Abstract
Studies in social psychology and clinical psychology have demonstrated that shame is associated with social disengagement. We incorporated self-sufficiency with the mood-repair hypothesis from the feelings-as-information perspective to provide viable explanations for the psychological consequence of shame, suggesting that the mood-repair goal primed by shame is an inclination to behave self-sufficiently. In Study 1a and 1b, shamed participants preferred to work and play alone compared with control participants. Specifically, participants who were induced to feel ashamed were less likely to perform a task with a co-worker than were no-shame-prime participants. Furthermore, participants experiencing shame chose more individually focused leisure activities than did participants in a neutral mood. In Study 2, participants experiencing shame worked longer on an unsolvable task than control participants did before requesting help, suggesting that shame increased the tendency to be independent. Based on these results, we concluded that experiencing shame was associated with an increased tendency to behave self-sufficiently and to exhibit an inclination toward passive avoidance and active independence in social relationships as a means of amending a threatened social self.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allaby, M., & Bunyard, P. (1980). The politics of self-sufficiency. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Barrett, K. C. (1995). A functionalist approach to shame and guilt. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 25–63). New York: Guilford Press.
Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103, 5–33.
Bear, G. G., Uribe-Zarain, X., Manning, M. A., & Shiomi, K. (2009). Shame, guilt, blaming, and anger: Differences between children in Japan and the US. Motivation and Emotion, 33, 229–238.
Bedford, O., & Hwang, K. K. (2003). Guilt and shame in Chinese culture: A cross-cultural framework from the perspective of morality and identity. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 33, 127–144.
Bernreuter, R. G. (1993). The measurement of self-sufficiency. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 291–300.
Bruhn, A. R. (1990). Cognitive-perceptual theory and the projective use of autobiographical memory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 58, 1–15.
Cattell, R., Eber, H., & Patsuoka, M. (1970). Handbook for the 16 personality factor questionnaire. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.
Chiou, J. (2001). Horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism among college students in the United States, Taiwan, and Argentina. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 667–678.
Covert, M. V., Tangney, J. P., Maddux, J. E., & Heleno, N. M. (2003). Shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and interpersonal problem solving: A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 22, 1–12.
Demsetz, H. (1997). The economics of the business firm: Seven critical commentaries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Duan, C. (2000). Being empathic: The role of motivation to empathize and the nature of target emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 24, 29–49.
Fisher, J. D., Nadler, A., & Whitcher-Alagna, S. (1982). Recipient reactions to aid. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 27–54.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Gilbert, P. (1997). The evolution of social attractiveness and its role in shame, humiliation, guilt and therapy. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 70, 113–147.
Gilligan, J. (2003). Shame, guilt, and violence. Social Research, 70, 1149–1180.
Gorn, G. J., Goldberg, M. E., & Basu, K. (1993). Mood, awareness, and product evaluation. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2, 237–256.
Greenberg, D. H., & Robins, P. K. (2008). Incorporating nonmarket time into benefit-cost analyses of social programs: An application to the self-sufficiency project. Journal of Public Economics, 92, 766–794.
Grueneward, T. L. (2003). Acute and chronic threat to the social self: Psychological correlates of perceived social status and psychological responses to acute social threat. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, CA.
Han, K. H., Li, M. C., & Hwang, K. K. (2005). Cognitive responses to favor requests from different social targets in a Confucian society. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22, 283–294.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in worked-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Keltner, D., Ellsworth, P. C., & Edwards, K. (1993). Beyond simple pessimism: Effect of sadness and anger on social perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 740–752.
Kemeny, M. E., Gruenewald, T. L., & Dickerson, S. S. (2004). Shame as the emotional response to threat to the social self: Implications for behavior, physiology, and health. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 153–160.
Lee, F. (1997). When the going gets tough, do the tough ask for help? Help seeking and power motivation in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 72, 336–363.
Leith, K. P., & Baumeister, R. F. (1996). Why do bad moods increase self-defeating behavior? Emotion, risking-taking, and self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1250–1267.
Lewis, H. B. (1971). Shame and guilt in neurosis. New York: International Universities Press.
Lewis, M., Alessandri, S. M., & Sullivan, M. W. (1992). Differences in shame and pride as a function of children’s gender and task-difficulty. Child Development, 63, 630–638.
Lindsay-Hartz, J., De Rivera, J., & Mascolo, M. (1995). Differentiating shame and guilt and their effects on motivation. In J. Tangney & K. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 274–300). New York: Guilford.
