing shame. and those receiving medium shame scores
were in some sense ”average" in shame-proneness, persons in the low
shame-group were not necessarily low in shame-proneness. Rather. this .
group may have been composed of both low shame persons and persons
relatively unwilling to acknowledge their capacity to feel shame
(perhaps too ashamed of it?). It is not possible to confirm or
disconfirm the validity of this notion in the present study. however
this issue should be addressed in future research. The implications of
such a possibility for the interpretation of the data will be discussed

in a later section of this Discussion.

W

In addition to the problems with the measurement of proneness to
both shame and guilt. there were also problems with the TAT measures.
First of all. the corrected reliability coefficients for the TAT
variables ranged from p I .91 to as low as p I .32. with seven of the
eleven variables having coefficients less than or equal to p I .70.
This was likely a result of at least two factors. Some of the
variables. particularly those involving multiple themes (and thus

producing multiple measurement error). were relatively complex and thus.

90

despite the considerable training the raters received. were relatively
difficult to code. Secondly. some of the themes occurred very rarely.
For example, there was an average of only .06 Compensation-Atonement
themes per participant. That is. a total of only six for all 1020
stories (see Table 9 above). With so few scorable themes. each
discrepancy was a relatively large proportion of the total score and
thus carried greater weight than was the case for variables that were
more common. In addition. it is possible that coder's vigilance for a
particular event lessens when the event is rare. The notion that the
low inter-rater reliabilities were. at least in part. a result of the
frequency of occurence of these themes. is supported by the finding that
inter-rater reliability and frequency of occurence were moderately
correlated (p I .58).

The low reliability of several of the TAT measures has obvious con-
sequences for the sensitivity of the significance tests of the
relationships of other variables with these TAT measures. It also
limits the magnitude of the correlation coefficients involving these TAT
variables. In addition. the low frequency with which the TAT themes
were scored could in itself lower the magnitude of the correlation
coefficient of the other variables with these variables by reducing the
range of scores on these TAT variables.

An interesting finding involving the TAT variables stems from the
results of an elementary linkage analysis. The analysis suggested that
the eleven variables clustered into two groups. The first group was
composed of Punishment-Atonement. Moral Transgression. Punishment.
Evil-Projection. Compensation-Atonement. and marginally. Exposure

Reduction. All of these variables. with the exception of Exposure

91

Reduction, were hypothesized to be related to guilt-proneness. However,
these five variables all contain an element of aggression and thus their
hypothesized link to guilt. while consistent with this finding. is not.
on this basis. a necessary mediating variable. (The relationship
between guilt and aggression is discussed below.)

A second cluster was composed of Moral Goodness.
Rejection/Abandonment. Positive Evaluation, Independence. and
marginally. Exposure of Inadequacy. The first three of these
variables--Moral Goodness. Independence. and Positive Evaluation-~are
positive personality traits. while the fifth variable--(Exposure of)
lnadequacy--represents the other side of this coin. The fourth
variable. Rejection/Abandonment. appears to represent the response that
possession of the first three traits helps to avoid. and which the
fifth. elicits. Thus there appears to be a conceptual basis for
grouping these five variables together. The relationship between four

of these variables and proneness to shame is discussed below.

5' 1'

Wm

While the hypotheses involving the measures of proneness to shame
were not all supported. two of the seven relevant variables were
significantly correlated with shame-proneness and several were either
just short of significance or yielded relational patterns that were
amenable to interpretations that were consistent with the hypotheses.

Of particular interest was the relationship between proneness to
shame and scores on two related scales of the Interpersonal Dependency

Inventory: Lack of Social Self-Confidence (ILSOCO) and Emotional

92

Reliance on Others (IEMREL). Each measures forms of dependency.

ILSOCO. with items like "I am quick to agree with the opinions expressed
by others” and "l have a lot of trouble making decisions by myself" was
described by its authors as a measure of dependency reflecting a wish
for help in decision-making. in social situations. and in taking
initiative (Hirschfeld et al.. 1977). Shame-proneness was moderately
correlated ( p I .56) with ILSOCO. a linkage that significantly exceeded
the bond between ILSOCO and guilt-proneness (p I .025).

Similarly. IEMREL. with items like "The idea of losing a close
friend is terrifying to me" and "I must have one person who is very
special to me”. was described by its authors as reflecting an awareness
of the need for specific other persons. as well as a general wish for
others' approval and attention. Shame-proneness was modestly correlated
with IEMREL ([ I .35) although the magnitude of this relationship was
just short of being significantly greater than that between IEMREL and
proneness to guilt (p I .06).

These results support the notion that shame is associated with
dependency and rejection. A brief review of the theory of shame
described earlier illustrates the degree of theoretical consensus
regarding the role of dependency and rejection in the shame experience.

Both Freud (1924) and Levin (1967) described shame as an affect
that serves as a signal to redirect and limit the expression of sexual
energy in order to avoid rejection. According to Alexander (1938). the
deepest source of shame ("inferiority feelings") is the early conflict
between the wish to grow up and the regressive pull to passive
dependency. The ego. which identifies with the independent attitude,

reacts to regressive wishes with feelings of inferiority. Wallace

93

(1963) described shame as a ”defense against the feeling of annihilation
that occurs if . . . (external narcissistic) supplies are withdrawn"

(p. 82).. Individuals experiencing shame attribute self-esteem
regulating capacities to external persons. Lewis (1971) wrote that the
experience of shame is the loss of self-love that occurs via loss of
esteem in the eyes of the "internalized" parents. She found shame-prone
individuals highly field-dependent. suggesting a self that is
inadequately differentiated from the environment. According to Kaufman
(1980). shame is originally induced when the interpersonal bridge with a
parent is broken by the parent. The child eventually attempts to
maintain the interpersonal connection with the parents by splitting
himself or herself into a ”not me" and a part that. via this disowning.
becomes the parents' ally. One thus rejects. and so shames. oneself in
an effort to retain the love of one's parents. And Wurmser (1981) wrote
that the threat in shame is contemptuous rejection accompanied by
isolation. The basic fear. he thought. is loss of love. a version of
separation anxiety.- While shame functions as a motive for defense. in
content it is the pain of feeling unloved and unlovable.

In light of this plethora of theoretical support. it was not
surprising to find proneness to shame correlated with both dependency
measures. ILSOCO and IEMREL. The basic assumptions sketched above.
regarding the nature of the shame experience, seem compatible with the
empirical findings. The results were largely consistent with the des-
cription of the relational component of shame summarized below.

Shame. more than any other affect. involves the self. Triggered
initially by violated expectations of one's world. shame jolts the

individual out of the experience of "going-on-being." It disrupts the

94

silent automatic functioning in which there is little consciousness of
ooneself as a separate being. thus facilitating the development of a
conscious sense of self. Shame is thus a painful reminder of the fact
that. despite one's regressive wishes to escape the solitude of
identity. psychological merging will be only conditionally supported. at
best. Still. the wish to merge remains. Thus the avoidance of shame
becomes a motive for the erection of defenses against vulnerability to
shame. The wish to merge through the absorbing of the other--expressed
as exhibitionism-~and the wish to merge by becoming part of the
other--expressed as scopophilia--are defended against by the reaction
formations of hiding and the refusal to look. The avoidance of shame
also becomes a motive for the hiding of parts of oneself that have come
to be associated with rejection. Thus the exposure of inadequacies and
the expression of feelings or needs which have been associated with
rejection--either active rejection or the absence of a validating
response (a reaction which is also experienced as rejection)--are

avoided in an effort to protect against the experience of shame.

Wham;

As mentioned above. the relationships between shame-proneness and
the hypothesized shame-related TAT measures were consistent with the
hypotheses if analyzed with the low shame group excluded. These TAT
variables were: Inadequacy. Rejection. Exposure Reduction. Independence.
and Positive Evaluation. In addition to the exclusion of the low shame
group. however. two other important mitigating factors should be noted.
First. of the five relationships. only Inadequacy attained statistical
significance ([(2.99) I 3.27. p < .05). Secondly. while high .

shame-prone persons told a greater number of stories containing themes

95

of inadequacy. rejection, and withdrawal (exposure reduction) than
medium shame-prone persons. the opposite trend occurred for the number
of stories containing themes of independence and positive evaluation.
It is possible that the latter trends were due to the poor capacity of
high shame-prone persons to protect against shame through these
avoidance defenses and thus their relative absence of concern with these
themes. By being attractive to or positively evaluated by others. one
avoids the experience of rejection and possible exposure to the feeling
of shame. By being independent of others one minimizes the impact of
rejection and thus also avoids the experience of shame. In the present
study. however. the discrepancies between medium- and high-shame
participants on both Independence and Positive Evaluation scores were.
considerably short of significance and thus the possibility of their

being due to chance must be considered.

5 [El [”2... EIEI'EI El

A post hoc examination of the Korpi Shame Scale suggested that
these shame-related items might be meaningfully grouped into several
small subscales. This was investigated by listing several categories of
events that these ”shame-activators" appeared to be examples of. and
asking four persons well-acquainted with the concept of shame to
indicate which of these labels described each of the 17 shame items.
Those labels which were scored for a particular item by three or more of
the four raters were then used as the category into which that item was
placed. The actual questionnnaire used. as well as the categorizations
of the items. can be found in Appendix G.

Fourteen of the seventeen items were grouped into one or the other

of five categories of shame triggers. These categories were:

96

(a) Task Competence (TC)--lack of competence at work or in a task of
some sort: (b) Social lncongruity or Inappropriateness (SC); (c) Mpg;
(B)--shame about some aspect of one's own body; (d) Relationships
(R)--interpersonal incompetence or failure. or shame-producing relation-
ship needs. interests. attitudes or activities: and (e) Feelings (F)--
shame about one's experience or expression of feelings.

A number of correlations involving these five shame subscales were
computed. The results indicated that. although these scales were
generally moderately inter-correlated. participants did indeed respond
differentially to the items in these scales. The inter-correlations
among these subscales ranged from p I .14 to p I .51 (see Table 9 in
Appendix A). In addition. the presence of sex differences. along with
the fact that the correlations between the scores on these scales and
that of the other measures varied among subscales. suggested that these
subscales were tapping into different phenomena.

Two of these subscales yielded sex differences that were
statistically significant. Males scored higher on the Feelings subscale
(p I .35. p I .001), while females scored higher on the Body subscale
([ I -.18. p I .037). These findings are consistent with popular
notions about sex differences. with males being embarrassed by. or
uncomfortable with. feelings. and females concerned about their bodies.

The notion of differential sensitivities to particular categories
of shame activators has important implications. First. a shame-
activator sensitivity profile provides information about the extent to
which an individual is generally prone to experiencing shame. but also
about the degree to which various situations are differentially

shame-inducing for that individual.

97

Secondly. this highlights the importance of the representativeness
of the items used to assess shame-proneness. An example of a potential
problem that could result if this issue is ignored is the case where the
items over-represent a particular category of shame-activators. Two
individuals. who with a more representative sample of items would yield
comparable shame scores. could be portrayed via an unrepresentative test
as quite different in their proneness to shame simply because they
differ in their sensitivity to this over-represented category. Such a
problem may have existed in the present study. in which the Korpi Shame
scale contained five Feeling subscale items (more shame-inducing for
males) while only two Body subscale items (more shame inducing for

females).

Wanna;

It was originally hypothesized that females would be more prone to
experiencing shame than guilt. while males would be more prone to
experiencing guilt than shame. These hypotheses stemmed from the
thinking that females. who have been found to be more field dependent
than males (Lewis. 1971). would also be more interpersonally dependent.
They were thought likely to be more vulnerable to rejection and. thus.
more prone to experiencing shame. It was thought that males. who have
been found to be more field independent. would be less concerned with
rejection and more concerned with the negative consequences of their
hurtful behavior. The assumption here was that males, with a greater
level of defensiveness in regard to their need for others. would be more
likely to see themselves as powerful and independent. and so. less in

need of others. The danger for males was thus thought to stem from

98

their experience of themselves as powerful and thus potentially hurtful
to others rather than weak. needy, and thus vulnerable to rejection.
The danger itself was believed to be anxiety about punishment triggered
in response to a (fantasied) misuse of their power.

