| Shame is a painful emotion, which motivates the development of defensive coping mechanisms. These coping mechanisms become relatively stable features of personality. Maladaptive coping styles are related to psychopathology and troubled self-schemas. A focus on shame has recently overshadowed guilt in the literature on psychological defense and pathology. It was hypothesized that shame-focused coping is characterized by four styles, which would be differentially related to other measures of shame, self-esteem, anger, psychological symptoms, coping, and personality. The Compass of Shame Scale was developed to assess an individual's use of these styles. The Compass of Shame Scale was found to be reliable with a sample of 215 undergraduates. A factor analysis confirmed that the scale contained four factors. Validity was investigated by correlating scores from the four subscales with other measures of shame, self-esteem, anger, psychological symptoms, coping, and personality. The results support the validity of the Compass of Shame Scale. |
