Guilt Proneness Research Articles

Consumer guilt proneness scale—Assessing individual differences in responses to transgressive consumption situations

AbstractFeeling or anticipating guilt associated with consumption situations may lead consumers to adjust their behaviors to avoid those unpleasant feelings and better conform to their personal, moral, and social standards. The experience of guilt regarding a consumption situation is influenced by both contextual factors, including marketing communications, and personal traits, namely the individual's proneness to feel guilt related to consumption. While research has examined the influence of contextual variables on guilt, the individual predisposition to feel guilt associated with consumption has received little attention. Understanding individual consumer guilt proneness can assist managers in customizing strategies to diverse guilt responses: recognizing varying susceptibility to guilt enables personalized approaches across the consumer journey, fostering empathetic managerial actions. This understanding can significantly impact consumer satisfaction, loyalty, and the success of marketing strategies. This study conceptualizes and proposes a measure of consumer guilt proneness, the individual tendency to feel guilt regarding transgressive consumption situations. To define the conceptual domain, a literature review is complemented with a qualitative study. Five dimensions corresponding to sources of guilt (health, extravagance, social influence, misevaluation, and ethics and sustainability) create the initial pool of items. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses corroborate the five‐factor measurement model. The final scale demonstrates adequate convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. Finally, the instrument is cross‐culturally validated in three countries—Portugal, Poland, and Brazil—which not only strengthens the evidence of its validity and reliability but also lends credibility to its broader application in diverse cultural environments, particularly within Western cultures.

Guilt Proneness and Prosocial Behaviour Intentions across University Students: A Predictive Study

“A dispositional tendency to experience negative self-conscious emotions following transgressions or failures to live up to one's own or others' standards is termed as guilt proneness” (Tangney et al., 2007). Guilt is usually seen in negative light and often labelled as uncomfortable and guilt proneness is labelled undesirable, but a common motivation for individuals to engage in prosocial behaviours is to manage the guilt in their lives. The deliberate actions individuals engage in, to benefit others or society as a whole, sometimes even at a cost to themselves are termed as prosocial behaviour intentions. These actions can include acts of kindness, cooperation, volunteering, sharing, donating, and helping others in need (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989). It was hypothesized that guilt proneness acts as a predictive factor for prosocial behaviour intentions in an individual. Guilt and Shame Proneness (GASP), developed by Cohen et al. (2011), and Prosocial Behavioural Intentions Scale (PBIS), developed by Baumsteiger & Siegel (2018) were used to measure guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour intentions, on a data set of 155 university students, and this study explored the relationship between these variables through simple linear regression and further, a fitted regression model was formulated. Inferential and descriptive statistical tests were used to study guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour intentions across various demographic variables. The findings of this study indicate that guilt proneness acts as significant predictor of prosocial behaviour intentions and there were statistically significant differences in the mean scores of guilt proneness across age groups and annual household incomes. These results are discussed along with limitations of the study and the scope for future research.

On the interplay between pain observation, guilt and shame proneness and honesty

Seeing others in pain can stimulate powerful socio-emotional responses. Does it also make us more moral? In two laboratory experiments, we examined the interplay between pain observation, self-reported guilt and shame, subjective perceptions of pain intensity, and subsequent honest behavior. Watching a confederate perform a moderately painful (vs. non-painful) task did not affect honest behavior in a subsequent die-roll task. Independent of pain observation, there was a positive relationship between self-reported guilt proneness and shame proneness and honesty. More specifically, individuals who are more prone to feeling guilt -and to a lesser extent shame- behaved more honestly. Furthermore, we found weak support for the hypothesis that greater perceived pain (rather than objective pain) is associated with less cheating. We call for further research in the interconnections between perceived pain, guilt, shame, and moral behavior.

Winning isn't everything: Guilt proneness and competitive vs. non-competitive motivation.