Contrary to expectations. however. the data suggested that males
were more shame-prone. and females more guilt-prone. These findings
generally fell short of signififance. However. the correlation between
shame-proneness and gender was significantly different that between
guilt-proneness and gender. in the direction opposite of that predicted.
This was consistent with the results of the Negri (1978) study mentioned
earlier. in which masculinity was found to correlate with shame-
proneness. and femininity. with guilt-proneness. It was also consistent
with the results of a study conducted by Hoffman (1975) which suggested
'that moral transgression is more likely to be associated with guilt in
females than it is in males.

These results may be explained in the following way. It is
possible that both shame and some guilt experiences involve the fear of
loss of the relationship with another. Shame involves the fear of loss
due to rejection in response to something wrong with oneself. Guilt may
involve a feared loss (as well as other negative consequences) resulting
from the perceived destructiveness of one's aggression. Both men and
women may be concerned with loss. but women are concerned with loss
resulting from (what is experienced as) the destructiveness of their
aggression in the context of a relationship, while both men and women
are concerned with loss due to rejection--each for different types of
"deficiencies“ of the self. In addition to the present finding that

women are more prone to guilt than men. this notion is supported by the

99

following.

First of all. either the composite Guilt measure or at least one of
the simple guilt measures were negatively correlated (p < .05) with each
of the following "aggressive” TAT themes (see Table 18): Moral
Transgression. Punishment. Punishment-Atonement. Compensation-Atonement.
and Evil-Projection. This is consistent with the notion that guilt is
related to conflicts about aggression. The findings (though short of
significance) that men consistently told more TAT stories with
aggressive content than did women (Moral Transgression. Punishment. and
Punishment-Atonement) lends further support to the notion of women being
more guilt-prone than men as a result of a greater reluctance to express
aggression. It should be noted that Pollak and Gilligan (1982) obtained
a similar finding in their study of undergraduate TAT stories. but
interpreted their results differently. They also found that women wrote
fewer total stories with aggressive content. but noticed that when the
TAT stimuli were grouped according to whether the situations depicted in
the pictures were illustrations of achievement or affiliation
situations. a sex difference in the distribution emerged as well. That
is. violence in men's stories was more frequent in response to
situations of affiliation. whereas violence in women's stories appeared
more often in response to situations of achievement. They interpreted
this as implying that men and women perceive danger in different
contexts and construe danger in different ways.

This idea was expanded on by Gilligan (1982). who extended
Erikson's work on psychosexual stages. claiming that men and women take
different life cycle paths. She stated that. whereas male conflicts

over identity are dealt with before intimacy issues. the opposite is

100

true for women. She stated that ”for boys and men separation and
individuation are critically tied to gender identity since separation
from mother is essential for the deve10pment of masculinity" (p.8). For
girls and women. on the other hand.

issues of . . . feminine identity do not depend on the

achievement of separation from the mother. Since masculinity

is defined through separation while femininity is defined

through attachment. male gender identity is threatend by

intimacy. while female gender identity is threatened by

separation. Thus males tend to have difficulty with relation-

ships. while females tend to have problems with

individuation. (p. 8)

In a discussion of the work of Robert May (1980). who also found
male TAT stories to contain more aggression than did female stories.
Pollak and Gilligan (1982) criticized his assumption that the male
preponderance of aggression is the norm so that the discrepancy between
males and females is the result of defensiveness on the part of the
females. They claim. instead. that the discrepancy is more accurately
seen as the result of the male conflict over intimacy.

Whether one views these sex differences in aggressive responses to
affiliative stimuli as a result of male conflict about intimacy. or
female defensiveness over aggression. holds important implications for
how one views men and women in general. It is my belief that these
views are not mutually exclusive and that each has merit. That is. both
of these factors are thought to contribute to the sex differences found
in the production of aggressive content in TAT stories. Thus. this
finding is seen as being interpreted in a manner that is not biased
against women. but still supports the notion that women are more guilt

prone than men because of their feelings about the interpersonal

consequences of aggression.

101

The meaning of the finding that males were more shame-prone than
females is unclear. As mentioned earlier. it is important to consider
the representativeness of the sample of shame activators which the
measure includes. While the present study found higher global Shame
scores for males than for females. an analysis of the shame-activator
subscales revealed sex differences in both directions. depending on the
particular subscale. That is. males were more easily shamed by some
things (e.g., expression of feelings) while females were more easily
shamed by others (e.g., their bodies). Because the presently used
measures failed to take such differences into account. it is difficult
to discern whether or not the results reflected true sex differences in
overall propensity to experience shame. or simply an overrepresentation
of situations particularly shameful for males.

If the former notion is indeed correct. it is possible that this is
the result of a greater number and variety of situations that are
experienced as shameful for males. This question requires further

investigation.

:1 1 E .ll' 1 C . E M l l

Lewis (1971) described shame and guilt as different but equally
advanced superego functons. Implicit in her conceptualization was the
assumption that each is a unitary phenomenon. That is. each is
activated by a category of events unique to it and each evolves from a
particular unconscious threat associated with it. In addition. she saw
proneness to guilt and proneness to shame associated with opposite ends
of a continuum of psychological differentiaton. Shame-prone persons

were thought to be field-dependent while guilt-prone persons were

102

thought to be field-independent.

In contrast. Kaufman (1980) and Tomkins (1963: personal communi-
cation. November 20. 1982) offered the following description of shame
and guilt. Both see shame as essentially a unitary experience with a
single affect. "shame-humiliation". underlying the'variations of the
experience. Guilt. however. is seen as a group of experiences with no
unifying affect. Instead. the term guilt refers to any of a number of
affective experiences. with the activator. rather than the affect. as
the unifying factor. Thus guilt refers to moral transgression that
triggers: (a) shame. (b) self-disgust. (c) contempt against the self by
the self. (d) dissmell. (e) anger at the self. (f) fear at the self. or
(g) self-blame. As a result. while shame and guilt are not identical.
they can. and often do. refer to the same inner state.

A comparison of these two models of shame and guilt was not
originally planned as part of the present study. However the results
obtained do bear on such a comparison, so that. while there is obviously
a need for further investigation. a discussion of these findings seems
useful. Three findings. in particular. are relevant to this issue.
First of all. proneness to shame and guilt were found to have
significant positive correlations with both objective measures of
dependency: ILSOCO and IEMREL. Since both models*involve the notion
that shame is related to rejection and. thus. dependency. the positive
correlation between shame and these measures is consistent with both of
these models. However. the finding that guilt was also positively
correlated with ILSOCO and IEMREL, argues against the Lewis model. On
the other hand. the Kaufman and Tomkins notion that the affect involved

in guilt is often shame--that is. shame and guilt often overlap--is

103

consistent with this finding.

The second finding. that of a significant positive correlation
between proneness to shame and proneness to guilt ( p I .32. p I .001).
provided more direct support for the Kaufman/Tomkins notion that shame
and guilt often overlap. This conflicts with Lewis's notion that shame
and guilt are associated with opposite extremes of a continuum of
psychological differentiation.

The third finding of relevance here was that all of the positive
correlations of Shame with IEMREL and ILSOCO--with Guilt partialed
out--significantly exceeded the positive correlations of Guilt with
IEMREL and ILSOCO--with Shame partialed out. This is consistent with
the Kaufman/Tomkins model in which shame is present in some. but not
all. guilt experiences. That is. if shame-proneness is seen as directly
related to dependency. then an experience which has a shame component
would be expected to be related to dependency in direct proportion to
the extent to which that experience involved shame. If shame and guilt
indeed overlap incompletely. as is thought to be the case. then one
would expect to find guilt correlated with dependency. but not to the

extent that shame is.

14mm:

The present study investigated a number of aspects of shame and
guilt. Several hypotheses were tested. with the results supporting
some. but not all. of these. A number of interesting findings emerged.

First. as predicted. shame-proneness correlated positively with
dependency. This was seen as supporting the notion that the experience

of shame is initially triggered by rejection and thus shame-inducing

104

events are. in some sense. associated with this danger.

Secondly. several findings converged to provide support for the
Kaufman/Tomkins model in which shame is a unitary state with a single
affect underlying its variations. and guilt refers to a group of
states--shame among them--with moral transgression as the activator
unifying the category. This was in contrast to the Lewis model in which
shame and guilt are seen as different. but parallel. unitary processes.
each associated with opposite ends of a continuum of psychological
differentiation.

A third finding was the result of an analysis of the items of the
Korpi Shame scale. The data suggested that shame activators can be
meaningfully organized into groups of such activators to which
individuals are differentially sensitive. Males. for example. were
found to have greater shame about the expression of feelings. whereas
females had greater shame about their bodies.

A fourth set of findings. while short of significance. were sex
.differences in proneness to shame and to guilt. Males were found to be
more shame-prone while females were found to be more guilt-prone. This
was seen as supporting the notion that women experience aggression as
more threatening to relationships than do men. The sex difference in
proneness to shame was hypothesized to result from there being a greater
number and variety of situations that are experienced as indicative of
one's defectiveness or inadequacy--and thus shame-producing--for men

than for women.

['1' [El 3 l

The present research was viewed as an exploratory study. and its

105

purpose was thus seen largely as a springboard for future research. A
much-needed first step is the improvement of the measures of shame and
guilt. As discussed above. the presently used measures. particularly
the shame measures. are in need of validation. In addition. on the
basis of the finding that shame-proneness can be meaningfully grouped
according to its various sources. an important direction to go toward
the goal of refining the measurement of shame. would be to outline
specific sources of shame so that a shame profile can be generated for
each participant. Thus particular sources of shame for an individual or
for a group could be identified.

Another direction for future research would be to address the
question of the meaning of the "low-shame“ category. That is. is a
person who experiences shame relatively infrequently. and then only of
moderate intensity. "well-defended” against shame or does the person
actually have a lesser "amount" of “potential” shame to be activated.

A third direction would be to further investigate the defenses
involved in both ecaping from (or reducing). as well as avoiding. each
of these experiences. This would likely involve a revision of the
scoring system used with the TAT measures in the present study. the
development of new categories. or perhaps the development of new
measures. An important corollary to this is the importance of differ-
entiating the actual shame and guilt experiences from the defenses
against them. as well as from the thoughts and feelings associated with
each.

And of course. the findings obtained in the present study-~the sex
differences found. the relationship between dependency and both shame

and guilt, and the evidence supporting the Kaufman/Tomkins theory of

106

shame and guilt--will require replication. This is true of the
significant findings but particularly true of the marginally and nearly

significant findings.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

TABLES

Table 1

Mean Scores for Males Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness

 

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame
Korpi Shame (KS) 60.11 51.75 47.24
Korpi Guilt (KG) 60.28a 60.25a 57.29a
Cattell Embarrassability 119.61 110.50 95.35
(EMB)
Masher Sex-Guilt (MSG) 1.41 1.44 1.35
(ZMSG) .06a .17a --.22a
Masher Hostility-Guilt (MHG) 1.64 1.67 1.60
(ZMHG) .04 .18 -.22
a a a
Masher Marality- (MMCG) 1.63 1.59 1.59
Conscience-Guilt (ZMMCG) .14a -.08a -.07a
Emotional Reliance on 49.11a 43.69a b 40.35b
Another Person (IEMREL) ’
Lack of Social Self- 34.39 28.44a 26.53a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 28.78a 29.56a 31.41a
(IAUT)
SHY (S71) 1.78a 1.56a 1.06
Shy Intensity ($72) 3.72a 2.943, b 2.35b
Shy Frequency (S73) 3.56 2.50a 1.94a
Shy Comparison (S74) 3.17a 2-333, b 2.12b
Shy Problems (S75) 3.67 2.25a 2.29a
Introversion (S76) 4.11a 3.69a 3.47a

 

Note.

statistically significant (p < .05).

