A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON THE EXPERIENCE AND SELF-

REGULATION OF SHAME AND GUILT

CHANG SU

A DISSERTATION SUBMISSION TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN PSYCHOLOGY

YORK UNIVERSITY

TORONTO, CANADA

November 26th, 2010

1*1 Library and Archives
Canada
Published Heritage
Branch
395 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0N4
Canada
NOTICE:
The author has granted a non-
exclusive license allowing Library and
Archives Canada to reproduce,
publish, archive, preserve, conserve,
communicate to the public by
telecommunication or on the Internet,
loan, distribute and sell theses
worldwide, for commercial or non-
commercial purposes, in microform,
paper, electronic and/or any other
formats.
The author retains copyright
ownership and moral rights in this
thesis. Neither the thesis nor
substantial extracts from it may be
printed or otherwise reproduced
without the author's permission.
In compliance with the Canadian
Privacy Act some supporting forms
may have been removed from this
thesis.
While these forms may be included
in the document page count, their
removal does not represent any loss
of content from the thesis.
Ifl
Canada
BibliothSque et
Archives Canada
Direction du
Patrimoine de l'6dition
395, rue Wellington
Ottawa ON K1A 0N4
Canada
Your file Votre riterence
ISBN: 978-0-494-71336-5
Our file Notre r6f6rence
ISBN: 978-0-494-71336-5
AVIS:
L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive
permettant a la Biblioth&que et Archives
Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver,
sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public
par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter,
distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le
monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur
support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou
autres formats.
L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur
et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni
la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci
ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement
reproduits sans son autorisation.
Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la
protection de la vie privee, quelques
formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de
cette these.
Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans
fa pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu
manquant.
 Abstract

The goal of this research was to compare differences in the experience and self-

regulation of shame and guilt in undergraduate students from mainland China (a

collectivist and supposedly shame-based culture, where shame is seen as socially

adaptive) and Canada (an individualist and supposedly guilt-based culture, where shame

is seen as maladaptive). Shame and guilt are strong negative emotions that arise when

people are aware that their self, or their behavior, may be evaluated negatively by others.

Most previous research focused on shame and guilt studies within each culture, and

seldom have comparison studies been done between Western cultures and Eastern

cultures. People in Eastern and Western cultures may differ in their experiences of shame

and guilt because they come from cultures with different kinds of self-construals

(interdependent and independent, respectively). I proposed that the nature of one's self-

construal will have consequences for both the experience and self-regulation of these

self-conscious emotions. We conducted a series of studies to examine whether

participants from China and Canada might recall or generate different situations for

different types of shame and guilt, and whether their self-regulation of shame and guilt

might also differ. In Study 1, there were 39 adults from mainland China (MC) and 34

adults of European descent from Canada (EC). Participants were presented with five

types of shame concepts (xiu chi, can kui, diu lian, xiu kui, and nan wei qing) and four

types of guilt (neijiu 1- harm to others, neijiu 2 - trust violation, zui e gan, andfan zui

gan), which were based on Mandarin shame and guilt categories. Participants were asked

to describe situations that would elicit each concept. The responses were coded into

IV
themes, which were organized into eight higher order categories. The data were also

coded in terms of three dimensions based on earlier research ("public" versus "private",

"self' versus "action" and "withdrawal" versus "repair"). Both cultures had "breaking

own expectations", "breaking other's expectations", and "intentional breaking social

norms/rules" higher order categories. Chi-square analyses suggested that the main

difference between cultures was in the higher order guilt category of "other's improper

actions", ECs were more likely to associate guilt feelings with other people's improper

actions than MCs were. Moreover, within cultural differences between shame and guilt

were also found. First, situations eliciting these emotions were more likely to be public

than private when MCs were experiencing shame, but not this was not true for guilt. ECs

experienced both guilt and shame primarily in public situations rather than private

situations. Second, MCs focused on blaming themselves more in shame situations than in

guilt situations. MCs focused more on blaming their actions in guilt situations than in

shame situations. However, ECs in both guilt and shame situations still focused on

blaming their actions rather than the self. Third, ECs focused on social withdrawal rather

than repairing behaviours in shame situations, but focused on repairing behaviours rather

than social withdrawal in guilt situations. Study 2 was a pilot study to create two

representative scenarios for each of the nine shame and guilt terms. Chinese (N = 3) and

European (N = 2) adults in Canada were provided with three scenarios based on the most

frequent themes from Study 1 for each of the five shame and four guilt categories and

were asked to order these scenarios in terms of how well they described their respective

concepts of shame and guilt. The eighteen most representative scenarios were selected,

V
two for each of the nine concepts. In Study 3, we addressed the effect of cultural

background on the self-regulation of shame and guilt on European Canadian (N = 99),

Canadian Chinese (N = 86), and international Chinese students in Canada (N = 65) and

mainland Chinese students (N = 69). We hypothesized that there would be main effects

of culture and gender on responses to shame, in particular, which might be mediated or

moderated by self-construal and self-monitoring. Previous shame and guilt response

scales were modified to create a 12-item Shame and Guilt Self-Regulation Scale (SGSRS)

scale that captured both Chinese and North American responses to shame and guilt.

Participants read the 18 scenarios created in Study 2, and rated how they would respond

to each scenario using this scale. Mainland Chinese endorsed more positive approach (i.e.,

problem focus coping, support seeking) to the guilt and shame scenarios than Chinese

Canadians and European Canadians. Gender differences also emerged, women endorsed

more positive approach strategies to shame than men and less withdrawal (denial).

Regression analyses showed that interdependent self-construal, but not independent self-

construal or self-monitoring, partially mediated between mainland Chinese culture versus

others and responses to shame, suggesting that personality variables like interdependent

self-construal play an important role in explaining the influence of culture on responses

to shame. However, since interdependence only partially mediated cultural differences in

shame problem focused coping, cultural norms and immediate environment clearly still

play a large role in affecting the responses to these self-conscious emotions. These

findings suggest that culture affects self-regulation through both norms and personality

variables (i.e., interdependent self-construal).

VI
 Acknowledgments

I am very thankful to many people for their generous help in many stages of

research and writing of this dissertation. First of all, I would like to thank my great and

wonderful advisor, Dr. Michaela Hynie for her continuous encouragement, support and

helpful guidance and her tons of work for the modifications, made me overcome my life

difficulties and keep working on this dissertation in the past years. I am also thankful to

Dr. Richard Lalonde and Dr. Mary Desrocher for serving on my dissertation committee

and for their helpful and valuable feedback and their kind social support.

I am also grateful to my previous colleagues, friends and members of my family

who have encouraged and supported me. I thank my previous colleague Lianrong Guo,

who helped me and collected data with me in China, Dr. Bill Chris, Chinese literature

class instructors in York University, Dr. Rebecca Jubis, and URPP people for their help

to recruit part of participants and all the participants who attended to this research. I thank

Tingju Zhu, Marilyn Valenti, Dan Su, and Sophie Mo to do the coding and calculations. I

thank my friends Stephanie Mears, Pam Stalks, Christina Bali, Gabe Scioli, Yun Ma,

Dong Yan, Xiaojing Zhang, Fengzhen Zhou, Yu Ye, Hong Liu, Yan He, Xiaodai Cha,

Ruiping Guo, Yan Lu, Zhen Yu, and many Mandarin teachers for their support. In

particular, I would like to thank my two side parents to support me to fulfil these years'

studies. Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude for my husband George Gang

Chen for his invaluable support with his direct help in translations, coding, and his

suggestions, his boundless physical, emotional support and help in my daily life, and my

two lovely children my son David and my daughter Amanda. Thank you all very much!

