Students' Sense Of Shame And Adult Attachment Research

The present paper reports the findings of a survey on college undergraduates' experience of shame, the adult attachment style, and the relationship between attachment style and shame. The survey is conducted among 502 college undergraduates by means of questionnaire. Based on the analysis, the author has come to the following conclusion:1. The general level of shame of college students in this research is on the average level, but the scores of body shame scale and family shame scale are higher than the norm.There is significant difference in gender, grades and majors: Male's sense of shame is stronger than the female's; The senior students have higher score of shame scale than the students of lower grades; The students of arts have stronger sense of shame than the students of science.2. The distribution of adult attachment style of the undergraduates is basically similar to the infants', and the secure attachment accounts for the largest proportion. The detail statistics are as follows: secure attachment (37.5%), dismissing attachment (26.5%), preoccupied attachment (24.5%), fearful attachment (11.6%).There is no significant difference in grades, but differences show in gender and majors. The scores of attachment avoidance of male are much higher than those of female, and the scores of attachment anxiety of arts students are much higher than those of science students.3. Secure and dismissing attachment style are significantly negatively associated with shame while preoccupied and fearful attachment are significantly positively correlated. Attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety are both positively associated with shame.There is significant difference in different attachment styles. The scores of shame, from the highest to the lowest, are as follows: fearful attachment, preoccupied attachment, dismissing attachment and secure attachment.