109

Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not

Table 22

Mean Number of TAT Themes for Males Grouped
by Level of Shame-Proneness

 

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame
Exposure of .92a .78 .85
Inadequacy (1a) a a
Moral 2.25a 3.00a 2.91
Transgression (lb) a
Rejection] 3.67a 3.50a 2.32
Abandonment (2a)
Punishment (20) 1.72a 2.22a 2.18a
Exposure Reduction (3a) .69a .59a .47a
Punishment- .78a 1.31a 1.21a
Atonement (3b1)
Compensation- .03a .00a .06a
Atonement (3b2)
Total Atonement .81a 1.31a 1.26a
(3bl + 302)
Independence (4a1) 2.42a 2.42a 2.18a
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .56a .66a .62a
Total Nonrejection 2.97a 3.06a 2.79a
(4a1 + 4a2)
Evil-Projection (4bl) 1.67a 2.00a 2.06a
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) 1.78a 1.06b 1'21a, b
Total Moral 3.44a 3.06a 3.26a

Purity (4bl + 4b2)

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

110

Table 3

Mean Scores for Females Grouped by Level of Shame-Proneness

 

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame
Korpi Shame (KS) 58.06 50.83 42.00
Korpi Guilt (KG) 61.47a 62.11a 59.44a
Cattell Embarrassability 118.18 109.50 ' 95.38
(EMB)
Masher Sex-Guilt (MSG) 1.30 1.21 1.20
(ZMSG): .35a -.14a -.21a
Masher Hostility-Guilt (MHG) 1.54 1.50 1.46
(ZMHG) .20 -.01 -.20
. a a a
Masher Morality- (MMCG) 1.45 1.27 1.20
Conscience-Guilt (ZMMCG) .70 -.19a -.53a
Emotional Reliance on _ 47.71 41.83a 40.50a
Another Person (IEMREL)
Lack of Social Self- 33.76 26.67a 24.69a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 26.24a 24.56a 26.50a
(IAUT)
SHY (S71) 1.82 1.22a 1.06a
Shy Intensity (S72) 3.12a 2.78a 2.69a
Shy Frequency (S73) 2.76a 2'33a, b 1.88b
Shy Comparison (S74) 3.35 2.39a 2.31a
Shy Problems (575) 3.35 2.33a 1.69a
Introversion (S76) 4.12 2.78a 2.56a

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

111

Table 4

Mean Number of TAT Themes for Females Grouped
by Level of Shame-Proneness

 

High-Shame Medium-Shame Low-Shame

 

Exposure of 1.24a .69a .91
Inadequacy (1a) a
Moral 2.50a 1.72a 2.66a
Transgression (1b)

Rejection/ 3.74a 3.47a 3.75a
Abandonment (2a)

Punishment (2b) 1.76a 1.89a 1.59a
Exposure Reduction (Ba) .62a .42a .59a
Punishment- 1.03a .61a 1.09a
Atonement (3bl)

Compensation- .06a .08a .12a
Atonement (3b2)

Total Atonement 1.09a .69a 1.22a
(3bl + 3b2)

Independence (4a1) 2.18a 2.64a 2.53a
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .76a 1.00a .59a
Total Nonrejection 2.94a 3.64a 3.12a
(4al + 4b2)

Evil-Projection (4bl) 2.26a 2.11a 2.38a
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) 2.00a 2.44a 2.34a
Total Mora1 4.26a 4.56a 4.72a
Purity (4bl + 4b2)

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were IMTC
statistically significant (p < .05).

112

Table 5

Mean Scores for Males Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness

 

High-Guilt Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt

 

Korpi Shame (KS) 52.89

a, b 55.19a 51.24b
Korpi Guilt (KG) 64.06a 61.00a 52.59
Cattell Embarrassability 111.393 110.063 104.47a
(EMB)
Masher Sex-Guilt (MSG) 1.58 1.40 1.20
(ZMSG) .83 .03 -.90
Masher Hostility-Guilt (MHG) 1.77 1.59 1.54
(ZMHG) .75 --.26a -.56a
Masher Marality- (MMCG) 1.76 1.62 1.43
Conscience-Guilt (ZMMCG) .84 .07 -.95
Emotional Reliance on 43.61a 46.06a 43.94a
Another Person (IEMREL)
Lack of Social Self— 31.17a 31.56a 27.00a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 29.94a 30.44a 29.35a
(IAUT)
SHY (S71) 1.39a 1.62a 1.41a
Shy Intensity (S72) 3.06a 3.31a 2.71a
Shy Frequency (S73) 2.56a 3.19a 2.35a
Shy Comparison (574) 2.673, b 3.253 2.29b
Shy Problems (575) 2.67a 3.12a 2.53a
Introversion (S76) 4.06a 3.50a 3.71a

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

113

Table (5

Mean Number of TAT Themes for Males Grouped
by Level of Guilt-Proneness

 

High-Guilt Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt

 

Exposure of .83a .84a .88a
Inadequacy (1a)

Mora1 2.61a 2.84a 2.68a
Transgression (1b) _

Rejection] 3.33a 3.38a 2.79a
Abandonment (2a)

Punishment (2b) 2.14a 2.09a 1.85a
Exposure Reduction (3a) .64a .62a .50a
Punishment- 1.08a 1.19a 1.00a
Atonement (3b1)

Compensation- .00a .03a .06a
Atonement (3b2)

Total Atonement 1.08a 1.22a 1.06a
(3bl + 3b2)

Independence (4a1) 2.31a 1.91a 2.76a
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .58a b .91a .35b
Total Nonrejection 2.89a 2.81a 3.123
(481 + 432)

Evil-Projection (4bl) 1.69a 2.06a 1.97a
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) 1.39a 1.44a 1.26a
Total Moral 3.08a 3.50a 3.24a

Purity (4bl + 4b2)

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

114

Table 7

Mean Scores for Females Grouped by Level of Guilt-Proneness

 

High-Guilt Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt

 

Korpi Shame (KS) 54.56 48.06a 48.41a
Korpi Guilt (KG) 63.61a 62.50a 57.00
Cattell Embarrassability 111.11a 106.88a 105.65a
(EMB)
Masher Sex-Guilt MSG) 1.40 ‘ 1.16 1.13
ZMSG) .87 -.39 -.55
a a
Masher Hostility-Guilt (MHG) 1.65 1.53 1.30
(ZMHG) .77 .16 -.96
Masher Morality- (MMCG) 1.52 1.23 1.15
Conscience-Guilt (ZMMCG), 1.08 -.39 -.76
-Emotiona1 Reliance on 47.44a 41.75a b 40.59b
Another Person (IEMREL) - ’
Lack of Social Self— 32.83 26.75a 25.29a
Confidence (ILSOCO)
Assertion of Autonomy 24.72a 28.12a 24.53a
(IAUT)
SHY (S71) 1.61a 1.31a, b 1.18b
Shy Intensity (S72) 2.94a 3.06a 2.59a
Shy Frequency (573) 2.44a 2.25a 2.29a
Shy Comparison (S74) 3.06a 2°81a, b 2.18b
Shy Problems (S75) 3.06a 2.44a, b 1.88b
Introversions (S76) 3.67a 3.12a, b 2.65b

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

115

Table £3

Mean Number of TAT Themes for Females Grouped
by Level of Guilt-Proneness

 

 

High-Guilt , Medium-Guilt Low-Guilt
Exposure of .81a 1.06a .97
Inadequacy (la) a
Moral 1.89a 2.28a 2.68a
Transgression (lb)

Rejection/ 3.47a 3.91a 3.59a
Abandonment (2a)

Punishment (20) 1.61a 1.62a 2.00a
Exposure Reduction (3a) .61a .53a .47a
Punishment- .78a .94a 1.00a
Atonement (301)

Compensation- .06a .06a .15a
Atonement (302)

Total Atonement .83a 1.00a 1.15a
(301 + 302)

Independence (4a1) 2'36a, 0 2.09a 2.88b
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .69a .81a .88a
Total Nonrejection 3.06a 2.91a 3.76a
(4a1 + 4a2)

Evil-Projection (4bl) 2.08a 2.38a 2.29a
Mora1 Goodness (402) 2.67a 1.94a 2.15a
Total Moral 4.75a 4.31a 4.44a

Purity (401 + 402)

 

Note. Common subscripts indicate that group differences were not
statistically significant (p < .05).

116

Table 9

Intercorrelations Among Korpi Shame Subscales

 

 

 

KTC KSI KB KR
KTC -
KSI .51** -
KB .32** .31** -
KR 32** 28* 14 -
KF .45** .38** .24* .32**
*E < .01
**p < .001

117

Table 10

Mean Scores on TAT Card 1 Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males . Females All
Exposure of Inadequacy (1a) .09 .10 .09
Moral Transgression (lb) .07 .09 .08
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .21 .23 .22
Punishment (20) .21 .17 .19
Exposure Reduction (38) .02 .05 .03
Punishment-Atonement (301) .06 .06 .06
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .00 .00
Independence (4a1) .32 .24 .28
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .15 .19 .17
Evil-Projection (401) .12 .19 .15
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) .04 .05 .04

 

118

Mean Scores on TAT Card 2 Grouped by Gender

Table 11

 

 

Males Females A11

. Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .00 .10 .05
Mora1 Transgression (10) .10 .06 .08
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .19 .15 .17
Punishment (20) .11 .10 .10
Exposure Reduction (38) .01 .05 .03
Punishment-Atonement (301) .02 .01 .01
Compensation-Atonement (302) .02 .OO .01
Independence (4a1) .37 .63 .50
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .03 .08 .05
Evil-Projection (4bl)' .05 .04 .04
Mora1 Goodness (402) .15 .26 .20

 

119

Mean Scores on TAT Card 38M Grouped by Gender

Table 12

 

 

Males Females All
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .21 .23 .22
Moral Transgression (lb) .31 .28 .30
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .55 .61 .58
Punishment (2b) .29 .24 .26
Exposure Reduction (3a) .12 .10 .11
Punishment-Atonement (301) .20 .12 .16
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .02 .01
Independence (4a1) .12 .10 .11
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .04 .03 .03
Evil-Projection (401) .24 .26 .25
Mora1 Goodness (4b2) .07 .17 .12

 

120

Table 13

Mean Scores on TAT Card 3GF Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .13 .11 .12
Mora1 Transgression (10) .26 .21 .23
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .40 .59 .50
Punishment (20) .21 .26 .24
Exposure Reduction (3a) .15 .06 .10
Punishment-Atonement (301) .10 .11 .10
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .OO .00
Independence (4a1) .12 .07 .09
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .04 .06 .05
Evil-Projection (401) .23 .41 .32
Mora1 Goodness (402) .15 .23 .19

 

121

Table 14
Mean Scores on TAT Card 68M Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .09 .06 .07
Mora1 Transgression (lb) .18 .17 .17
Rejection/Abandonment (2a) .40 .53 .47
Punishment (20) .16 .16 .16
Exposure Reduction (3a) .05 .01 .03
Punishment-Atonement (301) .14 .10 .12
Compensation-Atonement (302) .01 .02 .01
Independence (4a1) .18 .26 .22
Positive Evaluation (4a2) .14 .09 .11
Evil-Projection (401) .14 .22 .18
Mora1 Goodness (402) .22 .30 .26

 

122

Table 15

Mean Scores on TAT Card 78M Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males Females All
Exposure of Inadequacy (18) .05 .04 .04
Moral Transgression (lb) .22 .12 .16
Rejection/Abandonment (28) .24 .20 .22
Punishment (20) .19 .17 .18
Exposure Reduction (38) .02 .05 .03
Punishment-Atonement (301) .10 .04 .07
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .01 .00
Independence (481) .38 .35 .37
Positive Evaluation (482) .08 .12 .10
Evil-Projection (401) .12 .12 .12
Moral Goodness (402) .24 .26 .25