VII
Table of Contents

Abstract IV

Acknowledgments VII

Table of Contents VIII

List of Tables XIV

List of Figures XV

General introduction 1

Differences between guilt and shame 2

Culture differences in guilt and shame 5

The importance of shame in Chinese culture 7

The categories of guilt and shame in China 9

Cultural differences in within culture studies of guilt and shame 9

Cultural similarities in within culture studies of guilt and shame 11

Cross-cultural studies of guilt and shame 13

Gender differences in the experience of guilt and shame 15

Overview of the studies 17

Study 1 20

Different types of guilt and shame in China 20

Different types of guilt 23

Different types of shame 25

Dimensions of Differences of Shame and Guilt 28

Shame and guilt-eliciting situations 33

VIII
The purpose of study 1 34

Methods 36

Participants 36

Materials 37

Procedure 37

Data analysis 38

Results 41

The length of the description of types of emotions (overall shame and guilt) by gender

(male and female) within each cultural group 41

Themes between cultures 41

Main themes of all the categories of guilt in Chinese participants and European Canadian

participants 41

Main themes of all the categories of shame in Chinese participants and European

Canadian participants 43

Higher order categories from guilt and shame scenarios in Chinese participants and

European Canadian participants 45

Higher categories comparisons for guilt and shame within cultures 48

Higher categories comparisons for guilt and shame between cultures 50

Three dimensions of guilt and shame 51

Dimension 1: focus on public versus private 51

Dimension 2: Focus on self versus action 60

Dimension 3: Social withdrawal versus repairing behavious 71

IX
Discussion 81

Main themes of guilt and shame between two cultures 81

Main themes of guilt between two cultures 81

Main themes of shame between two cultures 82

Higher order categories comparisons within and between cultures 88

Three dimensions guilt and shame comparisons 91

Public versus private 91

Self versus action 93

Social withdrawal versus repairing behaviours 94

Limitations and future directions of study 1 96

Study 2 Pilot Testing Scenarios 98

Introduction 99

Methods 99

Participants 99

Materials 98

Creating three scenarios for each category of guilt and shame 98

Main themes of all the forms of guilt 100

Main themes of all the forms of shame 107

Ranking the representativeness of the scenarios 107

Results 108

Discussion Ill

Themes of categories of guilt and shame 111

X
Ratings of the problematic scenarios 113

Study 3 117

Self-construals and self-conscious emotions 119

Self-monitoring and the self-conscious emotions 123

Gender difference of the self-regulation of shame and guilt 126

The purpose of the study 3 127

Hypothesis 1: There will be a main effect of culture on responses to shame 130

Hypothesis 2: There will be a main effect of gender on responses to shame and guilt

131

Hypothesis 3: Cultural differences in responses to shame will be mediated or moderated

by self-construal 131

Hypothesis 4: Responses to shame will be moderated by self-monitoring 132

Methods 133

Participants 133

Procedure 135

Materials 136

Data analysis 139

Results 145

Cultural differences in self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent

self-construal 145

Effects of culture on responses to guilt scenarios 147

Effects of gender on responses to guilt scenarios 147

XI
Effects of culture on responses to shame scenarios 150

Effects of gender on responses to shame scenarios 153

The interaction of culture and gender 153

Regression analyses 154

Responses to guilt scenarios 157

Responses to shame scenarios 161

Discussion 170

Effects of cultures on responses to guilt and shame scenarios 170

Effects of gender on responses to guilt and shame 174

Culture effects on self-monitoring, interdependence self-construal and independence

self-construal 177

General discussions and conclusion 179

Limitations and future directions 185

References 188

Footnotes 212

Appendix A: Survey of Study 1 213

Appendix B: Survey (first time rating) 215

Appendix C: Survey (second time rating to the problematic categories) 220

Appendix D: Survey for Study 2 221

Appendix E: Reratings of scenarios 224

Appendix F: Survey for Study 3 226

Appendix G: survey for reducing items 232

XII
Appendix H: Group factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt and shame 236

Appendix I: Percentage of sorting nine categories based on 30 items 241

Appendix J: Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame and guilt 243

Appendix K: Correlational Tables 245

Appendix L: Regressions of self-regulation of guilt 250

Appendix M: Regressions of self-regulation of shame 255

Appendix N: Consent form and debriefing form 260

XIII
 List of Tables

Table 1: Concepts and explanations of shame and guilt in Mandarin and English 26

Table 2: Frequencies of higher order categories of guilt and shame in two cultures....46

Table 3: The three most frequent themes for each category guilt and shame 100

Table 4. The rankings (percentage) of three scenarios for each category of shame and

guilt 109

Table 5: Factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt 141

Table 6: Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame 142

Table 7: Means and standard deviations of self-monitoring, interdependent self-

construal, and independent self-construal by culture 146

Table 8: Means and standard deviations of self-regulation to guilt scenarios by

culture 149

Table 9: Means and standard deviations of self-regulation to shame scenarios by

culture 150

XIV
 List of Figures

Figure 1: Public versus private dimension of guilt in Chinese Participants 53

Figure 2: Public versus private dimension of shame in Chinese Participants 55

Figure 3: Interaction between context (public vs. private) and emotions in Chinese

Participants 56

Figure 4: Public versus private dimension of guilt in European Canadian participants

58

Figure 5: Public versus private dimension of shame in European Canadian participants

59

Figure 6: Interaction between context {public vs. private) and emotions (shame vs. guilt)

in European Canadian Participants 61

Figure 7: Self versus action dimension of guilt in Chinese participants 63

Figure 8: Self versus action dimension of shame in Chinese participants 63

Figure 9: Interaction between self versus action and emotions (shame vs. guilty in

Chinese Participants 66

Figure 10: Self versus action dimension of guilt in European Canadian participants

67

Figure 11: Self versus action dimension of shame in European Canadian participants

69

Figure 12: Interaction between self versus action and emotions (shame vs. guilty) in

European Canadian Participants 70

Figure 13: Withdrawal versus repairing action dimension of guilt in Chinese

XV
Participants 71

Figure 14: Withdrawal versus repairing action dimension of shame in Chinese

participants 74

Figure 15: Interaction between response (withdrawal vs. repairing action) and emotion

(shame vs. guilt) in Chinese participants 75

Figure 16: Withdrawal versus repairing action responses to guilt in Euro-Canadian

participants 76

Figure 17: Withdrawal versus repairing action responses to shame in Euro-Canadian

Participants 78

Figure 18: Interaction between response (withdrawal vs. repairing action) and emotion

(shame vs. guilt) in Euro-Canadian participants 79

Figure 19: Interaction of gender by culture on denial in shame scenarios 154

Figure 20: Interaction of gender by culture on counterfactual thinking in shame

Scenarios 156

Figure 21: Mediation of Relationship between mainland Chinese and shame problem

focused coping by interdependent self-construal 164

XVI
"Men cannot live without shame. A sense of shame is the

beginning of integrity. After knowing shame, people

bravely correct their wrongdoings. "

Mencius (Chinese philosopher)

 General Introduction

Confucius (551- 479 B.C.E.), one of China's best known philosophers said: "A

person must restrain his behavior with a sense of shame." Confucius also said, "Knowing

shame is akin to courage." According to Confucius, a person must know shame in order

to reflect upon his or her faults and aspire to improve morally. A person who knows

shame will be courageous enough to face their own mistakes and conquer them. As this

quote shows, shame is seen as a desirable state in China, and as essential to moral

development. However, this perspective on shame is not universally shared.

Shame and guilt are painful self-conscious emotions that are pervasive affects in

our daily lives. They are universal emotions that are among the most painful of human

experiences (Ho, Fu, & Ng, 2004). Both of these emotions frequently result from moral

transgression or the violation of social norms or rules (Fischer & Tangney, 1995). For

this reason, shame and guilt function as mechanisms of social control by helping to

regulate and subtly shape people's social behavior to adapt to the moral standard of their

society. Shame and guilt guide individuals toward the internalization of social standards

and the regulation of their behaviour to be consistent with them (Baumeister, Stillwell, &

Heatherton, 1994; Bedford, 2004; Parker, 1998). Moreover, the experience of shame and

guilt following a transgression motivates individuals to take efforts to repair destroyed

relationships (Keltner & Harker, 1998; Parker, 1998). Thus, these negative self-conscious

emotions may strengthen social relations and reduce the likelihood of rejection by others

(Hynie, MacDonald, & Marques, 2006). Society therefore needs these emotions to keep

regular order and cannot be maintained well without them.

1
Differences between Shame and Guilt

The difference between shame and guilt puzzles most North Americans since the

terms "shame" and "guilt" often have been used interchangably, and theorists have

disagreed about whether they are in fact distinct emotions (Hynie, et al., 2006). In fact,

experiences of shame and guilt are often intertwined (Harper & Hoopes, 1990). However,

a growing body of research has demonstrated their unique qualities. Shame and guilt are

distinct in both their phenomenology and their behavioural consequences (Roseman,

Wiest, & Swartz, 1994; Tangney, 1999; Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney, Miller,

Flicker, & Barlow, 1996).

Helen Block Lewis (1971) was perhaps the first to state that the difference between

shame and guilt focuses on the different roles and functions of the self. Guilt is

behaviour-focused, pertaining to how one's behaviour would be evaluated (Tangney, et

al., 1996; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Guilt is a negative feeling of responsibility or

remorse for having done something (Hoffman, 1998). It has been proposed that guilt is

primarily a private experience in which the feelings of guilt do not generally need an

audience (Qian & Qi, 2002); we experience guilt when our conscience, our inner voice,

speaks to us. Guilt involves self-criticism for a specific action (Lewis, 1971). Research in

U. S. contexts suggest that experiencing guilt leads to higher self-esteem and increases in

empathy and perspective taking, and is associated with variables that relate to

maintaining strong interpersonal bonds (Leith & Baumeister, 1998; Tangney, 1998).