Guilt proneness is associated with both high motivation to succeed and enhanced concern for others. However, in competition, achieving success requires harming others' interests, which demotivates guilt-prone individuals. Given the prevalence of competition in social and professional life, we examine the relation between guilt proneness, general motivation, and competitive motivation. Two experiments and two laboratory studies (N= 1735) measured guilt proneness, general motivation, and competitive motivation, and their effects on competitive preferences and choices. Study settings included students' choice of playing a game individually vs. competitively (Study 1), physicians' likelihood to seek residency in medical fields characterized by high competitiveness (Study 2), amateur athletes' preferences between inclusive and win-oriented team strategies (Study 3), and online workers' evaluations of a hypothetical scenario (Study 4). Guilt proneness was related positively to general motivation, but negatively to competitive motivation. Guilt proneness, indirectly through lower competitive motivation, predicted a lower likelihood of pursuing competitive paths and preference for non-competitive strategies. Emphasizing prosocial aspects of competitiveness attenuated these effects. Guilt proneness is related to high general motivation but to a lower desire to win. Guilt-prone individuals strive for excellence, but through non-competitive paths, whereas people with lower guilt proneness prefer competing.

Effects and interactions of labels’ color scheme and the individual difference variable lay rationalism on pro-environmental choices

Recent eco-labeling research suggests that labels that use traffic light colors to communicate an evaluation of product attributes are more effective in guiding consumer choices toward environmentally friendlier products than those that merely provide quantitative information. However, it remains unclear whether the effect of traffic light labels is attributable to the additional information provided by the colors or whether the colors themselves impact consumer choices. We investigated the influence of labels' color scheme on consumers' preferences for environmentally friendly electricity. In two experiments, participants chose between electricity products differing in price and carbon emissions. The products had labels based on either traffic light colors, grayscale colors, or text (Study 2) to classify carbon emissions as low, medium, or high. Furthermore, we used the lay rationalism scale to assess participants' tendency to base decisions on feelings versus reason. The two main findings were that traffic light labels increased the choice share of low-emission electricity relative to text-based labels but not relative to grayscale labels, and that there is an interaction effect between labeling format and lay rationalism. Another finding is that both emotional affinity toward nature and guilt proneness are strong predictors of preference for low-emission electricity. Our data underline the importance of examining different label formats and further suggest that labels should be designed according to a target group's decision-making style.

My Family Accounts Much for Me: How Does Work-to-Family Conflict Lead to Unethical Pro-Family Behavior.

Although unethical behaviors are prevalent in the workplace, little is known about the unethical behavior aiming at benefiting one's family (unethical pro-family behavior, UPFB). In this paper, we leverage self-determination theory to explore the association between work-to-family conflict and UPFB. Specifically, we hypothesize and corroborate a positive relationship between work-to-family conflict and UPFB, and such relationship is mediated by family motivation. Moreover, we identify two conditional factors, guilt proneness (at first stage) and ethical leadership (at second stage), in moderating the proposed relationship. In study 1 (scenario-based experiment, N = 118), we tested the causality of work-to-family conflict and intention to perform UPFB. In study 2 (field study, N = 255), we tested our hypotheses by employing a three-wave time-lagged survey design. As expected, results from two studies fully supported our predictions. Overall, we explain whether, how, and when work-to-family conflict will lead to UPFB. Implications of theory and practice are then discussed.

Polish version of the TOSCA-3 questionnaire (The Test of Self-Conscious Affect, J. P. Tangney, R. Dearing, P. E. Wagner, & R. Gramzow) – a pilot study