 

123

Table 16
Mean Scores of TAT Card 88M Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (18) .02 .09 .05
Moral Transgression (lb) .45 .39 .42
Rejection/Abandonment (28) .18 .23 .20
Punishment (20) .27 .22 .24
Exposure Reduction (38) .01 .03 .02
Punishment-Atonement (301) .15 .15 .15
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .01 .00
Independence (481) \ .38 .34 .36
Positive Evaluation (482) .06 .09 .07
Evil-Projection (401) .38 .28 .33
Moral Goodness (402) .14 .15 .14

 

124

Mean Scores on TAT Card I3MF Grouped by Gender

Table 17

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .15 .09 .12
Moral Transgression (10) .51 .45 .48
Rejection/Abandonment (28) .40 .54 .47
Punishment (20) .24 .10 .17
Exposure Reduction (38) .08 .11 .09
Punishment-Atonement (301) .09 .20 .14
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .02 .01
Independence (481) .13 .12 .12
Positive Evaluation (482) .03 .08 .05
Evil-Projection (401) .30 .38 .34
Moral Goodness (402) .17 .37 .27

 

125

Table 18

Mean Scores on TAT Card 14 Grouped by Gender

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .09 .06 .07
Moral Transgression (lb) .24 .15 .19
Rejection/Abandonment (28) .24 .24 .24
Punishment (20) .14 .13 .13
Exposure Reduction (38) .14 .09 .11
Punishment-Atonement (301) .06 .03 .04
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .00 .00
Independence (481) l .18 .26 .22
Positive Evaluation (482) .03 .06 .04
Evil-Projection (401) .06 .10 .08
Moral Goodness (402) .04 .08 .06

 

126

Mean Scores on TAT Card 18GF Grouped by Gender

Table 19

 

 

Males Females A11
Exposure of Inadequacy (la) .04 .08 .06
Moral Transgression (lb) .39 .36 .38
Rejection/Abandonment (28) .36 .35 .36
Punishment (20) .23 .23 .23
Exposure Reduction (38) .OO .00 .OO
Punishment-Atonement (301) .19 .11 .15
Compensation-Atonement (302) .00 .01 .00
Independence (481) .16 .09 .12
Positive Evaluation (482) .02 .01 .01
Evil-Projection (401) .26 .26 .26
Moral Goodness (402) .17 .40 .28

 

127

Table 20

Correlations Among Males Between Shame and Guilt '
Measures and Objective Dependent Variables

 

Shame KS EMB SHY Guilt KG MSG MHG MMCG

 

 

IEMREL .35**’ .46*** .25* .13 .08 .28* .01 -.O4 -.O4
ILSOCO .54*** .45*** .37** .43*** .32** .19 .35** .22 .19
IAUT -.16 -.09 -.18 -.10 .06 .08 .12 -.O7 .05
Shy .46*** .29* .28*‘ .49*** .21 -.13 .33** .21 .24*
Intensity
Shy .62*** .38**’ .37** .68***’.20 -.02 .36** .21 .07
Frequency
Shy .46***’.26*' .20 .60*** .21 -.Ol .33** .22 .08
Comparison
Shy .64*** .52*** .35** .61*** .17 -.O7 .24*’ .22 .13
Problems
Intro- .21 .12 -.01 .38** .12 -.11 .22 .16 .09
version

*p_< .05

*fp < .01
***p < .001

128

Correlations Among Females Between Shame and Guilt Measures
and Objective Dependent Variables

Table 21

 

 

 

Shame KS EMB SHY Guilt KG MSG MHG MMCG
IEMREL .34** .33** .30* .16 .32** .05 .24* .23* .38**
ILSOCO .57*** .42*** .47*** .44*** .45**5.01 .39** .30* .59***
IAUT -.O7 -.10 -.17 .10 -.O9 -.10 -.06 —.02 -.O7
Shy .16 -.06 .06 .38** .12 -.12 .11 .18 .14
Intensity
Shy .44*** .17 .35** .51*** .04 -.02 .05 -.02 .10
Frequency
Shy .45*** .19 .25* .62*** .33** .08 .24* .21 .40**
Comparison 7
Shy .52*** .41** .29* .51*** .32** .19 .17 .16 .43***
Problems
Intro- .42*** .39** .23* .36** .23* -.02 .18 .09 .40**
version

*p_ < .05

**p_ < .01
“*2 < . 001

129

Table 22

Correlations Between Shame and Guilt Measures and
Objective Dependent Variables

 

 

Shame KS EMB SHY Guilt KG ZMSG ZMHG ZMMCG
IEMREL .35*** .39***.27** .15 .18* .17* .12 .09 .16
ILSOCO .56*** .44***.41***..44*** .37*** .09 .36*** .26** .38***
IAUT -.07 -.03 -.15 .02 -.02 .03 .03 -.05 -.01
Shy .33*** .13 .19* .44*** .17* .13 .23** .19* .19*
Intensity
Shy .55*** .30***.36*** .61*** .13 .04 .23* .11 .08 '
Frequency
Shy .45*** .22* .22* .50*** .26** .03 .29** .22* .22*
Comparison
Shy .58*** .47***.32*** .57*** .24** .03 .20* .19* .28**
Problems
Intro- .33*** .28** .10 .38*** .16 .09 .20* .12 .23**
version

 

Note.
within sex.
**p_2 .01

***p < .001

130

The Masher Guilt Scales (ZMSG, AMHG, ZMMCG) were standardized

Table 23

Correlations Among Males Between Shame and Guilt
Measures and TAT Variables

 

Shame KS EMB SHY Gui1t KG MSG MHG

 

Exposure of .01 —.01 .17 -.14 -.04 -.20 .15 .02
Inadequacy
(la)

Moral -.12 -.18 -.26"’ .16 -.10 -.16 .05 .00
Transgression
(lb)

Rejection] .35** .23* .27* .30* .17 .01 .28* .26*
Agandonment
a

:ungshment -.09 -.14 -.03 -.05 -.04 .11 .05 -.24*
20

Exposure .12 .14 .12 .02 .09 .10 .10 -.04
Reduction
(3a)

Punishment- -.13 -.22 -.09 -.00 -.03 -.06 .15 -.21
Atonement
(301)

Compensation- -.09 -.OS -.10 -.05 -.17 -.09 -.29* -.17
Atonement
(302)

Tatal -.13 -.21 -.O9 -.01 -.05 -.O7 .10 -.22
Atonement
(301 + 302)

Independence .07 .02 .11 .04 -.14 -.13 -.08 -.03
(481)

Positive -.04 -.03 -.11 .05 .21 .10 .20 .30*
Evaluation
(482)

Total .05 .01 .05 .05 -.04 -.07 .01 .09
Nonrejection
(481 + 482)

Evil- -.10 -.11 .04 -.18 -.19 .01 -.06 -.35**
Projection
(451)

Moral .21 .15 .05 .28* .08 .00 .07 .24

Goodness
(402)

Total .07 .02 .07 .06 -.10 .01 .00 -.12
Moral Purity
(401 + 402)

131

.08

.04

.03

.04

.03

Table 24

Correlations Among Females Between Shame and Guilt
Measures and TAT Variables

 

Shame Ks EMB SHY Guilt KG MSG MHG MMCG

 

Exposure of .10 .ll .11 .01 {-.18 -.07 -.13 -.19 -.14
Inadequacy
(la)

Moral -.Ol -.04 -.07 .09 -.26* -.28* -.06 -.28* -.16
Transgression
(lb)

Rejection]
Abandonment
(2a)

Pungshment .08 .09 .13 -.O4 -.08 -.10 .08 -.12 -.10
20

Exposure .07 .12 .00 .05 .02 -.00 .10 -.08 .03
Reduction
(3a)

Punishment- -.O6 -.03 -.11 -.Ol -.16 -.17 .07 -.21 -.16
Atonement
(301)

Compensation- -.18 -.17 .01 -.25* -.07 -.12 -.11 .08 -.07
Atonement
(302)

Total -.10 -.06 -.10 -.O6 -.16 -.18 .04 -.18 -.16
Atonement
(301 + 302)

.07 -.12 .05 -.08 -.16 -.07 -.23 -.08 -.08

.18 -.10 -.13 -.20 -.10 -.07 -.06 -.03 -.13

Independence
(4a1)

Positive .01 .03 .03 -.O3 -.00 .04 -.06 .00 .02
Evaluation
(482)

Total -.13 -.06 -.08 -.17 -.08 -.04 -.08 -.02 -.O9
Nonrejection
(481 + 482)

Evil- -.10 -.14 -.02 -.08 -.IS -.11 -.04 -.14 -.14
Projection
(4bl)

Moral -.15 -.15 -.10 -.09 .20 .19 .00 .30* .09
Goodness
(402)

Total -.19 -.21 -.O9 -.13 .04 .06 -.03 .ll -.04
Moral Purity
(401 + 402)

 

132

Table 25

Correlations Between Shame and Guilt Measures

and TAT Variables

 

Shame KS EMB SHY

Guilt

KG

ZMSG

ZMHG

ZMMCG

 

Exposure of .05 .05 .14 -.06
Inadequacy
(la)

Moral -.04 -.08 -.17* .14
Transgression
(lb)

Rejection] .13* .02 .17* .11
Abandonment
(24)

Punishment -.Ol -.02 .03 -.O3
(Zb)

Exposure .1O .13 .06 .04
Reduction
(38)

Punishment- -.08 -.10 -.09 .00
Atonement
(3011

Compensation-

Atonement
(302)

Total -.11 -.12 -.10 -.02
Atonement
(301 + 302)

Independence -.04 -.O4 .01 -.O6
(481)

Positive -.03 -.02 -.O4 -.00
Evaluation
(482)

Total -.04 -.04 -.Ol -.05
Nonrejection
(481 + 482)

Evil- -.12 -.15 .01 -.14
Projection
(401)

Moral -.O3 -.09 -.04 .04
Goodness
(402)

Total -.11 -.17 -.02 -.O7
Moral Purity
(451 + 452)

.16 -.15 -.05 -.17*

1:33

-.11

.05

.11

-.16

.15

-.12

.02

.05

.08

.13

.08

-.01

.04

.06

.10

.11

.08

.06

.03

.10

.14

.04

-.25**

.25**

.00

.06

.03

.02

Table 26

Correlations Between Korpi Shame Subscales
and Objective Variables

 

 

.Tc .SI 8 R F
Guilt .10 .12 .12 .01 .28**
KG .04 -.00 . .11 .03 .15
EMB .60*** .41*** .22** .27** .37***
ZMSG .02 .04 .04 .00 .19*
ZMHG .05 .06 .07 -.02 .19*
ZMMHG .19* .25** .14 .00 .28**
IEMREL .36*** .26** .18* .31*** .21*
ILSOCO .37*** .42*** .08 .19* .27**
IAUT -.06 -.10 -.10 .05 .07
SHY .18* .08 .13 .15 .37***

 

Note: The Masher Guilt Scales (ZMSG,ZMHG, ZMMHG) were standardized
within sex.

fp_< .05

** < .01

*** < .001

134

Correlations

Table 27

Between Korpi Shame
and TAT Themes

Subscales

 

 

'TC 51 B R F
Exposure of .08 .11 .06 .24** -.14
Inadequacy (18)
Moral Transgression (lb) -.16* .15 -.10 11 .04
Rejection/ .08 .02 -.09 03 -.04
Abandonment (28)
Punishment (20) -.12 .02 -.11 .18* .14
Exposure Reduction (38) .11 .16* - 01 .09 .15
Punishment- -.09 .13 -.17* -.01 .02
Atonement (301)
Compensation— -.09 .10 .02 -.Ol -.l8*
Atonement (302)
Independence (481) .03 .13 .14 -.10 -.02
Positive -.00 .09 .11 -.05 -.08
Evaluation (482)
Evil Projection (401) -.17* .09 - 10 .O7 -.11
Moral Goodness (402) .01 .14 .09 -.19* -.10

 

*p_< .05
**p_ < .01

135

APPENDIX B
FIGURES

Figure 1. Number of stories
_conta n ng Moral Transgression
themes as a function of
shame-proneness and gender.

