Does Shame Still Prevail in China and Guilt Prevail in the U.S.A?

Abstract

This study examined whether Chinese and Americans varied in guilt and shame. A 2 (relational closeness: friends vs. acquaintance) × 3 (targets of harm: self only vs. self and the other vs. the other only) × 2 (country: China vs. U.S.) between-subject factorial study was conducted. Results showed regardless of cultures, the extent of damage caused by transgression significantly predicted guilt and shame, whereas relational closeness between a transgressor and a witness did not have an impact. U.S. participants exhibited stronger guilt and shame compared to Chinese on scaled items; Chinese participants had more open-ended shame expressions than U.S. participants.

Keywords:

• Self-conscious emotions
• guilt
• shame
• U.S.-China differences in emotional experiences

Acknowledgements

This manuscript is part of the first author’s preliminary paper. The authors wish to thank Drs Timothy Levine, Maria Lapinski, and Steve Lacy for their valuable feedback for this work, and the anonymous reviewers’ careful review.

Notes

1. The percentage of agreement in translation and back-translation was also calculated based on the number of agreed translations divided by the total number of question items, and the translators agreed upon 86% of the question items for the translation.

2. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed with each scale in each sample. Factor loadings of items the Chinese sample were in the range of .42–.63, whereas for the U.S. sample, factor loadings fell in the range of .54–.72. Although one-factor solution was reached for both sample, the factor loadings for Chinese sample was lower than the U.S. sample (see Table 2).