On the Link between Perceived Parental Rearing Behaviors and Self-conscious Emotions in Adolescents

Cor Meesters,Pauline Dibbets,Lotte Lemmens,Peter Muris,Maaike Cima

doi:10.1007/s10826-017-0695-7

Cor Meesters, Pauline Dibbets + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0695-7

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Abstract

This study examined relationships between the self-conscious emotions of guilt and shame in both clinical (N = 104) and non-clinical (N = 477) (young) adolescents aged 11–18 years, who completed a questionnaire to assess perceived parental rearing behaviors (EMBU-C) and a scenario-based instrument to measure proneness to guilt and shame (SCEMAS). Results indicated that parental rearing dimensions were positively related to self-conscious emotions. Regarding the non-clinical sample, both favourable (emotional warmth) and unfavourable (rejection) paternal and maternal rearing dimensions were significant correlates of guilt- and shame-proneness. The results for the clinical sample were less conclusive: only maternal emotional warmth and rejection were found to be significantly associated with guilt and shame. Interestingly, no associations between any of the paternal rearing dimensions and self-conscious emotions emerged. Taken together, these results are in keeping with the notion that parental rearing factors are involved in the development of both adaptive and maladaptive self-conscious emotions in adolescents.

Highlights

Research on moral emotions has mainly focused on the negatively valenced self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt. These two emotions are often regarded as equivalent, research has indicated that there are reasons to assume that they are quite different (e.g., Tangney et al 2007; Tangney and Tracy 2012). This distinction is clearly expressed by Lewis (1971) who noted that guilt is concerned with negative feelings about a specific behavior or action undertaken by a person (“I did that bad thing”), whereas shame pertains to negative feelings about the global self (“I did that bad thing”)
As one would expect, in both samples guilt- and shame responses to unambiguous scenarios were significantly higher than guilt- and shame responses to ambiguous scenarios [guilt: paired t(101) = 13.07, p < .001, and paired t(474) = 33.9, p < .001, respectively; shame: paired t(101) = 9.72, p < .001, and paired t(474) = 23.43, p < .001, respectively]. In both samples significant gender differences were found for most SCEMAS scales: with the exception of ambiguous guilt girls exhibited higher levels of selfconscious emotions than boys [non-clinical sample: t(473) s ≥ 3.03, ps < .01; clinical sample: t(100)s ≥ 2.71, ps < .01]
The present study investigated the relationship between perceived parental rearing behaviors and the self-conscious emotions of guilt and shame in both clinical and nonclinical adolescents aged 11–18 years

Summary

Introduction

Research on moral emotions has mainly focused on the negatively valenced self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt. These two emotions are often regarded as equivalent, research has indicated that there are reasons to assume that they are quite different (e.g., Tangney et al 2007; Tangney and Tracy 2012) This distinction is clearly expressed by Lewis (1971) who noted that guilt is concerned with negative feelings about a specific behavior or action undertaken by a person (“I did that bad thing”), whereas shame pertains to negative feelings about the global self (“I did that bad thing”).

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Results

Conclusion