Fi ure 2. Number of stories
containing Punishment-Atonement
themes as a function of
shame-proneness and gender.

Fi re 3. Number of stories
containing Punishment-Atonement
ar Compensation-Atonement themes

as a function of shame-
proneness and gender.

Fi ure 4. Number of stories
containing Moral Goodness themes
as a function of shame-proneness
and gender.

Moral Transgression

Punishment-Atonement

Total Atonement

Moral Goodness

3.0

2.5

2.0
1.5

1.5

1.0

 

 

 

 

 

* females
0 males
‘1
Low Medium High
Shame Group
* females
0 males
Low Medium High
Shame Group
* females
0 males
°______——-—-0
t\~\\\\\\\\*
Low Medium High
1 Shame Group
* females
. 0 males
*/
t
0\
Low Medium High
Shame Group

137

Fi ure 5. Number of stories
containing Inadequacy themes
as a function of shame-
proneness.

Fi ure 6. Number of stories
containing Rejection themes
as a function of shame-
proneness.

F1 are 7. Number of stories
containing Exposure Reduction
themes as a function of shame-
proneness .

Fi re 8. Number of stories
containing Independence themes
as a function of shame-proneness.

Fi re 9. Number of stories
containing Positive Evaluation
themes as a function of
shame-proneness.

Inadequacy

Rejection

Exposure Reduction

Independence

Positive Evaluation

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.0
.5
de Medium High
Shame Group
4.0
O
3.5
3.0 f:\ol ‘
Lou Mediua High
Shame Group
.70 or
11- °
.60<n
.50 ‘r \
Low Medium High
Shame Group
2.50
2.45 a\\\\\‘
2.40 o
2.35 \
2.30 1 l g
is. Mediin High
Shame Group
.80
.75
.70
O
.65 a 1 l
de Medium High
Shame Group

1138

Compensation—
Atonement (302)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(.24)
Punishment- so. ('65) Moral ('20) Exposure
Atonement g , Transgression<— rReduction
(351) (15) (38)
(.52) (.52)
Punishment (20)
(.48)
Evil-Projection Independence
(401) (481)
(.25)
. . (.37)
Exposure of (.22) Rejection] _. 8.Moral
Inadequacy 5%; Abandonment;; Goodness
(la) (28) (402)
(.26)
Positive
Evaluation
(482)

Figure 10. TAT variables grouped by type.

Note. Correlations between variables are shown in parentheses between
those variables.

 

Indicates a reciprocal pair of variables.

7; Indicates that the correlation of the variable at the tail
of the arrow is highest with the variable at the head, while the inverse
of this is not the case.

 

‘

 

139

APPENDIX C
INSTRUMENTS

Korpi Shame-Guilt Test
(KS = shame items, KG = guilt items)
Susceptibility to Embarrassment
Masher Forced Choice Guilt Scales
(MSG = Sex-guilt items
MHG = Hostility-guilt items
MMCG = Morality conscious-guilt items)
(1) Female form
(2) Male form
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory
(A = Assertion of Autonomy Items--IAUT
E = Emotional Reliance on Others--IEMREL
L = Lack of Social Self-Confidence Items--ILSOCO
Revised Stanford Shyness Survey

Code No.

 

Below are a number of situations in which you might find yourself. or which
you may have experienced. Please indicate how upset or uncomfortable you
think you would feel in each of the situations described by marking. in the
space to the left, the number that best corresponds to how you think you
would feel. For each situation described rate how you would feel along a
scale which ranges from "not at all upset" to "very upset". Be sure to
respond to every item.

11)

12)

13)

14)

15)

16)
17)

18)

19)

20)

21)

1) Not at all upset
2) Somewhat upset
3) Fairly upset

4) Pretty upset

5) Very upset

You don't report all of your income so your taxes won't be such
a drain. (KG

Your entire class has to read an article for a paper due the next
day. You don't have time to read it in the library and the article
cannot be checked out. You rip it out of the magazine and take it
with you. (KG) '

You work for a small company. One day you take a couple of folders
and a box of paper clips from the office storeroam home with you
because you were running out. (KG)

You are unbelievably awkward trying to play a new sport. Your
friends are trying to teach you and you feel as if you are all
arms and legs. (KS)

You're paying the bill after a superb meal in one of the city's
best French restaurants. The waiter in returning your change
gives you too much. You keep it, acting as if you didn't notice. (KG)

You are caught unexpectedly by someone talking to yourself. (KS)

A friend provokes you. In an angry moment you tell him a secret
about his wife that he doesn't need to know and that you know
will hurt him. (KG) '

Your boss has planned a big meeting where your presentation is to
be the highlight. You fail to live up to his expectations and
your company loses the account. (KS)

You are finally involved sexually with someone you have seen as
very attractive but uninterested in you. Suddenly you find
yourself to be a poor partner. (KS)

You're telling a joke and suddenly realize you are the only one
laughing. (KS)

You accidently let it slip in a conversation something that was
told to you in strict canfiégence. (KG)

142

I) Not at all upset
2) Somewhat upset
3) Fairly upset

4) Pretty upset

5) Very upset

22) You have a mild case of epilepsy. You forget to take your pills
and have a convulsion before friends who didn't know. (KS)

23) Everyone in your neighborhood takes pride.in keeping the neighbor-
hood clean. You're unwrapping a package and casually toss the
wrapper on the street, hoping that no one will see you. (KG)

24) You and a friend are both looking at houses. He shows you a
house he has in mind and it's exactly what you were looking for.
He delays and you are afraid that someone else will get it. so
you take it. (KG)

25) A friend asks you to write a letter of reference and is-really .
depending on your letter. You don't honestly feel you can
recommend him highly, so you write a mediocre one, but don't
tell him. (KC)

26) You are trying to park your car when you smash into the car behind
you, denting the fender. You see someone walking toward the car
so you drive off, figuring the damage was small. (KG)

27) You're usually very calm when discussing heated.subjects. All
of a sudden you hear your own voice and realize you're almost
shouting. (KS)

28) You're reading an old diary and can't believe you wrote such non-
sense. You feel ridiculous to have written down such things. (KS)

The following statements describe traits, feelings or personal characteristics
that might fit you. Please rateieach statement according to how character-
istic it is of you, from "not at all" like you to "very much" like you, by
marking your answer in the space to the left. Be sure to answer every question.

1) Not at all true of me
2) Rarely true of me

3) Somewhat true of me
4) Pretty true of me

5) Very true of me

29) I don't gossip about others. (KC)

30) I blush when someone notices something about me I wasn't aware of. (KS)

 

31)

32)

 

33)

34)

 

35)

 

36)

 

37)

 

38)

 

39)

 

40)

 

41)

 

42)

 

43)

 

44)

 

45)

 

46)

 

I43

1) Not at all true of me
2) Rarely true of me

3) Somewhat true of me
4) Pretty true of me

5) Very true of me

I like to think of myself as not caring about public opinion
and am bothered when I find it isn't so. (KS)

I worry about making foolish mistakes and wonder what other
people would think. (KS)

I feel nagged about lttle things around the house that I failed
to do. (KG)

I can't stand to see others' feelings hurt. (KG)
I worry about giving myself away. (KS)
I sometimes worry about cheating or lying. (KG)

I have a tendency to make up excuses to avoid situations that
would make me uncomfortable. (KS)

When someone else is accused of something, I sometimes worry I
might have done something wrong. (KG)

When I have done something wrong I feel better if I talk about
it to someone. (KG)

I hate to cry in front of anyone. (KS)
I feel bad even if I think bad thoughts about others. (KS)
I try to use kid gloves when saying something unkind. (KG)

I often deceive others into believing things about me that
aren't so. (KS)

Sometimes I accuse someone else of something I did to cover
my own guilt. (KG)

I am very modest about my own body, especially about being seen
nakeda (KS)

I worry more about failing to live up to my my moral obligations
than failing to achieve my ambitions. (KG)

(Iodc .‘i'o .

—-¢“-----"—--___.—

EMBARRASSING CIRCUMSTANCES

Everyone knows that some things are more embarrassing than others. That is,
some things make one blush. or feel like blushing. or otherwise uncomfortable.
Below is a list of things which have happened to most people, and could

happen to anybody. For each happening. pines a l, 2. or 3;in'the-spsce to

the left of each to indicate whether if it happened to you today, you would
consider it "Not embarrassing", "Somewhat embarrassing", or "Very embarrassing."

Give your first impression. once you've read and understood the description
of the event. and be sure to answer evegy question.

I) Not embarrassing
2) Somewhat embarrassing
3) Very embarrassing

51) Your boss asks you a question you can't answer.
52) You show fear in front of friends.

53) You have to have something explained to you several times.

54) You have to ask for a cheaper product in a store. because you
don't have enough money.

55) You fall down on a crowded sidewalk.

56) You are approached for money by a beggar.

57) You tell a joke, but nobody laughs.

58) You overhear, by chance. some gossip about yourself.

59) You are one of the last ones picked when sides are chosen for
a teen game.

60) M: Dancing with a woman who's taller than you.
P: Dancing with a man who's shorter than you.

61) You are called on unexPectedly for a speech.

62) You get a big hug or kiss from a close relative, in front of
non-family friends.

63) You get a low mark in a school course.
64) You ask the dentist for a pain-killing shot.

65) You are the butt of a practical joke. For example. you have
a "Kick me" sign pinned on your back.

66) You forget the name of a former friend upon meeting them again.

:90: 960 02,1 the ustltuts Ior PsrsonaIIty and AbIIIty Testlng. 1602-04 Coronado Orlvs. Champalgn, Illinois. All rights reserved. Printed In U S A
m o ‘ Irsn's ted or reproduced In whoIs or In part. stored In a retrieval system. or transrnlttsd In any Iorm or by any means. photocopyldg.
schan ca . e sctronlc. recording. or otherwise. without prior psrrnlsslon In writlng Irorn the pubIIshsr. Catalog No. 00 399

(Reproduced by permission)

144

67)

68)
69)
70)

71)

72)
73)
7b)

75)

76)
77)
78)
79)
80)
81)

82)

83)
84)

85)
86)
87)

88)

145

1) Not embarrassing
2) Somewhat embarrassing
3) Very embarrassing

You are reprimanded (bawled out) by a superior in front of
your co—workers. ~

You step on your parner's feet while dancing.
You find dirt on your face after being with people.
You get a "wrong number" when telephoning.

Your gossip about someone gets back to them, and they tell
you about it.

Someone insults you and challenges you to fight. but you do not.
You buy personal clothing items for a member of the opposite sex.
You have to kiss a person you don't know in a party game.

With several people of the opposite sex, you see a movie which
turns out to be quite sexually explicit.

You lose a game of tennis to an eight-year-old boy.
You have a complete physical examination.

A friend cries in your presence.

A policeman gives you a ticket for speeding.

You leave a small tip when you're short of money.
You are caught cheating in a card game with friends.

You meet your boss soon after you called to say you're sick
and will have to stay out of work. .

You use a washroom without adequate soundproofing.

You make a criticism of a religious or racial group, then
realise that a member of that group is present.

You put on someone else's cost by mistake.
You get angry at a good friend without real cause.
You are laughed at by friends.

You accidently spray salivh (spit) when talking.

89)

90)

91)

92)
93)
9A)
95)

96)

97)
98)

99)

'100)

101)

102)

103)

06)

|H

105)

106)

146

1) Not embarrassing
2) Somewhat embarrassing
3) Very embarrassing

You swear in front of a member of the opposite sex.
You forget your lines in a play.

