Relation of Guilt, Shame, Behavioral and Characterological Self-Blame to Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents Over Time

Abstract

In a two-wave, longitudinal study, 221 nonreferred adolescents completed measures of guilt, shame, Behavioral self-blame (BSB), Characterological self-blame (CSB), depressive symptoms measures, and attributional style. Goals were to examine similarities between Tangney's (1996) conceptualization of guilt and shame and Janoff-Bulman's (1979) conceptualization of BSB and CSB in adolescents. Specific aims were (1) to examine the relation of depressive symptoms and depressive cognitions to shame, guilt, CSB, and BSB, (2) to estimate the longitudinal relations between depressive symptoms and measures of guilt, shame, BSB, and CSB, and (3) to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of shame/CSB measures and guilt/BSB measures. Results suggest that shame and CSB converge into a common construct, significantly related to depressive symptoms and cognitions. Convergence of guilt and BSB, however, was limited to particular pairs of measures.One research tradition has focused on the relation of guilt and shame to depression, as well as anger, hostility, substance abuse, eating disorders, low self-efficacy, and poor problem solving (Covert, Tangney, Maddux, & Heleno, 2003;Dearing, Stuewig, & Tangney, 2005;Ferguson, Stegge, Miller, & Olsen, 1999;Luyten, Fontaine, & Corveleyn, 2002;Sanftner, Barlow, Marschall, & Tangney, 1995;Tangney, Burggraf, & Wagner, 1995;Woien, Ernst, Patock-Peckham, & Nagoshi, 2003). Another research tradition has studied the relation of behavioral and characterological self-blame to depression as well as loneliness, isolation, uncontrollability, helplessness, and stressful life events (Anderson, Horowitz, & French, 1983;Cole, Peeke, & Ingold, 1996;Janoff-Bulman, 1979;Peterson, 1979;Peterson, Schwartz, & Seligman, 1981;Stoltz & Galassi, 1989).Correspondences concerning this article should be addressed to David A. Cole, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University 0552 GPC, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203. david.cole@vanderbilt.edu.. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Soc Clin Psychol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2014 November 20. Published in final edited form as:J Soc Clin Psychol. 2008 ; 27(8): 809-842. doi:10.1521/jscp.2008. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptDespite noteworthy conceptual similarities between these two pairs of constructs, almost no one has examined them conjointly (cf. Lutwak, Panish, & Ferrari, 2003). Linking these two traditions could have implications for theory and research pertaining to a very wide range of psychological and mental health outcomes. The overarching goal of the current study is to examine the relation of the guilt/shame constructs and the behavioral/characterological selfblame constructs to each other, to depression, and to depression-related cognitions, potentially paving the way for a clearer unification of these two research traditions. GUILT AND SHAMEIn this paper, we adhere to definitions of guilt and shame first articulated by Lewis (1971) and subsequently ela...

Definition and measurement of guilt: Implications for clinical research and practice

“…Guilt involves moral transgressions (real or imagined) in which people believe that their action (or inaction) contributed to negative outcomes. Studies have found links between guilt and morality and behavioral-self blame (Lutwak, Panish, & Ferrari, 2003; Ruma & Mosher, 1967; Tilghman-Osborne, Cole, Felton, & Ciesla, 2008). A sense of responsibility and painful feelings of remorse are part of the guilt experience; however, whether or not atonement or reparations follow guilt is a separate question.…”

Proneness to Decreased Negative Emotions in Major Depressive Disorder when Blaming Others rather than Oneself

“…Behavioural self-blame was defined as involving internal and unstable attributions of negative events to one’s own controllable behaviour [12] and was associated with feelings of guilt [12,14,15,16], whereas characterological self-blame was defined as blaming oneself for things that one has no control over, such as relatively enduring character traits [12]. The latter thereby entails a global (overgeneral) form of self-blame and such maladaptive devaluation of the ‘whole’ self was hypothesized to be associated with feelings of shame [13,14,15,16,17]. In contrast, work by O’Connor and colleagues provides evidence against the general association of guilt-proneness with behavioural self-blame by identifying characterological forms of empathy-based guilt [18,19,20,21].…”

“…Indeed, shame- rather than guilt-proneness has been associated with severity of depressive symptoms in healthy populations with no history of MDD [17,23]. In people with MDD, however, elevations in both shame- and guilt-proneness have been reported using different questionnaires [21,24,25,26].…”

Children’s Proneness to Shame and Guilt Predict Risky and Illegal Behaviors in Young Adulthood

“…Regarding psychological adjustment, when one uses measures that are sensitive to the distinction between focusing on the self vs. the behavior [see 20], research on adults consistently shows a positive relationship between proneness to shame and a variety of psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and paranoid ideation [21–26, see 27 for a meta-analytic review of shame and depression, 28, 29]. Although fewer studies in this domain focus on children and adolescents, results are similar to those found in adult samples, demonstrating a link between shame-proneness and psychological symptoms among youth [30–32, see 33 for a review, 34]. In contrast, proneness to “shame-free” guilt is generally negligibly or negatively related to psychological symptoms among children, adolescents, and adults [23, 28–30, 35–38].…”