Guilt is generally a less painful or devastating experience than shame although people

experiencing guilt often think of the wrongdoing over and over, wishing they had

2
behaved differently or could somehow undo the deed (Kubany & Watson, 2003; Tangney,

1998).

In contrast, shame is more self-focused than guilt and pertains to a belief that one

would be evaluated negatively by others in response to a transgression (Tangney, et al.,

1996; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). It involves strong self-deprecating evaluations of the

entire self that are associated with a feeling of helplessness, worthlessness, and

powerlessness (Anolli & Pascucci, 2005; Fischer & Tangney, 1995; Tangney, 1994).

Personal inadequacy is an example of a shame related self-evaluation. A shamed

individual responds to negative events by saying such things as "I feel like a failure." or

"I am a bad person." (Kubany & Watson, 2003); shame is therefore a highly painful state

(Tangney, 1995).

Shame and guilt typically lead to very different motivations in interpersonal

contexts. Guilt motivates individuals to redress the violation and repair relationships.

Feelings of guilt are actually fairly optimistic and adaptive because of their involvement

with empathetic concern (Tangney, 1994). This other-oriented empathy may motivate

individuals towards actions that repair or redeem the violation, strengthen interpersonal

relationships, and undo harm through actions like confessing or apologizing (Tangney,

1994). For some people, guilt might be maladaptive if it is excessive or inappropriate, as

with clinical depression (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). However, guilt is

often related to healthier social and emotional functioning in Western cultures (Tangney,

1998; Tangney & Dearing, 2002).

3
 People's reactions to shame are more intense than to guilt. They feel lonely and

angry with themselves (Xie & Qian, 2000) and fear being humiliated, ridiculed or

laughed at (Li, Wang, & Fischer, 2004). The person experiencing shame feels exposed,

which leads them to desire to escape, to hide or to sink into the floor and disappear

(Tangney, 1998). Shame is accompanied by a sense of shrinking or of being small, and a

sense of passivity in correcting the perceived mistakes (Hoffman, 1998; Tangney &

Dearing, 2002). Shame therefore motivates an individual to withdraw from contact with

others (Frijda, 1987; Tangney, 1995). Experiences of shame in Western cultures are

related to many negative psychological symptoms including depression, somatization,

pessimism, suicide attempts, drug use in both adolescents and adults, maladaptive and

non-constructive responses to anger, negative cognitions about oneself, social anxiety and

social avoidance (Anolli & Pascucci, 2005; Lutwak & Ferrari, 1996; Tangney, 1994;

Tangney & Dearing, 2002).

Shame and guilt also differ in the range of conditions which can elicit them. It has

been argued that there are many more situations that lead to shame than to guilt. Research

suggests that guilt arises primarily in relation to events that involve a violation of moral

order (Lindsay-Hartz, 1984). However, shame can arise from both moral transgressions

as well as non-moral situations. One can feel ashamed of not only one's thoughts and

actions (e.g., invasions of personal privacy), but also of one's body (e.g., lack of

attractiveness), incompetence (e.g., not trying one's best; a failure to live up one's ego

ideal), one's humble condition in life (Li, Wang, & Fischer, 2004), feelings of inferiority

(Ferguson & Stegge, 1995), disappointment, social snubs, sexual rebuffs, and socially

4
inappropriate behaviour (Taylor, 1985). However, others note that it is very difficult to

identify situations that elicit only one of these emotions, because the distinctions between

shame and guilt may be subtle (Sabini & Silver, 2005), and shame and guilt often are

experienced simultaneously (Hynie & MacDonald, 2001; Tangney, et al., 1996).

Cultural Differences in Shame and Guilt

Most of the above considerations of shame and guilt are related to a Western

cultural perspective. However, although shame and guilt are believed to be universal

emotions, some research suggests that there may be cultural differences in how shame

and guilt are experienced and expressed (Bedford, 1994), because cultural beliefs and

values shape emotional experiences.

Historically, some scholars who studied cultural differences in shame and guilt

argued that cultural differences in these two affects exist between Western and Eastern

countries (Benedict, 1946; Kluckhohn, 1960). They argued that societal order depends on

two punishing strengths (Benedict, 1946; Mead, 1937). One is internal punishment,

which is the feeling of guilt; the other is external punishment, which is the feeling of

shame. According to these scholars, different cultures tend to rely more on one form of

societal control than the other. Western countries are typically described as guilt cultures.

These cultures advocate individualism, not bending to power, continuously seeking self-

control, and self-supervision. Freedom is the most important component for these

cultures, and Western individualism is premised on the concept of personal rights, rather

than personal duties or social goals. The dominant values are concepts like: you are

responsible for yourself; follow your own conscience; and meet your own needs (Triandis,

5
Bontempo, Villareal, Asai & Lucca, 1988). Therefore, individuals are expected to

internalize a sense of proper behavior in congruence with social norms. Guilt, by

focusing on internal standards and control, is naturally associated with these values.

On the other hand, Asian and other non -Western cultures are typically described as

shame cultures. These cultures emphasize collectivism, which pays much more attention

to the relationships among people, and emphasizes hierarchical organization.

Interpersonal harmony is more important than freedom in a collectivistic culture (Tinsley

& Weldon, 2003). Non-Western cultures emphasize concepts like bringing honor to your

group; being loyal to your family, nation, and company; showing respect to elders and

seniors; and not criticizing others publicly (Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca,

1988). Shame, with its focus on others' negative evaluation, is hypothesized to be more

consistent with these collectivist values. Thus, it is proposed that cultures differ in the

extent to which people in them experience guilt as opposed to shame.

Other research suggests that there may be different triggers for guilt and shame, in

Eastern cultures and Western cultures. For instance, empirical research found that

Japanese patterns of guilt are related to failure of responsibility and failures to achieve

positive goals (De Vos, 1974; Lebra, 1988) or particular capabilities that Westerners do

not recognize (Bedford, 1994). Similarly, in Chinese culture, guilt may be elicited by a

lack of capability, because the Chinese experience a strong sense of duty and obligation

to family and group, which is not typically observed to be a cause of guilt in Western

culture (Bedford & Hwang, 2003). Thus, there is reason to believe that guilt and shame

may play a broader role in Eastern than Western cultures.

6
The Importance of Shame in Chinese Culture

China is the biggest of the East Asian countries and has a traditional Confucian

culture. Chinese culture has been influenced by Confucian thought for over two thousand

years (Zhu, 1992). Confucian ethics are based on concepts of personal duties and social

goals rather than on personal rights. This ethical approach advocates a moral system

constructed on subjective standards of benevolence. Ren (benevolence), yi (justice), li

(politeness), zhi (wisdom), and xin (trust) are very important moral norms in Confucian

educational and moral philosophy. Confucian values stress the importance of good

conduct, proper social relations, humility, and self-improvement.

According to Confucius, an orderly and peaceful society requires that every person

should attempt to be perfect by leading a virtuous life, being modest and humble, and

constantly monitoring one's conduct. This modesty comes along with self-criticism. For

example, Confucian's famous student Zeng Shen, was put forward as a good example for

engaging in introspection many times throughout the day (Did I do my best to help others?

Was I honest with all others? Did I go review the materials teacher presented?)

(Goethals, Sorensen, & Burns, 2004, pl22-126). Individuals are encouraged to become

aware of their faults through self-examination so that they may correct themselves (Neff,

Pisitsungkagarn, & Hsieh, 2008). Confucian thought is highly valued by Chinese society

as it supports and maintains harmony between people, thereby protecting the stability of

society. Even now in the People's Republic of China, there are the "Ba Rong Ba Chi"

(eight honors and eight s h a m e s ) w h i c h were developed for all Chinese citizens by the

7
current Chairman Hu Jintao for social harmony. They are an official set of moral

concepts and the core value system for the whole society.

Confucianism emphasizes the importance of shame as a means of self-improvement

and self-development. In this context, shame is highly elaborated and organized in China;

it is an essential social and moral emotion and a virtue (Li et al., 2004). While some

cultures, and much of Western psychological research, may regard shame as harmful and

undesirable to people's health, feeling bad about one's self in China is very normal

(Crystal et al., 2001). Mencius (371-298. B.C.E.), who was an itinerant Chinese

philosopher and sage and one of the principal interpreters of Confucianism said, "Human

beings must not live without shame. True shame is not to know shame at all."