Mascolo, M. E., & Fischer, K. W. (1995). Developmental transformation in appraisals for pride, shame, and guilt. In J. E. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 64–113). New York: Guilford.
Miller, S. (1994). The shame experience. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.
Modell, A. H. (1975). A narcissistic defense against affects and the illusion of self-sufficiency. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 56, 275–282.
Morgen, S. (2001). The agency of welfare workers: Negotiating devolution, privatization, and the meaning of self-sufficiency. American Anthropologist, 103, 747–761.
Morris, P., & Michalopoulos, C. (2003). Findings from the self-sufficiency project: Effects on children and adolescents of a program that increased employment and income. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 201–239.
Morris, W. N., & Reilly, N. P. (1987). Toward the self-regulation of mood: Theory and practice. Motivation and Emotion, 11, 215–249.
Morrison, E. W. (1993). Newcomer information seeking: Exploring types, modes, sources, and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 36, 557–589.
Nadler, A. (1991). Help-seeking behavior: Psychological costs and instrumental benefits. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 290–312). New York: Sage.
Newman, R., & Goldin, L. (1990). Children’s reluctance to seek help with schoolwork. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 92–100.
Raghunathan, R., & Pham, M. T. (1999). All negative moods are not equal: Motivational influences of anxiety and sadness on decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79, 56–77.
Raghunathan, R., Pham, M. T., & Corfman, K. P. (2006). Informational properties of anxiety and sadness, and displaced coping. Journal of Consumer Research, 32, 596–601.
Roseman, I. J., Spindel, M., & Jose, P. S. (1990). Appraisals of emotion-eliciting events: Testing a theory of discrete emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 899–915.
Schmidt, S., Tinti, C., Levine, L. J., & Testa, S. (2010). Appraisals, emotions and emotion regulation: An integrative approach. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 63–72.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In T. E. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition (pp. 527–561). New York: Guilford.
Sherman, J. E., DeVinney, D. J., & Sperling, K. B. (2004). Social support and adjustment after spinal cord injury: Influence of past peer-mentoring experiences and current live-in partner. Rehabilitation Psychology, 49, 140–149.
Silfver, M., Helkama, K., Lönnqvist, J., & Verkasalo, M. (2008). The relation between value priorities and proneness to guilt, shame, and empathy. Motivation and Emotion, 32, 69–80.
Smith, R. H., Webster, J. M., Parrott, W. G., & Eyre, H. L. (2002). The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 138–159.
Tangney, J. P. (1995). Recent advances in the empirical study of shame and guilt. American Behavioral Scientist, 38, 1132–1145.
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. New York: Guilford.
Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996a). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1256–1269.
Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P. E., Hill-Barlow, D., Marschall, D. E., & Gramzow, R. (1996b). Relation of shame and guilt to constructive versus destructive responses to anger across the lifespan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 797–809.
Tangney, J. P., Niedenthal, P. M., Covert, M. V., & Barlow, D. H. (1998). Are shame and guilt related to distinct self-discrepancies? A test of Higgins’s (1987) hypotheses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 256–268.
Thomaes, S., Stegge, H., & Olthof, T. (2005, August). Shame feels angry: On humiliated fury in children. Poster presented at the 12th European conference on Developmental Psychology, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Thomaes, S., Bushman, B. J., Stegge, H., & Olthof, T. (2008). Trumping shame by blasts of noise: Narcissism, self-esteem, shame, and aggression in young adolescents. Child Development, 79, 1792–1801.
Watson, D., Clark, A. L., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measure of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
Wills, T. A., & DePaulo, B. M. (1993). Interpersonal analysis of the help-seeking process. In C. R. Snyder & D. R. Forsyth (Eds.), Handbook of social and clinical psychology (pp. 350–375). New York: Pergamon.
Yi, S., & Baumgartner, H. (2004). Coping with negative emotions in purchase-related situations. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14, 303–317.
Zillmann, D. (1988). Mood management: Using entertainment to full advantage. In L. Donohow & H. E. Sypher (Eds.), Communication, social cognition, and affect (pp. 147–171). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Acknowledgments
This study was partially supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, ROC (Project No. NSC 93-2416-H-328-003). We would like to thank the editor (Dr. Mark Muraven) and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chao, YH., Cheng, YY. & Chiou, WB. The psychological consequence of experiencing shame: Self-sufficiency and mood-repair. Motiv Emot 35, 202–210 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9208-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9208-y