Objective The operationalization of the concepts of shame and guilt poses a challenge not only for research participants attempting to analyze these emotions, but also for psychologists themselves. Scenario-based questionnaires offer a solution to this problem. This article describes the process of adapting the TOSCA-3 questionnaire to the Polish language. Method The TOSCA-3 questionnaire was adapted to Polish based on the international recommendations for the cultural adaptation of psychometric questionnaires. A pilot study was conducted using the newly adapted TOSCA-3 questionnaire, the SWLS questionnaire, the MCSDS self-report questionnaire, and the EPQ-R(S) questionnaire. The study was conducted on a random sample of 148 people. Results The obtained results (means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s α) were satisfactory, which points to the psychometric validity of the adapted questionnaire. The validation process revealed lower life satisfaction among people who are more prone to experience shame (r = ‒.177; p < .05), whereas the scores of subjects who are more prone to experience guilt confirmed a positive correlation with the results obtained on the social approval-seeking scale (MCSDS; r = .38; p < .05). Furthermore, the scores on extraversion and neuroticism scales were correlated with shame proneness (r = ‒.25; p < .05 and r = .40; p < .05, respectively). Conclusions The statistical analysis confirmed that the TOSCA-3 questionnaire was reliably translated and adapted to the Polish language. The results of the pilot study suggest that the adaptation process was successful. The tool can be used in research. However, the collected data do not support analyses of factor relevance or the development of standards for individual diagnoses. The results of the pilot validation study make a valuable contribution to the scientific debate on shame and guilt proneness which are rarely discussed in the Polish literature.

Entitled and self-conscious? The ego-centric underpinnings of electoral preferences during the 2020 U.S. election

We investigate whether entitlement (feeling more deserving than others) and several dimensions of self-conscious affect (broadly reflecting responses to shame and guilt) are associated with voting intentions during the 2020 Presidential election in the USA. We utilized a sample of 443 adults recruited through Prolific. The sample was demographically representative with respect to age, gender, and race. Participants were recruited from 12 October 2020 to 15 October 2020, approximately 3 weeks before the national election held on 3 November 2020. Results reveal that higher entitlement beliefs are associated with support for Republicans, and so are shame proneness vis-à-vis behavioral avoidance (desire to hide) and blame externalization. Inversely, guilt proneness and shame proneness vis-à-vis negative self-evaluation is associated with support for Democrats. Results also suggest that shame proneness and blame externalization most closely correspond with voting preference; specifically, negative self-evaluation drives support for Democrats, whereas blame externalization and behavioral avoidance drives support for Republicans. While these effects are often only in the small-to-medium range in terms of magnitude, their implications for a more nuanced understanding of electoral politics—and its pitfalls—are noteworthy.

(Eye-)tracking the escape from the self: guilt proneness moderates the effect of failure on self-avoidance

ABSTRACT Failure increases the motivation to escape self-awareness. To date, however, the role of self-conscious emotions (shame and guilt) in triggering escape responses after failure has not been sufficiently addressed. In this pre-registered study (N = 156 undergraduates), we adapted a classic paradigm (avoidance of one’s image in a mirror) to a modern eye-tracking technology to test the hypothesis that shame proneness moderates the effect of failure on self-awareness avoidance. Individual differences in guilt and shame proneness were assessed before priming thoughts of failure or success. Then, an eye-tracking paradigm was used to monitor gaze avoidance of one’s screen-reflected face during a neutral, unrelated task. Unexpectedly, results showed that guilt but not shame proneness exacerbated self-avoidance after failure. The present findings challenge the dominant view that shame fosters avoidance more so than guilt.

Breaking rules for moral reasons: Development and validation of the Prosocial and Antisocial Rule-Breaking (PARB) scale.

To determine whether prosocial rule-breaking exists as a separate construct from antisocial rule-breaking and to develop a valid rule-breaking scale with prosocial and antisocial subscales. We hypothesized that (a) rule-breaking would have prosocial and antisocial subfactors; (b) the prosocial rule-breaking subscale would positively associate with prosocial intentions, empathy, moral identity, and guilt proneness, whereas the antisocial rule-breaking subscale would negatively associate with these same factors; and (c) the two subscales would predict prosocial and antisocial cheating behaviors, respectively. We developed the Prosocial and Antisocial Rule-Breaking (PARB) scale using a sample of 497 undergraduates (Study 1) and 257 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (Study 2). Participants completed all surveys (Studies 1 and 2) and took part in a between-subjects experiment (Study 2) in which cheating behavior was measured in two conditions-when cheating helps others (prosocial) or oneself (antisocial). The final PARB scale demonstrated the expected factor structure (comparative fit index = .96, Tucker-Lewis index = .93, root-mean-square error of approximation = .064; χ² = 177, df = 88, p < .001), with the prosocial (α = .81) and antisocial (α = .93) subscales showing good reliability. Prosocial rule-breaking was positively associated with prosocial intentions, empathy, and guilt proneness, whereas antisocial rule-breaking was negatively associated with these same factors. Each additional point in prosocial rule-breaking PARB score predicted a 37% increased likelihood of participating in protest behavior in an exploratory investigation (p = .025) and predicted a 268% increase in actual prosocial cheating behavior (p < .001) but did not predict antisocial cheating behavior (p = .293). Conversely, each additional point in antisocial rule-breaking PARB score did not predict protest participation (p = .410) but did predict a 69% increase in actual antisocial cheating behavior (p = .025). These findings suggest that our current understanding of rule-breaking is limited, as many types of rule-breaking are prosocially motivated and are not necessarily antisocial. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Cultural values, shame and guilt, and expressive suppression as predictors of depression