Shame and guilt are used as a prominent technique of social control and child

rearing in China (Fung, 1999; Fung & Chen, 2001; Li et al., 2004). For example, parents

often use phrases such as Llzhen diu lian" (shame on you) or "w xiu bu xiu" (Aren't you

ashamed of yourself ?) when children transgress. Chinese children are frequently judged

and criticized by parents using this parenting method in order to correct their behaviours

or wrongdoings. This use of shame as a method of correction is not limited to the

guidance of children. Other evidence of cultural differences in approaches to shame and

guilt come from findings that Chinese managers in Hong Kong are more likely to use

shame to resolve conflicts than are U.S. managers (Tinsley & Weldon, 2003). In contrast,

U.S. managers are more likely than Hong Kong Chinese managers to use shame to punish

their employees.

8
 The notion of shame in China is associated with the term "face". Chinese people

are very dependent on their relationships with others, and maintaining one's identity in

the social hierarchy is a duty that is connected to moral beliefs (Hwang, 2001). Social

scientists have distinguished two Chinese concepts of face, based on two different sets of

judgmental criteria: mainzi, achieved through success; and lian, which represents the

confidence of society in the integrity of one's moral character (Ho, 1994). Traditional

Chinese people think lian (face) is very important. They cannot live their lives without

respect (Bedford, 2004). Avoiding "losing face" in China is more important than "gaining

face"; it is shameful to have one's social identity rejected (Ho, 1994). Lian and its loss

are both social judgments, which therefore require public exposure of one's transgression.

Losing face means you will not be accepted by the community or get support.

The categories of Guilt and Shame in China

Cultural differences in within culture studies of guilt and shame

In China, people distinguish many nuances to shame and guilt. The terms are wider

in intensity, content and styles of expression than those of English speaking countries

(Bedford, 2004; Xie & Qian, 2000). Wang and Fisher (1994) have tabulated more than

150 words for varieties of guilt, shame and embarrassment in Chinese, but only a few

dozen at most in English. Negative self-conscious emotions are related to several Chinese

words, such as xiu (shame), chi (disgrace), xiu ru (humiliation), mi an zi (face and status

in society, face in a figurative sense, as in losing face), and lian (face, which refers to

one's dignity and self-respect) (Ho, 1994; Ho, Fu, & Ng, 2004).

9
 Similarly, Bedford (2004) conducted an ethnographic study to clearly establish

dimensions of the experiences of guilt and shame in a Chinese sample. Taiwanese

Chinese women were asked to generate the Mandarin terms for guilt and shame. Bedford

identified four types of shame concepts: diu lian (loss of face; loss of reputation), can kui

(failure to obtain a personal ideal and may often be connected to failure to carry out a

positive duty), xiu kui (personal failure; stain on the heart; a stronger shame feeling than

can kui) and xiu chi (very deep shame; perceived social failure; transgression of one's

own and others identity). Bedford (2004) also found three main types of subjective guilt

in Mandarin, all of which are related to a sense of responsibility: neijiu (failure of

personal responsibility), zui e gan (moral transgression; violation of negative duties; the

feeling of having done something terribly wrong) and fan zui gan (transgression of laws

or rules).

Consistent with the theory that Eastern cultures are shame-based, some researchers

also reported that Asian-Americans experienced more frequent and prevalent shame than

Caucasian-Americans (Lutwak et al., 1998; Ratanasiripong, 1997; Szeto-Wong, 1997). In

a related vein, Chinese parents believe that shame arises earlier in their children than do

American parents. Specifically, Fung et al. (2003) revealed that all parents in their study

of Chinese and American parents believed that their children understood shame and the

concepts of right and wrong by preschool age. However, Chinese parents tended to

believe that an awareness of shame emerges earlier than the ability to tell right from

wrong, whereas most parents from the United States believed the opposite.

Shame also appears as a basic emotion family in China, but not in the United
States (Fung, 1999). Li, Wang and Fischer (2004) used self-focus, which included guilt,

and other-focus, which included embarrassment, to identify the terms for shame and to

describe actual shame experiences. Based on these findings, they stated that shame in

Chinese culture had 113 shame-related terms. It is a kind of hyper-cognized emotion, one

that is highly dependent on people's cognitive appraisals. In support of this idea, it has

been found that the Chinese language is far richer in shame terms than is English, where

the definitions of shame are more narrow and extreme (Bedford, 1994; 2004; Goffman,

1962).

Cultural differences have also been observed in the details of how shame and guilt

are experienced. In a study with Chinese college students, Xie and Qian (2000) found that

there were no significant differences between shame and guilt among items related to

personal capabilities, which differed from findings with Western samples. In Western

samples, shame was connected with a negative evaluation of personal capability, and it

was assumed that only those who were very weak and incapable felt shame (Goffman,

1962). Xie and Qian (2000) also found that, among the Chinese, both shame and guilt

could be experienced in situations with or without other people, which differs from what

has been found with North American samples.

Cultural similarities in within culture studies of guilt and shame

Other research, however, does not find such clear distinctions by culture. In a study

with American university students, Frank and his colleagues (Frank, Harvey, & Verdun,

2000) asked 85 American undergraduate participants to read 13 scenarios, which were

written based on five types of shame {xiu chi, xiu kui, diu lian, can kui and nan wei qing)

11
and two types of guilt (shang hai ta ren (harm to others) and wei bei xin ren (trust

violation)). Each scenario was followed by the statement "If I were in the situation

described in the scenario above, I would feel" and followed by a list of 28 affect

descriptors, such as helpless, and embarrassed (24 scenarios were intended to capture

shame and 4 were intended to capture guilt) on a scale from A— very strongly to D — not

at all. They found that Americans were as capable as Chinese of experiencing distinct

varieties of shame, even though the distinctions may not arise in everyday life nor be

reflected in ordinary English usage.

j

Qian and Qi (2002) studied the difference between shame and guilt with a Chinese

sample and obtained similar results to those found in Western countries. Namely, "public"

and "private" aspects of the audience influenced guilt and shame in different ways.

"Exposure in public" was more likely to evoke shame feelings, whereas guilt did not

need an audience. "Violation of moral norms" could evoke feelings of both shame and

guilt. "Personal inadequacy" evoked more shame than guilt and, finally, "hurt oneself'

caused more shame, while "hurt others" evoked more guilt.

Xie and Qian (2000) asked 305 Chinese college students to recall a specific shame

or guilt event in their life and found that participants experienced more painful feelings

and wanted to flee more from shame situations than guilt situations. They also had more

physical changes and tried to avoid talking about the event in shame situations, all of

which are similar to the Western findings. However, there were no significant differences

between the items related with personal capabilities among those participants recalling

shame and those recalling guilt, which differed from Western findings. Finally, consistent

12
with Western research, Xie (1998) found that shamed college participants were

concerned about "self," namely, one felt himself/herself was hurt during a given event. In

contrast, in guilt-inducing situations, one was concerned about "other", the person one

hurts or on whom one inflicts a negative outcome. Thus, Xie (1998) proposed that

"hurting oneself' aroused shame, and "hurting others" evoked guilt, consistent with

differences in self and other focus found in Western samples (Lewis, 1971; Tangney,

1991; cf. Qian & Qi, 2002).

Cross-cultural studies of shame and guilt

The small number of studies that have compared experiences of shame and guilt

between cultures have also found both differences and similarities.

Chinese scholars Wang, Zhang, Gao and Qian (2009) studied cultural differences in

experiencing shame in eight Chinese undergraduate students, and eight American

students who were visitors in China for less than one year. They interviewed the

participants and asked them to describe two scenarios that had caused them to feel shame,

to provide the reason the scenario caused shame, and to evaluate how much shame they

felt in these scenarios, from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely). All the interview content was

coded according to the emotional, cognitive and behavioral reaction of the shame

experience. The results showed that both Chinese and American students reported shame

experiences with similar intensity in academic, personal relationship, body, and group

shame situations. The expectations of self, peers, parents, teachers or supervisors could

be sources of shame in both cultures. Chinese participants recalled more physical

reactions (i.e., heart beats, sweating, face flushing) when feeling shame and had more
cognitive processes related to the shame experience. They also found that, in both

cultures, shame was reported as having a positive effect on improving or restricting

improper behaviours in addition to the negative results, such as avoidance, that shame

experiences brought out. However, Wang et al. (2009) only studied the general term

shame on two small samples of mainland Chinese students and American students who

were temporarily visiting China.

Henkin (2004) addressed cross-cultural differences in descriptions of both shame

and guilt for Chinese and North American participants living in China and North

America. Henkin (2004) elicited shame and guilt-inducing situations from mainland

Chinese college students and European American college students and identified

dominant themes. The themes dominant in American shame narratives were: lost control,

ashamed by other's perceptions, and regret. The themes dominant in American guilt

narratives were: deceit, did not do something they should have, knowingly did something

wrong, unfulfilled obligations, and unintentionally hurt others. The themes dominant in

Chinese shame narratives were: poor academic performance, and public embarrassment.

