Vicarious Shame and Guilt

Participants recalled instances when they felt vicariously ashamed or guilty for another’s wrongdoing and rated their appraisals of the event and resulting motivations. The study tested aspects of social association that uniquely predict vicarious shame and guilt. Results suggest that the experience of vicarious shame and vicarious guilt are distinguishable. Vicarious guilt was predicted by one’s perceived interdependence with the wrongdoer (e.g. high interpersonal interaction), an appraisal of control over the event, and a motivation to repair the other person’s wrongdoing. Vicarious shame was predicted by the relevance of the event to a shared social identity with the wrongdoer, an appraisal of self-image threat, and a motivation to distance from the event. Implications for intergroup behavior and emotion are discussed.

[1]  Deborah A. Prentice,et al.  Asymmetries in Attachments to Groups and to their Members: Distinguishing between Common-Identity and Common-Bond Groups , 1994 .

[2]  M. Lewis.  Self-Conscious Emotions , 2020, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[3]  Charles M. Judd,et al.  Measures and models of perceived group variability. , 1990 .

[4]  D. Marschall,et al.  Are Shame , Guilt , and Embarrassment Distinct Emotions ? , 2001 .

[5]  H. Tajfel.  Experiments in intergroup discrimination. , 1970 .

[6]  Nyla R. Branscombe,et al.  Collective guilt : international perspectives , 2004 .

[7]  K. Lewin,et al.  Resolving Social Conflicts , 1948 .

[8]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The Cognitive Structure of Emotions , 1988 .

[9]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[10]  Ferdinand David Schoeman.  Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology , 1988 .

[11]  Kurt W. Fischer,et al.  Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. , 1995 .

[12]  B. Lickel,et al.  Varieties of groups and the perception of group entitativity. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  Lowell Gaertner,et al.  Perceived ingroup entitativity and intergroup bias: an interconnection of self and others , 1998 .

[14]  B. Lickel,et al.  A Case of Collective Responsibility: Who Else Was to Blame for the Columbine High School Shootings? , 2003, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[15]  Rowland S. Miller.  Empathic Embarrassment: Situational and Personal Determinants of Reactions to the Embarrassment of Another , 1987 .

[16]  C. Leach,et al.  White Guilt and Racial Compensation: The Benefits and Limits of Self-Focus , 2003, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[17]  Verlin B. Hinsz,et al.  The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[18]  Jacob M. Rabbie,et al.  Categories versus groups as explanatory concepts in intergroup relations , 1988 .

[19]  A. Tesser.  Reproductions Supplied by Edrs Are the Best That Can Be Made * * from the Original Document. toward a Self-evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior* , 2007 .

[20]  Marilynn B. Brewer,et al.  Superodinate goals versus superordinate identity as bases of intergroup cooperation. , 2000 .

[21]  N. Haslam,et al.  Essentialist beliefs about social categories. , 2000, The British journal of social psychology.

[22]  F. Reid.  Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory , 1987 .

[23]  B. Weiner.  An attributional theory of motivation and emotion , 1986 .

[24]  M. Hogg,et al.  Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , 2004 .

[25]  F. Tönnies,et al.  Community and Society , 1988 .

[26]  B. Lickel,et al.  Stigma and Shame: Emotional Responses to the Stereotypic Actions of One’s Ethnic Ingroup , 2006 .

[27]  D. Keltner.  Signs of appeasement: evidence for the distinct displays of embarrassment, amusement, and shame , 1995 .

[28]  Andrew F. Simon,et al.  Categorical and dynamic groups: Implications for social perception and intergroup behavior. , 1998 .

[29]  V. Yzerbyt,et al.  Stereotypes as explanations: A subjective essentialistic view of group perception. , 1997 .

[30]  Diane M. Mackie,et al.  Affect, cognition, and stereotyping: Interactive processes in group perception. , 1993 .

[31]  C. Chiu,et al.  A study of the comparative structure of guilt and shame in a Chinese society. , 1992, The Journal of psychology.