You attend a social function dressed very differently from the
other people there.

You are thrown out of a public place.

You hear a dirty or obscene joke in a group of men and women.
You applaud at the wrong time during a show or concert.

You get hiccups in a crowded bus.

A member of the opposite sex shows obvious affection for you
while in a public place.

You buy personal articles in a drugstore.

A member of the opposite sex tries to "pick you up."
You make a "slip of the tongue."

You are reminded a second time to pay a bill.

Your dentist tells you you have bad breath.

You discover a rip in the seat of your clothes while in a
large group of men and women.

You forget your own address or telephone number.

You make some remark which is ignored at a meeting or in a
fairly large conversational group.

You say hello to someone, then discover you don't know them.

You spill water in a crowded restaurant.

Code Number

 

Masher F-C Inventory (F)

This questionnaire consists of a number of pairs of-statements or opinions
which have been given by college women in response.to the Mosher'Incomplete

Sentences Test." These women were asked to complete phrases.such as "When I
tell a lie. . ." and "To kill in war. . ." to make a sentence which expressed
their real feelings about the stem. This questionnaire consistsu of the

stems to which they responded and a pair of their responses which are lettered
A and B.

You are to read the stem and the pair of completions and decide which you
most agree with or which is most characteristic of you._.Your choice, in
each instance, should be in terms of what you believe, how you feel, or

how you would react, and 225 in terms of how you think you should believe,
feel, or respond. This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers.
Your choices should be a description of your own personal beliefs, feelings,
or reactions.

In some instances you may discover that you believe both completions or
neither completion to be characteristic of you. In such cases select the
ggg_you more strongly believe to be the case asifar.as you are concerned.
Be sure to find an answer for every choice. Do not omit an item even if

it is very difficult for you to decide; just select the more characteristic
member of the pair.

Mark your answer by circling the letter A or B corresponding to the response
which you most agree with. Be sure to answer every question.

147'

121)

122)

123)

126)

125)

126)

127)

128)

129)

130)

131)

132)

133)

148

I punish myself . . .
A. very infrequently.
B. when I do wrong and don't get caught.

If I killed someone in self-defense . . .
A. I would be glad to be alive.
B. I would be a murderer.

When anger builds inside me . . .
A. I let people know how I feel.
B. I'm angry at myself.

If in the future I committed adultery . . .
A.'I hope.I would be punished very deeply.
B. I hope I enjOy it.

Obscene literature . . .
A. is all right if you like it.
B. ought to be completely abolished.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company . . .
A. do not bother me.

B. are something that make me feel very uncomfortable.

Masturbation . . .
A. helps one feel eased and relaxed.
B. is wrong and will ruin you.

I detest myself for . . .
A. nOthing, I love life.
B. my sins and failures.

Sex relations before marriage . . .
A. should be permitted.
B. are wrong and immoral.

If in the future I committed adultery . . .
A. I would be unworthy of my husband.
B. I would have good cause.

I should have been punished for . . .
A. many things I kept secret.
B. Very few things.

Capital punishment . . .

A. is totally acceptable for capital crimes.

B. is wrong and should be stapped.

If I committed a homosexual act .
A. it would be my business.
B. it would show weakness in me.

MMCG

MHG

MHG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

134)

135)

136)

137)

138)

139)

140)

141)

142)

143)

144)

145)

146)

149

When caught in the act . . .
A. I make a fool of myself.
B. I try to get out of it the best I can.

After a childhood fight, I felt . . .
A. guilty and ashamed.
B. that I had triumphed.

When I was a child, sex . . .

A. was not talked about and was a feared word.

B. was fun to think about.

When I have sexual dreams . . .
A. I sometimes wake up feeling excited.
B. I try to forget them.

When I was younger, fighting . . .
A. didn't bother me.
B. never appealed to me.

Arguments leave me feeling . . .
A. elated at winning.
B. depressed and disgusted.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company . . .
A. can be funny depending on the company.
B. are in bad taste.

Capital punishment . . .
A. is a good deterent to crime.
B. does not deter crime, so why keep it.

Obscene literature . . .
A. makes interesting reading.
B. is for people with sick minds.

I detest myself for . . .
A. nothing at present.
B. being so self-centered.

Petting . . .

A. is an expression of affection which is satisfying.
B. I am sorry to say is becoming an accepted practice.

Unusual sex practices . .
A. are not so unusual.
B. don't interest me.

After a childhood fight, I felt . . .
A. good if I won, bad otherwise.
B. hurt and alarmed.

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MHG

MHG

MSG

MHG

MMCG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MHG

147)

148)

149)

150)

151)

152)

153)

154)

155)

156)

157)

158)

159)

150

If I hated my parents . . .
A. I would need psychiatric help.
B. I would rebel at their every wish.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company . . .
A. disgust me.
B. do not bother me as long as they are just in fun.

If I had sex relations, I would feel . . .
A. very dirty.
B. happy and satisfied.

Sex . . .
A. is good and enjoyable.
B. should be saved for wedlock and childbearing.

After an outburst of anger . . .
A. I usually feel quite a bit better.
B. I feel ridiculous.

I punish myself . . .
A. when I make mistakes.

B. rarely.

After an argument . . .
A. I feel proud in victory, understanding in defeat.
B. I wish that I hadn't argued.

A guilty conscience . . .
A. does not bother me too much.
B. is worse than a sickness to me.

When I have sexual desires . . .
A. I enjoy it like all healthy human beings.

MHG

MSG

MSG

MSG

MHG

MMCG

MHG

MMCG

MSG

B. I fight them for I must have complete control of my body.

Prostitution . . .
A. makes me sick when I think about it.
B. needs to be understood.

After a childhood fight, I_felt . . .
A. that it was partly my fault.
B. much better, but made friends afterwards.

Unusual sex practices . . .
A. might be interesting.
B. are disgusting and revolting.

The idea of murder . . .
A. is inconceivable to me.
B. is understandable at times.

MSG

MSG

MHG

160)

161)

162)

163)

164)

165)

166)

167)

168)

169)

170)

171)

172)

151

Sex relations before marriage . . .
A. are disgusting and unnecessary.
B. are O.K. if both partners are in agreement.

Masturbation . . .
A. is sickening.
B. is understandable in many cases.

One should not . . .
A. say "one should not."
B. lose his/her temper.

If in the future I committed adultery . . .

A. I would resolve not to commit the mistake again.

B. I would hope there would be no consequences.

Unusual sex practices . . .
A. are all in how you look at it.
B. are unwise and lead only I) trouble.

Obscene literature . . .
A. helps peOple become sex perverts.
B. is fun to read once in a while.

Capital punishment . . .

A. is the only thing some criminals can understand.

B. is legal murder; it is inhuman.

Petting . . .
A. is just asking for trouble.
B. can lead to bigger and better things.

After an outburst of anger . . .
A. my tensions are relieved.
B. I am jittery and all keyed up.

When I have sexual desires . . .
A. I know it's only human.
B. I usually express them.

If I had sex relations, Iwould feel . . .
A. guilty, sinful, and bad.
B. happy if I loved the man and he loved me.

I punish myself . . .
A. for very few things.
B. by denying myself a privilege.

Masturbation . . .
A. is stupid.
B. is a common thing in childhood.

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MHG

MSG

MHG

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

173)

174)

175)

176)

177)

178)

179)

180)

181)

182)

183)

184)

185)

152

Sin and failure-, . .
A. are the works of the devil.
B. do not depress me for long.

Unusual sex practices . . .

A. are the business of those who carry them out and no

one else.

B. are dangerous to one's health and mental condition.

After an argument . . .

MMCG

MSG

MHG

A. I feel happy if I won or still stick to my own views

if I lose.
B. I am disgusted that I let myself become involved.

Petting . . .
A. is justified with love.
B. is not a good practice until after marriage.

After a childhood fight, I felt . . .
A. like I was a hero.
B. as if I had done wrong.

When I have sexual desires . . .
A. I try to go to sleep and forget them.
B. I become easily aroused.

I detest myself for . . .
A. not always listening to those who know better.
B. very little.

If I had sex relations I would feel . . .
A. cheap and unfit for marriage.
B. warm and very good.

Sex relations before marriage . . .
A. ruin many a happy couple.
B. might help the people to understand each other and

I regret . . .
A. the way I have behaved.
B. few things in my life.

Masturbation . . .
A. is a normal outlet for sexual desires.
B. is wrong and a sin.

After an argument . . .
A. if I have won,I feel great.
B. I am sorry for my actions.

Petting . . .
A. depends on whom I'm with.

MSG

MHG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

themselves.

MMCG

MSG

MSG

B. is against my better judgement but hard to resist for some.

153

186) After a fight I felt . . . MHG
A. relieved.
B. it should have been avoided for nothing was accomplished.

187) Masturbation . . . MSG
A. is all right.
B. is a form of self destruction.

188) Unusual sex practices . . . MSG
A. are all right if both partners agree.
B. are awful and unthinkable.

189) If I committed a homosexual act . . . MSG
A. I would want to be punished.
B. I would be discreet.

190) When I have sexual desires . . . MSG
A. I attempt to repress them.
B. I sometimes think of past experiences.

191) If I had sex relations, I would feel . . . MSG
A. all right, I think.
B. I was being used not loved.

192) Arguments leave me feeling . . . MHG
A. that it was a waste of time.
B. as if I might have accomplished something.

193) Sin and failure . . . MMCG
A. depress me more than any other acts.
3. are not necessarily related.

194) If I felt like murdering someone . . . MHG
A. I would be ashamed of myself.
B. it would be for a good reason.

195) Sex relations before marriage . . . MSG
A. are not good for anyone.
B. with the person I hope to marry is o.k.

196) After an outburst of anger . . . MHG
A. I feel much better.
B. I usually hate myself for being so silly.

197) "Dirty" jokes in mixed company . . . MSG
A. should be avoided.
B. are acceptable up to a point.

Code Number

Masher F-C Inventory (M)

This questionnaire consists of a number of pairs of statements or opinions
which have been given by college men in response to the "Masher Incomplete
Sentences Test." These men were asked to complete phrases such as "When I
tell a lie. . ." and "To kill in war. . ." to make a sentence which expressed
their real feelings about the stem. This questionnaire consists- of the

stems to which they responded and a pair of their responses which are lettered
A and B.

You are to read the stem and the pair of completions and decide which you
most agree with or which is most characteristic of you. Your choice, in
each instance, should be in terms of what you believe, how you feel, or

how you would react, and gg£_in terms of how you think you should believe,
feel, or respond. This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers.
Your choices should be a description of your own personal beliefs, feelings,
or reactions.

In some instances you may discover that you believe both completions or
neither completion to be characteristic of you. In such cases select the
gas you more strongly believe to be the case askfar-as you are concerned.
Be sure to find an answer for every choice. Do not omit an item even if

it is very difficult forgyou to decide; just select the more characteristic
member of the pair.

Mark your answer by circling the letter A or B corresponding to the response
which you most agree with. Be sure to answer every question.

154

121.

122.

123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.
129.
130.
131.
132.
133.

134.

155

When I tell a lie . . .

A.
B.

it hurts.
I make it a good one.

To kill in war. . .

A.
B.

is a job to be done.
is a shame but sometimes a necessity.

Women who curse. . .

A.
B.

are normal.
make'ma sick.

When anger builds inside me. . .

A.
B.

If I killed someone in self-defense, I. . .

A.
B.

I usually explode.
I keep my mouth shut.

would feel no anguish.

think it would trouble me the rest of my life.

I punish myself. . .

A.
B.

If
A.
B.

for the evil I do.

very seldom for other people do it for me.

in the future I committed adultery. . .
I won't feel bad about it.
it would be sinful.

Obscene literature. . .

A.
B.

is a sinful and corrupt business.
is fascinating reading.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company. . .