The themes dominant in Chinese guilt narratives were: selfishness and being rude to

others. The theme of regret was equally present in American shame and Chinese guilt

stories. Although Henkin compared American and Chinese shame and guilt concepts, she

only used general concepts of shame and guilt to generate her examples, rather than using

each category of shame and guilt to generate those feelings. Thus, the concepts may not

have been fully explored and it is not clear which type of shame and guilt were being

14
described by the Chinese participants. This suggests that further research may be required

to fully understand possible cultural differences.

Gender differences in the experience of shame and guilt

Several researchers have explored gender differences in the experience of guilt and

shame using a range of measures. In adolescence and adulthood, women generally have

stronger feelings of guilt and shame than do men (Lutwak, Ferrari, & Cheek, 1998).

Particularly, the intensity of guilt in women has been found to be greater than that of men

in adolescents and adults (Etxebarria, Isasi & Perez, 2002). Researchers who study adult

samples often find that women report greater feelings of both shame and guilt than men

do when scenario-based measures are used (Bybee, 1998; Evans, 1984; Ferguson &

Crowley, 1997; Ferguson, Eyre, & Ashbaker, 2000; Lutwak & Ferrari, 1996; Walter &

Burnaford, 2006). Other research also showed that boys experienced less shame than girls

(Alessandri & Lewis, 1993). However, gender differences in shame appear to depend on

which instruments are employed to assess feelings; in fact some have reported that men

experience greater degrees of chronic shame than women do (Harder, 1995). Moreover,

Chinese scholars who conducted studies about only shame found that there were no

gender differences in experiencing shame in their samples (Qian, Liu & Zhu, 2001; Zhu,

Wang & Qian, 1999).

Many gender theorists argue that women in North American society are socialized

to attend to and be concerned for relationships, and thus are more likely to view

themselves as connected to or interdependent with others (Cross & Madson,1997;

Kashima et al., 1995). Women in American society are more likely than men to construct

15
an interdependent or relational self-view (Cross & Madson, 1997; Markus & Oyserman,

1989). The person with an interrelated self-construal may be more likely than others to

look to relationships as a source of self-esteem (Cross & Madson, 1997; Stein, Newcomb,

& Bentler, 1992). Women, with their more interrelated self-construal, might therefore be

more concerned about interpersonal situations, and their relationship with others, than are

men. Thus, differences in self-construals may at least partially explain the gender

differences that have been observed in North America, particularly in the realm of guilt.

In mainland China, traditional Chinese have viewed femininity and masculinity in

terms of complementary traits. Men were strong and women weak, men smart and

women unintelligent (Brownell & Wasserstrom, 2002; Davis, 2005). The long history of

Confucian indoctrination and endorsement reinforced this notion of women's inferiority.

Mao Ze-Dong's (1893-1976) New China and his proclamation that men and women were

the same greatly elevated Chinese women's status. He famously recited an old Chinese

proverb about women's right: "Nu Ren Ban Bian Tian" or "Women hold up half the sky",

which has been more aspiration than fact. With today's booming economy and more open

society, China has provided more opportunities for gender equality. However, traditional

notions of gender roles persist. For example, in school, boys are engaged in more

physically and mentally demanding tasks than girls, whose activities tend to be of a more

quiet and artistic nature (Hu, 2009).

There are also variations in gender roles within China, particularly in rural versus

urban settings (Hannum, 2003). Gender disparities in China are typically concentrated in

16
poor rural areas, and among poor households, where children compete with more siblings

for educational resources. The costs of education are a burden on families, and parents

are more concerned about boys' education in rural areas, so boys absorb more

educational resources (Connelly & Zheng, 2002; Hannum 2002). In contrast, one recent

study of only children in urban China found no gender differences in parental spending

on children's education, student achievement in math, and students' educational

aspirations (Tsui & Rich 2002). There is also variation in gender roles between mainland

China and Taiwan. Chinese women in both countries, when compared to men, have more

liberal gender role attitudes, but women in China have more traditionally oriented

attitudes than women in Taiwan (Chia, Alfred, & Jerzak, 1997).

To the extent that traditional gender roles can serve to emphasize women's

connectedness to others, and their expression of emotions, they may play a role in the

experience of shame and guilt. For this reason, gender influences on cross-cultural

experiences of shame and guilt were also examined in the present study.

Overview of Studies

In sum, although a small number of studies have explored shame and guilt cross-

culturally (Bedford, 1994; Henkin, 2004; Wang et al., 2009), the results of studies of

Chinese shame and guilt concepts have been inconsistent, and the procedures used have

often differed widely from study to study. We therefore conducted a series of cross-

cultural studies on shame and guilt that addresses these discrepancies and gaps.

This research program included three studies. The general goals of these studies

were to address the experience of shame and guilt in undergraduate students in mainland

17
China and Canada, and to compare the perceptions of and responses to shame and guilt

between these two cultures. In order to explore the full range of possible Chinese shame

and guilt experiences, scenarios for the different kinds of shame and guilt were developed.

In Study 1, in contrast to previous studies, I explored the characteristics of all the

different Chinese concepts of shame and guilt. I obtained descriptions of common

situations that would/could elicit five Chinese types of shame and four types of guilt from

Chinese participants who were currently living in mainland China and European

Canadians living in Canada (Bedford, 1994; Frank et al., 2000). I sought to identify the

main themes present in descriptions of the different types of shame and guilt. These

themes were organized into higher order categories and frequencies of the higher order

categories were compared by type of emotion, culture and gender. The descriptions were

also coded in terms of three dimensions along which shame and guilt have been observed

to differ in Western samples (i.e., "public" versus "private"; "self' versus "action";

"withdrawal" versus "repairing behaviour"). Here too, comparisons were made by type of

emotion, culture and gender.

In Study 2, the goal was to develop three scenarios based on the most frequent

themes in the self-reports of situations eliciting shame and guilt obtained in Study 1.

Ratings of the three scenarios for each category of shame and guilt were obtained in order

to choose the two most representative scenarios. From these ratings, I developed two

typical shame and guilt scenarios for each of the nine terms of shame and guilt. These 18

scenarios formed the basis of Study 3.

18
 In Study 3,1 addressed and compared responses to these scenarios for European

Canadians, mainland Chinese, Chinese Canadians and international Chinese students in

Canada. The inclusion of Chinese Canadians and Chinese international students allowed

us to compare whether there was a continuum of response as a function of length of

exposure and engagement in Canadian culture. I also explored whether observed

differences in self-regulation could be explained by two variables that are associated with

both culture and self-focus, namely self-construal and self-monitoring.

19
 Study 1

The differences between shame and guilt have been explored in several ways, based

on their concepts and their functions. One approach is to examine common themes that

emerge in participants' descriptions of their shame and guilt experiences (Henkin, 2004;

Tangney, 1992). Alternatively, one can provide participants with descriptions of

scenarios and ask them how they feel following each event, and then conduct analyses on

similarities and differences in their ratings (Frank, Harvey, & Verdun, 2000). Both of

these approaches will be used in this dissertation. The former approach is more

appropriate for exploring the full range of experiences, whereas the latter requires a pre-

existing knowledge of that range. Given that no research exists that fully documents how

Chinese and North Americans experience the full range of shame and guilt experiences,

the approach in Study 1 will be to have participants describe shame and guilt experiences

that correspond to the full range of possible shame and guilt terms in China.

Different Types of Guilt and Shame in China

Although the differences in guilt and shame have been studied for several years

now, the literature on guilt and shame in Western countries cannot provide a complete

picture of guilt and shame in Chinese culture (Bedford, 2004; Bedford & Hwang, 2003).

To the extent that language shapes and reflects cognition and social behaviours (Rafferty,

1974), the relative breadth of linguistic terms for shame in Mandarin suggests that shame

may be experienced differently from how it is experienced by English speakers. Whereas

English speakers typically use only a small number of categories in describing shame

(Frank et al., 2000), Chinese culture has a continuum of levels of shame ranging from the

20
equivalent of very mild embarrassment to utter mortification, each with distinct terms

associated with them (Wilson, 1973). However, past studies exploring the types of

situations that induce the negative feelings of shame and guilt typically used the single

simple terms of xiu chi (shame) and neijiu (guilt) (Henkin, 2004; Lewis, 1971; Tangney,

1992). As noted earlier though, there are some studies that have described and identified

subsets of shame and guilt that occur in Chinese culture (Bedford, 2004; Bedford &

Hwang, 2003; Frank et al., 2000).

Bedford (2002) conducted an ethnographic study to identify the Mandarin terms for

guilt and shame and to establish clearly the dimensions of the experiences of guilt and

shame including the characteristic patterns of behavior, transformation of self, and values

highlighted by these emotional experiences for Chinese people. Three main types of guilt

were identified (neijiu, zui e gan and fan zui gari) along with four types of shame {diu

lian, can kui, xiu kui, and xiu chi).