We need to consider culturally relevant factors to understand depression among individuals with Asian background. Based on Matsuoto, Yoo, and Nakagawa (2008)’s framework on cultural values and emotion regulation, the current study tested our proposed model to understand the roles of cultural values (i.e., Asian values, European American values), culturally relevant emotional experiences (i.e., shame proneness and guilt proneness), and expressive suppression in explaining depression among 181 Asian American and 161 Asian international students. The model tests revealed that Asian values positively related to shame proneness, and European American values positively related to guilt proneness. Shame and guilt proneness were positively and negatively associated with suppression, which in turn positively related to depression. The findings extended the current literature on the relation between culture and emotion regulation by addressing how cultural values and culturally relevant emotions (i.e., shame and guilt) play roles in explaining suppression in relation to depression. We discussed future implications for research and practice with Asian American or Asian international students with depression.

A meta-analytic investigation of the antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences of moral disengagement at work.

Moral disengagement refers to a set of cognitive tactics people employ to sidestep moral self-regulatory processes that normally prevent wrongdoing. In this study, we present a comprehensive meta-analytic review of the nomological network of moral disengagement at work. First, we test its dispositional and contextual antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences, including ethics (workplace misconduct and organizational citizenship behaviors [OCBs]) and non-ethics outcomes (turnover intentions and task performance). Second, we examine Bandura's postulation that moral disengagement fosters misconduct by diminishing moral cognitions (moral awareness and moral judgment) and anticipatory moral self-condemning emotions (guilt). We also test a contrarian view that moral disengagement is limited in its capacity to effectively curtail moral emotions after wrongdoing. The results show that Honesty-Humility, guilt proneness, moral identity, trait empathy, conscientiousness, idealism, and relativism are key individual antecedents. Further, abusive supervision and perceived organizational politics are strong contextual enablers of moral disengagement, while ethical leadership and organizational justice are relatively weak deterrents. We also found that narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and psychological entitlement are key theoretical correlates, although moral disengagement shows incremental validity over these "dark" traits. Next, moral disengagement was positively associated with workplace misconduct and turnover intentions, and negatively related to OCBs and task performance. Its positive impact on misconduct was mediated by lower moral awareness, moral judgment, and anticipated guilt. Interestingly, however, moral disengagement was positively related to guilt and shame post-misconduct. In sum, we find strong cumulative evidence for the pertinence of moral disengagement in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Differential Associations between Guilt and Shame Proneness and Religious Coping Styles in a Diverse Sample of Young Adults.

Positive religious coping is linked with better mental health outcomes following physical and sexual abuse while negative religious coping is associated with poorer outcomes. Religious coping styles may be linked with dispositional tendencies to experience guilt or shame. This study compared the associations between guilt and shame proneness and religious coping styles and tested whether abuse history moderated these relationships. We conducted a cross-sectional study with 425 college students (n = 145 with physical and/or sexual abuse history, n = 280 with no abuse history). Participants completed questionnaires assessing positive and negative religious coping style, as well as two dimensions of guilt proneness and shame proneness. Structural equation models were fitted to examine associations between guilt proneness and shame proneness, and positive and negative religious coping, respectively, accounting for abuse history as a binary moderator. Across the full sample, positive religious coping was positively associated with guilt repair (i.e., the tendency to engage in reparative behaviors following one's wrongdoing), guilt negative behavior evaluation (i.e., the tendency to feel bad about how one acted in a given scenario), and shame withdrawal (i.e., the tendency to try and avoid unpleasant situations in which one has done something wrong), and negatively associated with shame negative self-evaluation (i.e., the tendency to make internal, negative self-attributions about one's wrongdoing). Negative religious coping was positively associated with shame withdrawal and, for participants with no abuse history, shame negative self-evaluation. Results suggest that positive religious coping is more closely related to guilt proneness, and negative religious coping to shame proneness. Additional research with longitudinal designs and more defined abuse history subgroups is needed.