A.
B.

As
A.
B.

are common in our town.
should be avoided...~

a child, sex play. . .
never entered my mind.
is quite wide spread.

I detest myaelf for. . .

A.
8.

my sins and failures.

for not having more exciting sexual experiences.

Sex relations before marriage. ....

A.
B.

If
A.
B.

ruin many a happy couple.
are good in my Opinion.

in the future I committed adultery. . .
I wouldn't tell anyone.
I would probably feel bad about it.

When I have sexual desires. . .

A.
a-

I usually try to curb them.

1’ omnerml‘lw “121er then.

MMCG

MHG

MMCG

MHG

MHG

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MSG

137.

138.

139.

140.

141.

142.

143. '

11.4.

145..

146 O

156

If I killed someone in self-defense, I. . .
A. wouldn't enjoy it.
B. I'd be glad to be alive}

Unusual sex practices. . .
A. might be interesting.
B. don't interest me.

If I felt like murdering someone. . .
A. I would be ashamed of myself.
B. I would try to commit the perfect crime.

If I hated my parents. . .
A. I would hate myself.
I would rebel at their every wish.

After an outburst of anger. . .
A. I usually feel quite a bit better.
B. I am.sorry and say so.

I punish myself. . .
A. never.
B. by feeling nervous and depressed.

Prostitution. . .
A. is a must.
B. breeds only evil.

If I killed someone in self-defense, I. . .

A. would still be troubled by my conscience.

B. would consider myself lucky.

When I tell a lie. . .
A. I'm angry with myself.

B. I mix it with truth and serve it like a Martini.

As a child, sex play. . .

A. is not good for mental and emotional well being.

B. is natural and innocent.

en someone swears at me. . .
A. I swear back.
B

. it usually bothers me even if I don't show it.

When I was younger, fighting. . .
A. was always a thrill.
B. disgusted me.

MSG

MHG

MHG

MHG

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MHG

147.

148.

149 .

150.

151.

152.

153.

154. -

155.

156.

157.

158.

159'. -

160. ~

157

Asa child, sex play. . .
A. was a big taboo and I was deathly afraid of it.
B. was col-son without guilt feelings.

After an argument. . .
A. I feel mean.
B. I am sorry for my actions.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company. . .
A. are not proper.
B. are exciting and 'amusing.

Unusual sex practices. . .
A. are awful and unthinkable.
B. are not so unusual to me.

than I hava sex dreams. . .
A. I cannot radar them in the morning.
B. I wake up happy.

When I was younger, fighting. . .
A. never appealed to me.
B. was fun and frequent.

One should not. . .
A. knowlingly sin.
B. try to follow absolutes.

To kill in war. . .
A. is good and meritable.
B. would be sickening to me.

I detest myself for . . .
A. nothing, I love life.
B. not being more nearly perfect.

"Dirty" jokes in mixed company. . .
A. are lots of fun.
B. are coarse to say the least.

Petting. . .
A. is smthing that should be controlled.
B. is a form of education.

After an argument. . .
A. I usually feel better.

B. .I ma disgusted that I allowed myself to become involvod.

Obscene literature. . .
A. should be freely published.
B. helps people become sexual perverts.

I regret. . .
A. my sexual experiences.
B. nothing I've ever done.

MSG
MHG
MSG
MSG
MSG
....

MMCG

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MMCG

161.

1620'

163.

164.

165.

166.5

167.

168.

169.

170.

171.

172.

1731

1743

158

A guilty conscience. . .
A. does not bother me too such.

B. is worse than a sickness to me.

If I felt like mrdering someone. . .
A. it would be for good reason.
B. I'd think I was crazy.

Arguments leave me feeling. . .
A. That it was a waste of time.
B. matter. °

After a childhood fight, I felt. . .
A. miserable and made up afterwards.
B. like a hero.

than anger builds inside me. . .
A. I do my best to suppres it.
B. I have to blow off some stems.

Unusual sex practices. . .
A. are 0.1:. as long as they're heterosexual.

B. usually aren't pleasurable because you have preconceived

about their being wrong.

I regret. . .
A. getting caught, but nothing else.
B. all of my sins.

than I tell a lie. . .
A. my conscience bothers me.
B. I wonder whether I'll get away with it.

Sex relations before marriage. . .
A. are practiced too much to be wrong.
B. in my ppinion, should not be practiced.

As a child, sex play. . .
A. is dangerous.
B. is not harmful but does create sexual pleasure.

that ought in the act. . .
A. I try to bluff my any out.
B. truth is the best policy.

As a child sex play. . .
A. was indulged in.
B. is insture and ridiculous.

than I tell a lie. . .
A. it is an exception or rather an odd occurrence.
B. I tell a lie.

If I hated my parents. . .
A. I would be wrong, foolish, and feel guilty.
B. they would know it that's for sure!

MMCG

MHG
MHG
MHG

MHG

MSG

feelings

MMCG

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MHG

175.
176.
. 177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185,
186.
187.

138.

159

If I robbed a bank. . .
A. I would give up I suppose.
B. I probably would get away with it.

Arguments leave me feeling. . .
A. proud, they certainly are worthwhile.
B. depressed and disgusted.

iben I have sexual desires. . .
A. they are quite strong.
B. I art-pt to repress them.

Sin and failure. . .
A. are two situations we try to avoid.
B. do not depress me for long.

Sex relations before marriage. . .
A. help people to adjust.
B. should not be recommended.

When anger builds inside me. . .
A. I feel like killing somebody.
B. I get sick.

If I robbed a bank. . .
A. I would live like a king.
B. I should get caught.

Masturbation. . .

A. is a habit that should be controlled.

B. is very common.

After an argument. . .
A. I feel proud in victory and understanding in defeat.
B. I am sorry and see no reason to stay mad.

Sin and failure. . .
A. are the works of the Devil.
B. have not bothered me yet.

If I emitted a homosexual act. . .
A. it would be my business.
B. it would show weakness in me.

men anger builds inside me. . .
A. I always express it.
B. I usually take it out on myself.

Prostitution. . .
A. is a sign of moral decay in society.
B. is acceptable and needed by some people.

Capital punishment. . .
A. should be abolished.
B. is a necessity.

MMCG

MSG

MMCG

MSG

MHG.

MMCG

MHG

MMCG

MSG

MHG

MSG

MHG

189.

.19-0:

191.

192.

193.

194.

195.

196.

197.

198.

199.

160

Sex relations before marriage. . . '

A. are 0.1!. if both partners are in agreement.
B. are dangerous.

I tried to make usends. . .

A. for all my misdeeds, but I can't forget them.
B. but not if I could hdlp it.

After a childhood fight, I felt. . .

A. sorry.

B. mad and irritable.

I detest nyself for . . .

A. nothing, and only rarely dislike myself.
B. thoughts I sometimes have.

Arm-mats leave me feeling. . .

A. satisfied usually.

B. exhausted.

Masturbation. . .

A. is all right.-

B. should not be practiced.

After an arm-ent. . .

A. I usually feel good if I won.

B. it is best to apilogise to clear the air.
I hate. . .

A. sin.

B. moralists and "do gooders."

Sex

A. is a beautiful gift of God not to be cheapened.
B. is good and enjoyable.

Capital pmisl'nsnt. . .

A. is not used often enough.

B. is legal murder, it is inhuman.
Prostitution. . .

A. should be legalized

cannot really afford enjoyment.

MSG

MMCG

MMG

MMCG

MHG

MHG

MHG

MSG

MHG

11)

12)
13)
14)
15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
20)

21)

22)

23)

24)

25)

26)

27)

—.

28)

29)

Code No.

 

Please look at each of the 48 items below and indicate the extent to which
each is characteristic of you by marking, in the space to the left of each
item, the number that best corresponds to how you see yourself. Be sure to
respond to all 48 items.

 

1) Not characteristic of me

2) Somewhat characteristic of me

3) Quite characteristic of me

4) Very characteristic of me
I prefer to be by myself. (A)
When I have a decision to make, I always ask for advice. (L)
I do my best work when I know it will be appreciated. (E)
I can't stand being fussed over when I am sick. (A)
I would rather be a follower than a leader. (L)
I believe people could do a lot more for me if they wanted to. (E)
As a child, pleasing my parents was very important to me. (E)
I don't need other people to make me feel good. (A)

Disapproval by someone I care about is very painful to me. (E)

I feel confidentof my ability to deal with most of the personal prob-
lems I am likely to meet in life. (L)

I'm the only person I want to please. (A)

The idea of losing a close personal friend is terrifying to me. (E)
I am quick to agree with opinions expressed by others. (L)

I rely only on myself. (A)

I would be completely lost if I didn't have someone special. (E)

I get upset when someone discovers a mistake I've made. (E)

It is hard for me to ask someone for a favor. (L)

I hate it when people offer me sympathy. (A)

I easily get discouraged when I don't get what I need from others. (E)

161

50)
31)
32)
33)
34)
35)
36)
37)

38)

39)
40)
41)
42)
43)
44)

45)
46)
47)
48)
4'9)

50)

51)

162

1) Not characteristic of me

2) Somewhat characteristic of me

3) Quite characteristic of me

4) Very characteristic of me
In an argument, I give in easily. (L)
I don't need much from people. (A)
I must have one person who is very special to me. (E)
When I go to a party, I expect that other people will like me. (L)
I feel better when I know someone else is in command. (L)
When I am sick, I prefer that my friends leave me alone. (A)

I'm never happier than when people say I've done a good job. (E)

It is hard for me to make up my mind about a tv show or movie until
I know what other people think. (L)

I am willing to disregard other people's feelings in order to
accomplish something that's important to me. (A)

I need to have one person who puts me above all others. (E)

In social situations I tend to be very self-conscious. (L)

I don't need anyone. (A)

I have a lot of trouble making decisions myself. (L)

I tend to imagine the worst if a loved one doesn't arrive when expected. (E)

Even when things go wrong I can get along without asking for help
from my» friends. (A)

I tend to expect too much from others. (E)

I don't like to buy clothes by myself. (L)

I tend to be a loner. (A)

I feel that I never really get all that I need from people. (E)

When I meet new people, I'm afraid that I won't do the right thing. (L)

Even if most people turned against me, I could still go on if someone
I love stood by'mes (E)

I would rather stay free of involvements with others than to risk
disappointments. (L)

163

1) Not characteristic of me

2) Somewhat characteristic of me
3) Quite characteristic of me

4) Very characteristic of me

52) What people think of me doesn't affect how I feel. (A)
53) I think that most poeple don't realize how easily they can hurt me. (E)
54) I am very confident about my own judgement. (L)

55) I have always had a terrible fear that I will lose the love and support
of people I desperately need. (E)

56) I don't have what it takes to be a good leader. (L)
57) I would feel helpless if deserted by someone I love. (E)

58) What other people say doesn't bother me. (A)

Code No.

 

Please mark, in the space to the left, the number that corresponds
to your answer. Be sure to answer every question.

71)Do you consider yourself to be a shy person?

1. no
2. yes
72) How shy are you when you feel shy?
1. only slightly shy 4. quite shy
2. somewhat shy 5. very shy
.3. moderately shy 6. extremely shy
73)How often do you experience (have you experienced) feelings
of shyness?
1. rarely, once a month 4. often, nearly every
2. occasionally, less than other day

once a week 5. almost every day
3. one or two times a week 6. every day

74)Compared to your peers (of similar age, sex and background),
how shy are you?
1. much less shy
2. less shy
3. about as shy
4. more shy
5. much more shy

75)Is (or was) your shyness ever a personal problem for you?
1. never

. rarely

. yes, occasionally

. yes, sometimes

. yes, often

UlJ-‘UN

76)Do you consider yourself more of an introvert or an extrovert?
. strongly extroverted

moderately extroverted

slightly extroverted

neither

slightly introverted

moderately introverted

strongly introverted

\JO‘UIbUNt-O
0

+164

APPENDIX D

TRAINING MANUAL S

166

Each rater was given a training manual composed of the following
sections: General Guidelines, Scoring Instructions, Scoring Criteria,
a sample scoring Sheet and a sample time sheet. Only the scoring
criteria differed between rating groups; thus, in the interest of
conserving space and avoiding redundancy, rather than include all four
manuals in their entirety, the sections common to all four group
manuals are presented first, followed by each of the four sets of

scoring criteria.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

All coding is to be done in Room 112 Psychology Research Building.