In a subsequent study, Bedford (2004) asked 34 women (age 24-31 year-old) from

middle-class families in Taiwan to answer two questions, "What do you think of when I

say the word shame?" and "What do you think of when I say the word guilt?" and they

then just freely talked about their feelings. Three main types of subjective guilt emerged:

neijiu (failed personal responsibility), -zui e gan (moral transgression) and fan zui gan

(law/rules transgression); and four main types of subjective shame emerged: diu lian (loss

of face), can kui (failure to obtain ideal), xiu kui (personal failure), and xiu chi (social

failure). For each type of guilt and shame, many aspects of the concept were touched

upon, such as the definition, target, ways to cause the emotion, whether an audience was

21
required, whether it was personal or universal, and the target of the emotion (of self/for

other). The results showed that all three types of guilt contained the notion of different

types of responsibility, and the common aspects of the different types of shame

experiences included exposure, inadequacy and concern about identity.

Further evidence of the complexity of shame and guilt was obtained by Gore and

Harvey (1995). Gore and Harvey had 280 American undergraduate students from the

University Colorado rate 30 scenarios in the Dimensions of Conscience questionnaire on

a five-point scale of how good or bad a portrayed event was. Five clusters containing all

30 scenarios were obtained. The clusters revealed three guilt clusters including

impersonal transgression, harm to another person and trust violation. The clusters of

social impropriety and exposed inadequacy were reflective of shame.

While the different types of shame and guilt are associated with distinct terms in

Chinese, there is evidence to suggest that North Americans also distinguish between

different types of shame and guilt. Frank et al. (2000) developed a study based on

Bedford's characterizations of the five forms of shame. They drafted scenarios intended

to evoke diu lian, can kui, xiu chi, xiu kui and nan wei qing shame feelings, and also

added scenarios for two guilt factors. These two guilt concepts were shang hai ta ren

(harm to another person), and wei bei xin ren (trust violation), which were derived from

a study by Gore and Harvey (1995). Their American participants responded differently to

the different types of shame and guilt. Thus, shame and guilt appear to be

multidimensional constructs in both China and North America, although the exact

number of subcategories seems to vary from study to study.

 Based on these earlier studies with Chinese and American participants we

identified and generalized 9 categories of self-conscious emotions, 4 types of guilt (nei

jiu-1— guilt about harming another person, neijiu-2— guilt about a trust violation, zui e

gan — moral transgression and fan zui gan — law/rule transgression) and 5 types of

shame (xiu chi — social failure, can kui — failure to obtain an ideal, diu lian — loss of

reputation, xiu kui — personal failure and nan wei qing — embarrassment). These are

described below.

Different types of guilt

Although three types of guilt were identified by Bedford (2004), one of them was a

general term for guilt, which is neijiu in Chinese. We therefore decided not to use this

term, since it seemed to be a superordinate guilt category. Frank et al. (2000) had two

specific guilt terms which differed from those of Bedford, which were shang hai ta ren ~

- harm to others, and wei bei xin ren — trust violation. We decided to utilize the two

terms from Frank et al., and the two terms from Bedford, and to generate four specific

guilt concepts. Namely, these are neijiu 1 {shang hai ta ren — harm to others), neijiu 2

{wei bei xin ren — trust violation), zui e gan (moral transgression) and fan zui gan

(law/rules transgression). These are defined in more detail below.

Interestingly, two of the concepts share the same linguistic term {neijiu),

suggesting that the distinction between these different kinds of guilt in Mandarin may not

be as clear as the distinction between the other guilt concepts, although each had a

different word associated with it suggesting that they are unique and separable concepts

in Chinese culture. On the other hand, just as past research suggests that North Americans
can distinguish between different types of shame and guilt despite lacking different terms

for these concepts, so too Chinese participants may distinguish between these two

different types of guilt despite lacking different terms for them.

The following are the definitions of the different concepts of each category of guilt.

Nie jiu-1—harm to another person - shang hai ta ren (Frank et al., 2000) is failure

to uphold an obligation or personal responsibility to another; not fulfilling that

responsibility and hurting somebody; feeling sorry and the sense of owing others.

Neijiu-2—trust violation - wei bei xin ren (Frank et al., 2000) is failure to uphold

trust from others and awareness of the negative consequences that happen to a person

who asked for your help and did not receive it. It is related to internal feelings of

obligation.

Zui e gan (Bedford, 2002, 2004) is the feeling of personal moral transgression. It is

connected to moral responsibility and obligation to others. It involves the feeling of

having done something terribly wrong, although not of being evil or inferior. It arises

through violation of negative duties. It can be a much stronger feeling of guilt than the

two kinds of neijiu, but it's not like breaking a law. Rather, it is more likely to be

associated with harm to others. It is a transgression of one's personal morality.

Fan zui gan (Bedford, 2002, 2004) concerns social responsibility. As a member of

society one should obey the rules established for everyone's benefit. It is the feeling of

breaking a law, having committed a crime or broken a rule that all society members must

obey. It generally entails violation of negative duties and is a way of processing norm-

24
violation into self-punishment. It is experienced more strongly than zui e gan, which is a

violation of internal standards. In contrast, fan zui gan is the transgression of external

obligations. Nonetheless, it is an impersonal guilt, not felt toward people, but rather it is

the internal recognition of breaking a requirement (Bedford & Hwang, 2003). Moreover,

individuals need only believe that they are breaking a rule or a law, regardless of whether

the rule actually exists.

In sum, all four types of guilt (neijiu-1, neijiu-2, zui e gan and fan zui gan),

include a sense of responsibility. The two neijiu terms represent two different types of

guilt and imply responsibility to another person. Zui e gan is moral responsibility to

others more generally. Fan zui gan concerns social responsibility in a more abstract sense.

The intensity of guilt depends on the degree of the violation. Fan zui gan is more severe

than neijiu-1, neijiu-2 and zui ge gan. All four types of guilt are aroused as a result of

one's own behaviour. They are all associated with a sense of indebtedness (see Table 1).

Different types of shame

The central issue of the shame emotions is identity. The five types of shame are xiu

chi, can kui, diu lian, xiu kui, and nan wei qing (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al., 2000). The

following are the definitions of each category of shame (see Table 1).

Xiu chi (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al., 2000) is the strongest feeling of shame and is

perceived as a social failure. It is a very deep shame, associated with the violation of

social norms and described as the feeling of having a stain on one's face. It is the result of

an act that easily gets universal condemnation when other people find out about it.

Can kui (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al., 2000) is a mild feeling of shame, perhaps

25
Table 1

Linguistic terms and definitions of shame and guilt in Mandarin and English

Linguistic Definition Present in Present in

term mainland English
Mandarin
General guilt Moderately painful, a yes yes
sense of remorse after
violating standards
Nie jiu-l-harm Painful feelings due to a yes no
another person- failure to uphold an
shanghai ta ren obligation/ responsibility
to another; hurting
someone
Neijiu-2-trust Painful feelings due to a yes no
violation- wei bei failure to uphold the trust
xin ren of others
Zui e gan Painful feelings due to a yes no
moral transgression
Fan zui gan Painful feelings due to a yes no
legal transgression
General shame Acutely painful emotion, yes yes
due violating standards
Xiu chi The strongest negative yes no
emotions due to a
perceived social failure
Can kui A mild negative feelings yes no
due to failure to obtain
ideal or meeting another
person's ideal
Diu lian Strong negative emotion yes no
due to loss of reputation
Xiu kui Negative emotion due to yes no
personal
failure/inadequacy or
violation of a self-
expectation
Nan wei qing Embarrassment due to yes yes—
social impropriety Embarrassment

26
even a wistful feeling. It is a combination of shame and regret that one did not do

something better. It involves failing to attain a personal ideal or meeting another person's

ideal rather than the actual transgression of a standard. It may often be connected to a

failure to carry out a positive duty. The essence of the negative affect derives from having

let down another person. For instance, this shame might be felt by a student who does not

prepare an oral presentation properly, which then goes poorly. This student might feel

can kui after the presentation as he recalls the event while on his own (without other

people around).

Diu lian (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al., 2000) is about a loss of face that indicates

loss to a person's dignity or self-respect in front of other people or loss of standing in the

eyes of others. It is caused by transgression of public identity. Traditionally, Chinese

children are expected to be well behaved, especially in public. A consequence is fear of

"losing face" in public (Locke, 1998). Losing face involves public embarrassment and is

an extreme feeling of shame. It may be akin to "shame anxiety" (Wurmser, 1981).