Shame proneness is associated with individual differences in temporal pole white matter structure

ABSTRACT Shame and guilt are distinct negative moral emotions, although they are usually regarded as overlapping affective experiences. Of these two emotions, shame is more closely related to concerns about other people’s judgment, whereas guilt is more related to concerns about one’s own judgment. Although some studies have tried to identify the psychological process underlying shame as opposed to guilt, there is no clear evidence of brain regions that are specifically relevant to the experience of shame rather than guilt and, more generally, self-blame. We therefore investigated associations between individual differences in shame- and guilt-proneness and the gray and white matter structures of the brain using magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry while controlling for associations with guilt- or shame-proneness. To accomplish this goal, we enrolled 590 healthy, right-handed individuals (338 men and 252 women; age, 20.6 ± 1.8 years). We administered a questionnaire to assess shame proneness and guilt proneness. Based on our hypothesis, we found that high shame proneness was associated with decreased regional white matter density only in the right inferior temporal pole, whereas no significant region was associated with guilt. The function of this area may be important for the underlying processes differentiating shame from guilt.

Who wants to wash away their sins? Guilt and shame proneness and behavioral moral cleansing endorsement: a pilot study

In our pilot cross-sectional study, we aimed to explore the associations between guilt and shame proneness and moral cleansing endorsement. Our sample consisted of 484 adults (73.3% females), aged 18 and 53 (M=24.09, SD=7.32). We used a novel approach to explore moral cleansing mechanisms, i.e., a two-item scale assessing behavioral cleansing endorsement (one's agreement with the idea that people must "wash away" their immoral acts by acting in ethical ways that would "clean" their moral debt). In addition to the significant associations that we found between moral cleansing endorsement and the guilt and shame proneness dimensions (i.e., negative behavior evaluation, repair action tendencies, negative self-evaluation, and withdrawal action tendencies), results also suggested that moral cleansing endorsement was significantly predicted by overall guilt and shame proneness. More specifically, we found that higher levels of guilt and shame proneness might account for higher moral cleansing endorsement levels. We also found important associations with participants' age: our findings suggested that the higher the age, the higher the endorsement for moral actions aimed to "clean" immoral deeds. Results are discussed in relation to cultural-related factors.

The role of social acceptability and guilt in unethical consumer behavior: Following the crowd or their own moral compass?

Consumers may choose to behave opportunistically and unethically in dealing with firms which can affect the firms’ finances. Both external and internal forces guide this choice for consumers: the fear of sanctions for acting in a manner that society considers unacceptable, and guilt resulting from violating their own internal ethical standards. This paper examines how the interaction of these forces determines the likelihood of unethical consumer behavior. We find that when an unethical behavior is more socially acceptable, even if illegal, individual differences in guilt proneness have greater bearing on a consumer’s decision to behave unethically. However, the role of individual guilt proneness matters lesswhen the unethical behavior is less socially acceptable. The results are consistent across numerous settings in which the firm offers varying degrees of license to consumer to act opportunistically, and potentially unethically (i.e., abusing merchandise return policies, illegally downloading media, and paying small amounts in pay-what-you-wish situations). Our findings reveal boundary conditions of the effect of guilt proneness on ethical behavior suggesting that managers potentially can curtail unethical behavior through making a behavior less socially acceptable, or by influencing the context of the unethical behavior.