[32]  Studying social processes in small groups , 1993 .

[33]  Michael Johns,et al.  Ashamed to be an American? The role of identification in predicting vicarious shame for anti-Arab prejudice after 9–11 , 2005 .

[34]  G. O'Connor.  Small Groups , 1980 .

[35]  Robert B. Cialdini,et al.  Self-presentation by association. , 1989 .

[36]  Steven J. Sherman,et al.  Perceiving social groups: The importance of the entitativity continuum. , 1998 .

[37]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Intergroup emotions: explaining offensive action tendencies in an intergroup context. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[38]  E. Leonard,et al.  Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride , 1996 .

[39]  Silvio Levy,et al.  To the Reader , 2000, Exp. Math..

[40]  J Matthew Webster,et al.  The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  Lawrence A. Hirschfeld,et al.  Do children have a theory of race? , 1995, Cognition.

[42]  Naomi Ellemers,et al.  The social psychology of stereotyping and group life , 1998 .

[43]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Personal narratives about guilt: Role in action control and interpersonal relationships. , 1995 .

[44]  Philip E. Tetlock,et al.  Cognitive appraisals and emotional experience: Further evidence , 1989 .

[45]  Joel Cooper,et al.  Vicarious dissonance: attitude change from the inconsistency of others. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[46]  Benjamin Kilborne,et al.  Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride. , 1997 .

[47]  Jolanda Jetten,et al.  Guilty by Association : When One ' s Group Has a Negative History , 2001 .

[48]  N. Eisenberg.  Emotion, regulation, and moral development. , 2000, Annual review of psychology.

[49]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  An In-Group Becomes Part of the Self: Response Time Evidence , 1996 .

[50]  F. W. Wicker,et al.  Participant descriptions of guilt and shame , 1983 .

[51]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Emotional Contagion , 1993 .

[52]  M. Rothbart,et al.  Category labels and social reality: Do we view social categories as natural kinds? , 1992 .

[53]  H. Tajfel,et al.  The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. , 2004 .

[54]  D. Stipek.  Differences between Americans and Chinese in the Circumstances Evoking Pride, Shame, and Guilt , 1998 .

[55]  G. Āllport.  The Nature of Prejudice , 1954 .

[56]  A. Manstead,et al.  Guilty by Association: When One's Group Has a Negative History , 1998 .

[57]  Eliot R. Smith.  Social Identity and Social Emotions: Toward New Conceptualizations of Prejudice , 1993 .

[58]  F. Tönnies,et al.  Community and society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) , 1959 .

[59]  J. Tangney,et al.  Shame and guilt in interpersonal relationships. , 1995 .

[60]  Rupert Brown,et al.  Social Identity Processes: Trends in Theory and Research , 2000 .

[61]  S. Worchel,et al.  Psychology of intergroup relations , 1986 .

[62]  C. Leach,et al.  Group-based guilt as a predictor of commitment to apology. , 2005, The British journal of social psychology.

[63]  Craig A. Smith,et al.  Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[64]  M. Biernat,et al.  Derogating black sheep: Individual or group protection? , 2003 .

[65]  Vincent Yzerbyt,et al.  The “Black Sheep Effect”: Extremity of judgments towards ingroup members as a function of group identification , 1988 .

[66]  Paul Gilbert,et al.  Shame : interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture , 1998 .

[67]  J. Gillon,et al.  Group dynamics , 1996 .

[68]  P. Niedenthal,et al.  "If only I weren't" versus "if only I hadn't": distinguishing shame and guilt in counterfactual thinking. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[69]  Leo Postman,et al.  Theory and problems of social psychology. , 1950 .

[70]  Gün R. Semin,et al.  Language, interaction and social cognition , 1992 .

[71]  Yuk Fai Cheong,et al.  HLM 6: Hierarchical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling , 2000 .

[72]  D. Keltner,et al.  The forms and functions of the nonverbal signal of shame. , 1998 .