Xiu kui (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al., 2000) is when one discovers a negative aspect

of oneself or some personal inadequacy or can be the result of a violation of a self-

expectation. It is a personal failure resulting in harm to someone else. It is associated with

a heavy stain on the heart. People who experienced xiu kui feel marked as deficient in

their own eyes. This is due to a threat to their private identity.

Nan wei qing (Frank et al., 2000) means embarrassment due to social impropriety.

It is mild, situation-specific and transient. It is also associated with the tendency to wish

one could disappear.

 In this current study, nan wei qing (embarrassment) is included as one of the

subcategories of shame because of past research that has categorized it as such. However,

past research has also distinguished embarrassment from general guilt and shame.

Embarrassment is the least negative and the most fleeting of the three emotions. Ho, Fu

and Ng (2004) stated that shame is commonly accompanied by the fear of being

humiliated, ridiculed or laughed at; guilt is elicited by inner conscience and a feeling of

owing somebody and wanting to apologize; embarrassment is more likely than guilt, and

even shame, to be accompanied by physiological changes (e.g. blushing, increased heart

rate), and is closely related to the personality traits of bashfulness and shyness. According

to these authors, unlike shame, embarrassment touches the outer social self, but does not

penetrate the inner private self. Guilt and shame are therefore more enduring than

embarrassment.

In sum, all the shame concepts relate to "face", either in fear of losing face or a

moment when face is already lost. The intensity of shame depends on the nature of the

violation. Among these five categories of shame, xiu chi is a stronger deep shame feeling

than can kui, diu lian and nan wei qing. The five types of shame include common

experiences such as exposure, inadequacy and concern with identity although they differ

with respect to transgression issues and function.

Dimensions of Differences of Shame and Guilt

In contrast to the categorical approach to differences between and within shame and

guilt, described above, research has also suggested that shame and guilt can be

distinguished along three dimensions. The first dimension is a "public" or "private"

28
perspective, namely whether there is an audience present. In theoretical work on shame

and guilt, shame was initially viewed as a more "public" emotion than guilt, namely,

shame was thought to only be experienced when one's transgressions were made public

(Benedict, 1946). It was argued that shame arises from public exposure (facing an actual

audience) and public disapproval. On the other hand, guilt was believed to be a more

"private" experience arising from self-generated conscience (Benedict, 1946). However,

many empirical studies have failed to support this public-private distinction; it appears

that shame and guilt can both be experienced in either public or private (Tangney et al.,

1994; Tangney et al., 1996; Tangney & Dearing, 2002), although shamed people may

feel more exposed, and shame is more easily experienced than guilt when others are

present (Li et al., 2004).

Research with Chinese samples has mirrored the findings with Western samples.

For example, Xie and Qian (2000) found that Chinese college students could experience

shame and guilt in both private and public situations, whereas Qian and Qi (2002) found

that participants felt more shame with others but reported feeling guilt with or without

others present. Thus, there is some research that suggests that in both China and North

America, both shame and guilt can be experienced in either private or public, but shame

is more likely to be associated with an audience which is present. However, there is no

research that has directly compared Chinese and North American experiences.

Linking this dimension to the Chinese concepts of shame and guilt, diu lian and

nan wei qing are easily generated in public situations where there are audiences present,

although they can also be generated in private situations, where there is no audience

29
present. Can kui, xiu chi and xiu kui should be generated less often in public than diu lian

and nan wei qing, especially can kui, which seems to be a private type of shame. Based

on the definitions of the types of guilt, neijiu 1- harm to others is easily generated in

public, neijiu 2- trust violations, zui e gan — moral transgression and fan zui gan —

laws/rules transgression are easily generated in private situations.

The second dimension is about focusing on the "self' or on one's "behaviour".

Helen Block Lewis (1971) stated that the difference between shame and guilt is a

function of their differences in the role of the self in terms of how one evaluates negative

situations that elicit shame and guilt. She wrote:

"The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of

evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation,

but rather the thing done or undone is the focus. In guilt, the self is

negatively evaluated in connection with something but is not itself the focus

of the experience. " (p. 30).

Generally shame involves a fairly global negative evaluation of the self (Tangney

& Dearing, 2002), it is experienced as a reflection of a bad self. With this painful scrutiny

of the self, the individual sees him/herself as a bad person, and experiences a feeling of

loathing against the entire self (Lewis, 1971, 1985; Morrison, 1996; Tangney, 1991). As a

result, the individual is concerned about his/her own feelings rather than those of the

person who has been violated. Individuals experiencing shame are likely to feel disgust

and aversion towards themselves and lack the feeling of pride. Thus, shame focuses on

negative evaluations of one's self ("/ did that horrible thing") and shame is often viewed

30
as more devastating to people's self-concepts and self-esteem than guilt. When people

attribute their transgressions to their global and stable self, they experience shame (Lewis,

1987; Tangney, 1991; Tracy & Robin, 2004).

In contrast, guilt is elicited from self-generated pangs of conscience (Tangney &

Dearing, 2002). It is an emotion associated with behaviour that violates internal standards

("I did that horrible thing") rather than self (Lewis, 1971, 1992). When people attribute

their transgressions to transient actions or states, they experience guilt. Guilt doesn't

affect one's core identity, the self remains basically intact (Anolli & Pascucci, 2005;

Fischer & Tangney, 1995; Lewis, 1971). Although most research suggests that guilt

focuses on actions rather than the self (Lewis, 1971), some studies have found there were

no significant differences between blaming the action and blaming the self when people

experienced shame and guilt (Tangney, 1993; Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996).

Niedenthal, Tangney, and Gavanski (1994) used a counterfactual thinking approach

to study the distinction of self versus behaviour focus. They coded participants'

counterfactual thinking responses to shame and guilt according to whether aspects of the

self, behaviour, or situation were "undone" (e.g., "If only ...."). They found very strong

support for Lewis' (1971) claim that shame and guilt differ in focus on self versus

behaviour. People tried to "undo" aspects of the self more often when the events were

associated with shame experiences, and more often tried to "undo" aspects of their

behaviour in connection with guilt experiences.

Very interestingly, mainland Chinese scholar Xie (2000) also used counterfactual

thinking to study whether mainland Chinese undergraduate students focused on self

31
factors or behaviour factors when they tried to change a shame or guilt event. She found

that Chinese participants experiencing shame wanted to change their actions rather than

their self, and there was no difference in changing self between the shame and guilt

groups. Thus, this difference between shame and guilt, which seems to be quite well

established in North American samples, may not be as relevant for Chinese populations.

Linking this second dimension to the Chinese concepts of shame and guilt, it is not

easy to identify which types of shame focus on the self or focus on behaviours; it is hard

to determine the evaluations of blaming self or one's behaviours from the definitions.

However, based on the definitions of the types of guilt, neijiu 1 - harm to others is more

easily focused on blaming one's actions than neijiu 2 - trust violations, zui e gan —

moral transgression and fan zui gan — laws/rules transgression.

The last hypothesized difference between shame and guilt is that individuals

experiencing shame have the desire to hide and escape whereas those experiencing guilt

have a desire to correct their actions. When experiencing shame, the individual feels

inferior and incapable of completing the task at hand, feels exposed and is concerned

about others' appraisals. Experiencing shame leads to avoidance and withdrawal

(Tangney & Fischer, 1995); the individual experiencing shame often feels the need to

hide, escape or avoid others, and has the desire to sink into the floor and disappear. With

guilt, the individual often wishes to engage in some sort of corrective action, like

confessing, atoning or remedying, apologizing, or making-up for the act with

compensatory actions, and to repair the damage done. However, the previous findings

were obtained with Western samples. As noted earlier, the motives associated with shame

32
may differ in collectivist and individualist cultures, and in particular, may differ between

European Canadians and Mainland Chinese. One might imagine that people from a

culture that places emphasis on shame to correct behavior (i.e., China) would be less

likely to focus on hiding and withdrawal following shame and be more focused on

engaging with others than those from other cultures.

Linking this third dimension to the Chinese concepts of shame and guilt, the

definitions of diu lian and nan wei qing suggest people can easily respond with

withdrawal behavior rather than responding with corrective behaviour. Based on the

definitions of the types of guilt, neijiu 1 -shang hai ta ren (harm to others) is easily

focused on using withdrawal to respond than neijiu 2 - wei bei xin ren — trust violation,

zui e gan — moral transgression and fan zui gan — laws/rules transgression.