Under no circumstances may the TAT stories or the scoring sheets
ever leave the research room.

Each group will be assigned a file cabinet drawer which will con-
tain:
a) an extra copy of the scoring criteria (try to remember
to bring your own when possible)
b) a manila folder for each rater containing his/her
scoring sheets and time sheets

There will be two open bins on top of the file cabinet each con-
taining a copy of the TAT stories that have been completed by the
experiment participants up to that time.

Each story will be assigned a bin number (one digit, circled at
the top of the page) and is to be returned to the apprOpriate bin
when you are finished with it.

Keep track of your hours by recording the times (starting and fin-. L
ishing) you spend scoring TAT stories on the time sheet in your folder.

Also record, in the appropriate column on the time sheet, the number
of stories coded during that time period.

167

SCORING INSTRUCTIONS

In addition to a circled bin number, each TAT story will also have
a five-digit Story Code Number. This number is to be used for
identification purposes when scoring the stories.

Before scoring a story, read it in its entirety.

For each story, mark the letter of the theme(s) found in that story
in the box or boxes on the scoring sheet corresponding to the
theme(s) found in that story, in the row reserved for that story,
if and only if that theme(s) is present. Use the guidelines listed
in the Scoring Criteria of the Training Manual to determine whether
or not a particular theme is present. If none of the themes are
present, place a check in the column to the far right.

Be sure to include your name and group number on every scoring
sheet you complete.

Be sure to score all 500 stories assigned to you by referring to the
code number on each story.

168

Rater

Group

ScoringgSheet

Theme
TAT Story Code Number

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

169

Date

Rater

Group

Time Sheet

 

Starting Time

Finishing Time

 

 

Total Time

Number of
Stories Coded

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-170

 

 

 

Theme A

SCORING SYSTEM - GROUP 1

 

Any reference to thought or behavior involving any of the following
themes, or fear of any of these, will be coded as Theme A:

1)
2)
3)
4)
S)
6)
7)
8)

9)
10)
11)

12)

Theme'B

inadequacy

failure

deficiency

social inappropriateness

ineffectiveness

weakness

defectiveness

negative evaluation by self or others (not of a
moral nature)

fragility

ineptness

loss of control of bodily functions (e.g. wetting
one's pants)

inferiority

Any reference to wishes, intentions or intentional behavior by the
main character - i.e. the character who the story writer seems to be
most strongly identified with - involving any of these, will be coded

as Theme B:

1)

2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)

violation of what appears to be a moral value of the
story writer (e.g. "I felt terrible about sleeping with
a stranger." but not: "I had wonderful sex with a guy I
just met.")

violence or the threat of violence

abuse of power

lying, malevolent deception

cheating

stealing

dishonesty

betrayal

adultery

intentional disregard for the wishes or welfare of another
intentionally harming someone or something in any way
vandalism

171

Theme A

SCORING SYSTEM - GROUP 2

Any reference to the main character - i.e. the character who the story
writer seems to be most strongly identified with - having experienced
or being concerned with experiencing 33y_of the following themes, or
fear of any of these, will be coded as Theme A:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)

Theme B

being rejected '

being abandoned

being ostracized

exclusion by others

loneliness

loss of loved one(s)

loss of another's support

loss of love or affection of another

Any reference to the main character experiencing, having experienced,
or being concerned with experiencing any of the following, or fear

of any of these,

1)

2)

3)

4)

will'be coded as Theme B:

being physically hurt or punished by someone or
something (e.g. God) with some power in relation to
that person.

being verbally hurt or punished by someone or some-
thing with some power in relation to that person
interpersonal abuse of power - i.e. a person with
some power or authority misusing this to somehow hurt
another for their own gain

being the victim of revenge, retaliation

172

SCORING SYSTEM - GROUP 3

Theme A

Any reference to thought or behavior by the main character - i.e.
the person who the story writer seems to be most strongly identified
with - involving 33y of the following themes, or the wish to do any
of these, will be coded as Theme A:

 

1) hiding oneself

2) withdrawing/escaping from others

3) becoming small

4) covering some part of oneself - e.g. face, body,
property, work

5) avoiding others

6) uncomfortableness with exposure of one's self or
some aspect of one's self to others

7) uncomfortableness with attention of any sort

8) escaping from exposure of oneself or part of oneself

Theme B

Any reference to thought or behavior involving any of the following
themes will be coded as Theme 8:

1) punishment (or a wish or attempt to be punished) for
any of the following:

 

a) violation of what appears to be a moral value
of the story writer (e.g. "I felt terrible
about sleeping with a stranger." But not:

"I had wonderful sex with a guy I just met.")

b) violence or the threat of violence

c) abuse of power

d) lying, malevolent deception

e) cheating

f) stealing

g dishonesty

h) betrayal

i) adultery

j) intentional disregard for the wishes or
welfare of another

k) intentionally harming someone or something
in any way

1) vandalism

2) Self-denial or self-punishment for any of the above (a - 1)

Theme C

Scoring System - Group 3 (cont.)

Any reference to a wish or an attempt by a transgressor to make
amends for any of the transgressions listed in the column to the left
(a-l) with any of the compensations listed in the column to the

right (1 - 6) will be scored Theme C.

At least one Of these from

each column must be present for this theme to be scored{

a)

b)

e)
d)

e)
f)

h)
1)
:1)

k)

1)

Transgressions

violation of what appears
to be a moral value of the
story writer

violence or the threat of
violence

abuse of power

lying, malevolent deception
cheating

stealing

dishonesty

betrayal

adultery

intentional disregard for
the wishes or welfare of
another

intentionally harming
someone or something in
any way

vandalism

174

1)
2)
3)
4)
S)
6)

Compensations

kindness
generosity
helping others
altruism "
charitability
good deeds

Theme A

SCORING SYSTEM - GROUP 4

Any reference to thought or behavior by the main character - i.e., the
person who the story writer seems to be most strongly identified with -
involving being, becoming or striving to become any_of the following will
be scored as Theme A:

l)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

Theme B

perfect, flawless
achievement—oriented
respected, highly regarded
powerful

ambitious

competent

independent

successful

outstanding

invincible

Any reference to concern or behavior by the main character involving
being, becoming or striving to become any of the following will be scored

as Theme B:

l)
2)
3)
4)
5)

positively evaluated
pleasing to others
liked by others
attractive

approved of

175

Theme C

Scoring System - Group 4 (cont.)

Any reference to thoughts, intentional behavior, intentions or wishes
by people other than the main character involving any of the following
themes will be coded as Theme C:

1)

2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

11)
12)

Theme D

violation of what appears to be moral value of the
story writer (e.g. "I felt terrible about sleeping
with a stranger." But not: "I had wonderful sex with
aggny~l.juat“net.“) .

violence orrthe threat of violence

abuse of power

lying, malevolent deception

cheating

stealing

dishonesty

betrayal

adultery

intentional disregard for the welfare of

another

intentionally harming someone or something in any way
vandalism

Any reference to thoughts, behavior, intentions or wishes by the main
character involving any of the following themes will be coded as Theme J:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)

kindness

generosity

altruism

charitability

good deeds

helping others

selflessness (i.e. not selfish)
righteousness, piety

concern for the welfare of others

176

APPENDIX E

RESEARCH CONSENT FORM

1.

RESEARCH CONSENT FORM

I have freely consented to take part in a scientific study being
conducted by Chet Mirman, under the supervision of Professors
Elaine Donelson and Gershen Kaufman.

I understand that the study will involve the following:

a. For the first hour I will view a number of picture slides
and be asked to make up a story for each.

h. The second hour I will be asked to complete five
questionnaires.

I understand that the study is concerned with different feelings
that peOple have: how they are different from each other, what
kinds of things trigger these feelings, what sort of things are
associated with the feelings and how we deal with them.

I understand that I am free to discontinue my participation in
the study at any time without penalty.

0

I understand that the results of the study will be treated in
strict confidence and that I will remain anonymous. Within these
restrictions, results of the study will be made available to me
at my request.

I understand that my participation in this study does not guarantee
any beneficial results to me.

I understand that, at my request, I can receive additional explana-
tion of the study after my participation is completed.

Signed:

Date:

 

178

APPENDIX F

DEBRIEFING FORM

Debriefing

Thank yen for your participation in this study. Your efforts will,

[ believe, help to increase our understanding of the nature of some
affective experiences. in this study a number of dimensions of these
phenomena will be looked at: what triggers the experience, what expect-
'ations are associated with these experiences, how we react to these
experiences, and how we learn to cope with them.

Because of the anonymity in this study I will be unable to give any of
you individual feedback about your scores. I would be more than happy
to share the global results of the study with you and will be available
to discuss this or any other aspects of the project once all of the data
has been collected (Lthis should be in a few weeks). Until that time 1
would appreciate it if you would refrain from discussing the study with
others. If you have any questions or are interested in discussing the
study, feel free to call me.

Thank you,

M. Chet Mirman
355-9561

180

APPENDIX G

SHAME-ACTIVATOR SUBSCALES

Questionnaire given to raters
Final subscale items
(TC - Task Competence Item
SI - Social Congruity Item
B - Body-related Item
R a Relationship Item
F - Feeling-related Item)

For each of the 17 "shame" items, mark an "X" in the box (or boxes) that

describe(s)/the source(s) of embarrassment in that situation.

a description of the sources of shame/embarrassment listed:

 

 

 

Below is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) TC - Task Competence; lack of competence at work or in a
task of some sort
(2) SI - Social Incongruity. or inappropriateness
(3) B - Body; shame about some aspect of one's own body
(4) R - Relationships; interpersonal incompetence or failure;
shame-producing relationship need(s), interests, attitudes
or activities
(5) F - Feelings; shame about one's experience or expression of
feelings
(6) None of the above
If“ TC SI None If“ TC SI None
14 31
16 32
18 35
19 37
20 40
22 41
27 43
28 45

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(To), 14.
(31) 16.
(T9) 18.
(R) 19 .
(SI) 20.
(B) 22.
(F) 27.
(F) 28.

3o.

31.
(TC) 32.
(F) 35.

37.
(F) 40.
(F) 41.
(a) 43.
(B) 45.

 

183

You are unbelievably awkward trying to play a new sport.
Your friends are trying to teach you and you feel as if
you are all arms and legs.

You are caught unexpectedly by someone talking to yourself.
Your boss has planned a big meeting where your presentation
is to be the highlight. You fail to live up to his
expectations and your company loses the account.

You are finally involved sexually with someone you have
seen as very attractive but uninterested in you. Suddenly

you find yourself to be a poor partner.

You're telling a joke and suddenly realize you are the only
one laughing.

You have a mild case of epilepsy. You forget to take your
pills and have a convulsion before friends who didn't know.

You're usually very calm when discussing heated subjects.
All of a sudden you hear your own voice and realize you're
almost shouting.

You're reading on old diary and can't believe you wrote
such nonsense. You feel ridiculous to have written down
such things.

I blush when someone notices something about me I wasn't
aware of.

I like to think of myself as not caring about public opinion
and am bothered when I find it isn't so.

I worry about making foolish mistakes and wonder what other
people would think.

I worry about giving myself away.

I have a tendency to make up excuses to avoid situations
that would make me uncomfortable.

I hate to cry in front of anyone.
I feel had even if I think bad thoughts about others.

I often deceive others into believing things about me
that aren't so.

I am very modest about my own body, especially about
being seen naked.

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