Achievers, Not Winners: On the Negative Role of Guilt Proneness in Competitive Settings

Guilt proneness is associated with high work intensity and job performance, by enhancing personal and interpersonal motives. However, at many work settings, competitive goals place personal achieve...

Emotion: The forgotten component of legal socialization

AbstractLegal socialization researchers have largely ignored the importance of emotion in the legal socialization process and engagement in crime. The purpose of the current study was to argue the potential importance of moral emotions (e.g., guilt) in legal socialization and take a preliminary step to integrate an emotion component into an existing model. The current study investigated whether the moral emotion of guilt, using both proneness and anticipatory measures, would predict rule‐violating behavior (RVB) as part of the integrated cognitive legal socialization model. The study used survey data from 474 participants who were part of a longitudinal study of adolescent rule‐violating behavior. Results showed that guilt proneness functioned as a predictor of RVB in parallel with legal reasoning, while anticipatory guilt served as a mediator in parallel with normative attitude mediators. Enforcement status (i.e., feeling people should be punished for committing RVB) mediated the relation between guilt proneness and RVB, while normative status (i.e., approval for engaging in RVB) and anticipatory guilt mediated the relation between legal reasoning and RVB. These findings help to advance legal socialization by demonstrating the unique contribution of emotion in legal socialization theory and provide a foundation for future research in this area. The implications for the role of emotion in both the integrated cognitive legal socialization model and the procedural justice legal socialization model and future directions for further inquiry are discussed.

Competitive Anxiety, and Guilt and Shame Proneness From Perspective Type D and Non-type D Football Players.

The precompetitive, competitive, and postcompetitive mental states of athletes are currently not sufficiently researched. Long-term exposure to stressors contributes to the formation of mental blocks and leads to various health problems. One of the factors that can explain the variability of athletes' reactions to stress is their personality. This study is the first to examine competitive anxiety, and guilt and shame proneness in the context of the reaction of football players to distress in sports. The study consists of 112 male football players aged 16–24 (21.00 ± 1.90) who were divided into type D and non-type D football players according to scoring on the Denollet Scale (DS14). Football players also filled out the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS-2) and the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP). The taxonomic approach was conducted to test and to examine differences in stressor intensity as a function of type D personality. A correlation, multivariate analysis of variance, and regression analysis were performed in the study. We found that type D football players were more afraid of failures in sports (worry), felt more often autonomous excitement concentrated in the stomach and muscles (somatic anxiety), and showed more frequent concentration disruption than did non-type D football players. We also found that although type D football players were more likely to rate their behavior as negative and inappropriate, they showed a much greater effort to correct it than did non-type D football players. Negative affectivity and social inhibition of type D football players were positively correlated with competitive anxiety. In addition, we noted lower levels of somatic anxiety and lower concentration disruption for football players who used escape strategies to manage stress. The shame proneness subscale monitoring negative self-evaluation was also closely related to the concentration disruption of football players. We found that the examination of athletes by type D personality is necessary due to the fact that negative affectivity and social inhibition are significant predictors of competitive anxiety of football players, which explains their worries at 24.0%, somatic anxiety at 8.2%, and concentration disruption at 10.6%.

The Influence of Negative Feedback and Social Rank on Feelings of Shame and Guilt: A Vignette Study in 8- to 13-Year-Old Non-Clinical Children

This experimental study examined the role of negative feedback and social rank in the experience of self-conscious emotions, shame and guilt, in typically developing children aged 8 to 13 years. Participants were tested by means of a vignette paradigm in which feedback and social rank were systematically manipulated and levels of shame and guilt were assessed after listening to each of the vignettes. In addition, children completed a set of questionnaires for measuring individual differences in shame and guilt proneness, social comparison, submissive behavior, and external shame. The results showed that children presented with negative feedback reported higher ratings of shame and guilt than when presented with positive feedback, implying that the provision of negative feedback has a significant impact on children’s experience of self-conscious emotions. Social rank had less effect on children’s report of these self-conscious emotions. Furthermore, the individual difference variables of guilt proneness, and to a lesser extent shame proneness and submissive behavior, appeared to be positively related to self-conscious emotions as reported during the vignette task.