A cross-cultural study on the experience and self-regulation of shame and guilt

The goal of this research was to compare differences in the experience and self-regulation of shame and guilt in undergraduate students from mainland China (a collectivist and supposedly shame-based culture, where shame is seen as socially adaptive) and Canada (an individualist and supposedly guilt-based culture, where shame is seen as maladaptive). People in Eastern and Western cultures may differ in their experiences of shame and guilt because they come from cultures with different kinds of self-construals (interdependent and independent, respectively). I proposed that the nature of one's self-construal will have consequences for both the experience and self-regulation of these self-conscious emotions. We conducted a series of studies to examine whether participants from China and Canada might recall or generate different situations for different types of shame and guilt, and whether their self-regulation of shame and guilt might also differ. In Study 1, there were 39 adults from mainland China (MC) and 34 adults of European descent from Canada (EC). Participants were presented with five types of shame concepts (xiu chi, can kui, diu lian, xiu kui, and nan wei qing) and four types of guilt ( nei jiu 1- harm to others, nei jiu 2 - trust Violation, zui e gan, and fan zui gan), which were based on Mandarin shame and guilt categories. Participants were asked to describe situations that would elicit each concept. The responses were coded into themes, which were organized into eight higher order categories. The data were also coded in terms of three dimensions based on earlier research ("public" versus "private", "self' versus "action" and "withdrawal" versus "repair"). Both cultures had "breaking own expectations", "breaking other's expectations", and "intentional breaking social norms/rules" higher order categories. Chi-square analyses suggested that the main difference between cultures was in the higher order guilt category of "other's improper actions", ECs were more likely to associate guilt feelings with other people's improper actions than MCs were. Moreover, within cultural differences between shame and guilt were also found. First, situations eliciting these emotions were more likely to be public than private when MCs were experiencing shame, but not this was not true for guilt. ECs experienced both guilt and shame primarily in public situations rather than private situations. Second, MCs focused on blaming themselves more in shame situations than in guilt situations. MCs focused more on blaming their actions in guilt situations than in shame situations. However, ECs in both guilt and shame situations still focused on blaming their actions rather than the self. Third, ECs focused on social withdrawal rather than repairing behaviours in shame situations, but focused on repairing behaviours rather than social withdrawal in guilt situations. Study 2 was a pilot study to create two representative scenarios for each of the nine shame and guilt terms. Chinese (N = 3) and European (N = 2) adults in Canada were provided with three scenarios based on the most frequent themes from Study 1 for each of the five shame and four guilt categories and were asked to order these scenarios in terms of how well they described their respective concepts of shame and guilt. The eighteen most representative scenarios were selected, two for each of the nine concepts. In Study 3, we addressed the effect of cultural background on the self-regulation of shame and guilt on European Canadian (N =99), Canadian Chinese (N = 86), and international Chinese students in Canada (N = 65) and mainland Chinese students (N = 69). We hypothesized that there would be main effects of culture and gender on responses to shame, in particular, which might be mediated or moderated by self-construal and self-monitoring. Previous shame and guilt response scales were modified to create a 12-item Shame and Guilt Self-Regulation Scale (SGSRS) scale that captured both Chinese and North American responses to shame and guilt. Participants read the 18 scenarios created in Study 2, and rated how they would respond to each scenario using this scale. Mainland Chinese endorsed more positive approach (i.e., problem focus coping, support seeking) to the guilt and shame scenarios than Chinese Canadians and European Canadians. Gender differences also emerged, women endorsed more positive approach strategies to shame than men and less withdrawal (denial). Regression analyses showed that interdependent self-construal, but not independent self-construal or self-monitoring, partially mediated between mainland Chinese culture versus others and responses to shame, suggesting that personality variables like interdependent self-construal play an important role in explaining the influence of culture on responses to shame. However, since interdependence only partially mediated cultural differences in shame problem focused coping, cultural norms and immediate environment clearly still playa large role in affecting the responses to these self-conscious emotions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...