Revisiting Guilt, Shame, and Remorse

Abstract

We explored the observed similarity/dissimilarity among guilt, shame, and remorse (GSR) by conducting an empirical study in three phases—(i) generation of scenarios, (ii) development of illustrations and determination of item (scenario) equivalence, and (iii) rating of GSR induced by the scenarios. Ten young adults wrote their life experiences of guilt, shame and remorse, respectively, yielding a total of 34 scenarios. The scenarios were presented to 138 participants, and they were instructed to reflect upon the emotion (GSR) that best suited the scenarios. Principal component analysis indicated that the same scenario induced guilt as well as shame or remorse depending on the valence. Scenarios with positive factor load assessed guilt, whereas shame and remorse had negative factor load. Following an iterative process, the scenarios were converted into illustrations where each scenario was depicted in a storyboard comprising a set of three illustrations. Generalized procrustes analysis was performed to assess item equivalence between the narrations and the corresponding storyboards. Fourteen participants first rated the narratives and then the storyboards after a gap of 24 h. The findings suggest no significant difference between the illustrated scenarios and the narrative, thus leading to 13 scenarios. Multidimensional scaling suggests that the perception of shame and remorse overlaps and this is distinct from guilt.