Construction of Shame-Proneness Scale of Employee Malay People: A Study from Indonesia

Abstract

Purpose

Culture plays a role in determining how individuals interpret their experiences. In previous studies, the experience of shame has been associated with negative behavior. However, for Malays who interpret shame more positively, the experience of shame serves to inhibit negative behavior. Therefore, shame-proneness in Malays cannot be measured as it is measured in different cultures. Two studies in this research aimed to construct a measure of shame-proneness for Malays in a work context. This measuring instrument is devoted to the work context because so many situations cause shame in everyday life. By limiting the measurement of shame for employees, the conditions that arise in the measuring instrument can be more specific.

Methods

In the first study, a qualitative study was conducted to explore the experience of shame in Malays. The second study used a quantitative method to construct a measuring instrument of shame that has good psychometric properties.

Results

The results of in-depth interviews with nine Malay employees resulted in four indicators of shame in Malay people in the work context, namely, negative self-evaluation, withdrawal, perceiving negative evaluation from others, and motivation to change the self. In the second study, 456 Malay civil servants in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, were asked to respond to a 27-item shame-proneness scale based on these four indicators. Based on the exploratory factor analysis results, the four indicators narrowed down to three factors. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 18-item proneness scale with three factors was the best and showed acceptable goodness of fit.

Conclusion

Shame-proneness scale of Malay employees scale was conducted in order to compose an instrument using a more comprehensive psychological approach. This has satisfactory psychometric properties and thus potentially measures the shame-proneness of Malay employees in Indonesia more accurately.

Keywords:

• shame-proneness
• measurement
• employee Malay people

Data Sharing Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ethical Approval

All participants gave their informed consent to be involved before they participated in this study. Informed consent included the publication of anonymized responses. All procedures performed were by the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standard. All procedures performed in this study were by ethical standards and the procedures were approved by the ethics committee of Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the “5000 Doctors” scholarship program of the Ministry of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia as part of the funding for the first author’s doctoral study program at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia.

Disclosure

Dr Marina Sulastiana II reports a patent Measurements pending to Intellectual Property Patents & Copyrights Indonesia. The author declares no other potential conflicts of interest in this article.