Shame and Guilt-Eliciting Situations

One way researchers have explored the experience of shame and guilt is by asking

participants to recall situations that had elicited shame and guilt and write descriptions of

these situations (Dahl, Honea, & Manchanda, 2003; Etxebarria, et al., 2002; Henkin,

2004; Tangney, 1992). For example, Tangney (1992) studied the situational determinants

of shame and guilt in young adulthood and has developed scenarios for shame and guilt

based on the themes that emerged in participants' personal reports. Tangney (1992) asked

her participants to describe in writing "three situations in which you are most likely to

feel shame or guilt" (p 200-201). The descriptions were coded by the length, the degree

of specificity, types of grammatical subject (whether it was written in first person, second

person or third person), performance type, interpersonal content, types of interpersonal

33
concern, and types of violations described (omission versus commission). Guilt was

typically induced by specific moral transgressions and involved harm to others. Shame

descriptions were longer and vague, but less specific than guilt descriptions. Shame was

induced by specific moral transgressions as well as by non-moral situations and issues

such as failure in performance situations and socially inappropriate behaviour.

Other researchers focused only on guilt-producing events. For instance, Etxebarria,

Isasi, and Perez (2002) asked respondents from two age groups (aged 15 to 19; aged 25 to

48) to report their most recent experience of guilt and three things that usually made them

feel guilty, and analyzed the nature of the events that cause guilt. Most of the reported

events were interpersonal, many of them involving close relationships. Thus, having

participants generate examples of their own experiences has been found to be a useful

way of examining the nature of shame and guilt experiences, and will be the method used

in this Study.

The Purpose of Studyl

Empirical studies on shame and guilt are now quite numerous (Etxebarria, 2000;

Tangney, 1995), but studies directly aimed at analyzing the types of events that elicit

shame and guilt are still scarce. Moreover, although some past studies found differences

between shame and guilt eliciting events, all but one were done in only Western countries

or in mainland China, not allowing for a cross-cultural comparison (Lewis, 1971; Qian &

Qi, 2002; Tangney, 1992; Tangney et al., 1995; Xie & Qian, 2003). Furthermore, the

concepts of shame and guilt in these studies (Etxebarria et al., 2002; Henkin, 2004;

Tangney, 1992) did not provide a full range of shame and guilt concepts to their

34
participants. Past research has suggested that European Americans may also experience

the nine Chinese concepts of emotion, even though the distinct terms are lacking in

everyday life and are not reflected in ordinary English usage (Bedford, 2004; Frank et al.,

2000). Depending on which type of shame and guilt participants choose to describe, one

might get very different results. Thus, a more thorough comparison of shame and guilt

between North Americans and Chinese participants requires examining differences across

these nine different concepts.

The main aim of Study 1 was thus to explore the prevalent themes in Chinese and

European Canadian descriptions of situations that elicit each of the different types of

shame and guilt, and to focus, in particular, on within-culture and between-culture

differences. These will be examined in an exploratory way in terms of higher order

themes that emerge and in a theory driven way in terms of the three dimensions that are

thought to distinguish shame from guilt in Western cultures: private versus public; self

versus other; withdrawal versus reparative action.

35
 Methods

Participants

Thirty-nine native mainland-Chinese Mandarin speakers, ranging in age from 20 to

45 years (18 women, mean Age = 26.4; SD = 6.5; 18 men, mean Age = 27.8; SD = 8.4;

three respondents did not report their gender), were recruited via e-mail using snow-ball

sampling by the author, whereby additional participants were recruited through a

university teacher living in the North-East of China who passed the request along to her

networks. All of the participants were living in the North-East of China, were raised in

mainland China and had never travelled abroad.

Thirty-four European adults living in Canada, ranging in age from 19 to 44 years

(19 women, mean Age = 25.6; SD = 8.7; 15 men, mean Age = 31.0; SD = 10.2) were

recruited. Twenty-two European Canadian participants (15 females and 7 males) were

recruited through the Undergraduate Research Participant Pool (URPP) at York

University, and completed the survey on-line. Twelve participants (4 females and 8 males)

were recruited through random approach in the author's neighbourhood in a northern

suburb of Toronto.

Preliminary Analyses of Survey Results

To determine which materials to use for the study, t -tests for independent-samples

were performed on the length of shame scenarios and guilt scenarios comparing the two

ways of collecting Canadian data (through URPP or through neighbours). The results

showed that there was a significant difference in the length of shame scenarios (Mean of

URPP = 212.18; Mean of neighbours = 366.17), t(32) = -1.84, p < .05; there was also a

36
significant difference in the length of guilt scenarios {Mean of URPP = 207.86; Mean of

neighbours = 273.83), t{32) = -1.12,p < .05, suggesting that the URPP participants may

not have put as much effort and detail into their responses. Moreover, there was a

significant age difference by sampling method, F ( l , 32) = 122. 54,p < .00, with the

neighbourhood sample being significantly older, suggesting that mature adults could

provide more information and detail when recalling past experiences.

Materials

Participants completed a brief demographic questionnaire asking about age, gender,

and cultural background. Chinese participants were given all the materials in Mandarin,

and European Canadians were given the same surveys in English.

Participants were given the definition of each type of shame and guilt: five Chinese

shame categories {xiu chi, can kui, diu lian, xiu kui and nan wei qing) and four Chinese

guilt categories {neijiu-1 (shang hai ta ren), neijiu-2 (wei bei xin ren), fan zui gan and zui

e gan) (Bedford, 2004; Bedford & Hwang, 2003; Frank et al., 2000). They were asked to

read each concept definition, in turn, and then write out an example of a situation where

they had experienced the type of emotion described (see Appendix A).

Procedure

The procedure was approved by the University ethics committee. Participants in

mainland China were contacted by e-mail and directed to a website for the study.

Participants were asked to read a consent form and type "I agree" on the consent form on

the web site, and then completed the demographic questions. They were then asked to

recall and describe their own experiences of each of the nine different shame and guilt

37
emotions. After answering all the questions, participants returned the package to the

researcher by e-mail and received a written debriefing by e-mail. Chinese participants

completed all materials in Mandarin. The survey was translated into Mandarin by the first

author and back translated by a second bilingual Mandarin speaker.

Canadian URPP participants completed the survey on-line after being directed to

the survey web site. Participants were asked to read a form and type "I agree" on the

consent form before proceeding. They then completed the demographic questions, and

continued on to the survey. They completed all materials in English. Once completed,

participants pressed the "submit" button and then received a written debriefing and a

thank you letter.

For the community sample, the author approached adults who appeared to be of

European origin on the street, briefly explained that she was conducting a study to

develop shame and guilt scenarios for a scale to be used with Chinese and Euro-Canadian

participants, and that she was basing her scenarios on the characteristics that people

recalled from their own experiences. Five people approached declined to participate but

13 agreed. All the participants who agreed to answer the surveys received paper copies of

the survey. Five participants asked the author to also send them electronic copies which

she did. She also asked them to pass the e-mail or survey to other European Canadian

adults who might be interested in participating. All participants answered the survey at

home. After they finished the survey, the author picked it up from their house or they

dropped it off at the author's home.

Data analysis

38
 Missing scenarios: A few European Canadian participants (N = 5) did not complete

some of the scenarios. These incomplete narrative descriptions were eliminated because

we could not determine the themes in their incomplete answers. Narrative descriptions

were considered whole stories if they "include an animate protagonist and some type of

causal sequence," (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 111). After the narratives were screened, the

eligible stories were cut and pasted onto separate index cards. There were a total of 343

stories from Chinese participants and a total of 289 stories from European participants.

There were a few participants who wrote more than one scenario for one of the concepts

(Chinese: N = 4; European Canadian: jV = 1). Therefore, a total of 192 scenarios were

reported for the shame scenarios and 151 for the guilt scenarios for the Chinese

participants. For the European Canadian participants, a total of 157 scenarios were

reported for the shame scenarios and 132 for the guilt scenarios.

Two pairs of coders identified the common themes among these different concepts

of shame and guilt in the two groups of participants. Another two coders independently

sorted the responses into the three dimensions for two cultural groups.

For the main themes of shame and guilt, the Chinese data were coded by the author

and a bilingual female coder. For the European Canadian data, the results were coded by

the author and a female European-Canadian coder. The author organized all of the

scenarios from the same concept together so that coders read and coded all scenarios

from each emotion category at one time, before moving on to another concept. The

coders discussed any disagreements in the main themes.

39
 Cohen's kappa coefficient was computed for each condition separately. The inter-

rater reliability for the 5 shame themes in the Chinese data was 0.88, and for the 4 guilt

themes, the mean of kappa was .90. The inter-rater reliability for the 5 shame themes in

the European Canadian data was 0.89, and for the 4 guilt themes was 0.92.

The main themes were then analyzed to look for higher order categories. Two

bilingual female coders were asked to sort the scenarios into these higher order categories.

There were 8 higher order categories. The inter-rater reliability for doing the higher order

categories was 0.88. The data were analyzed by using Chi-square statistics to examine

differences in higher order categories of shame and guilt within and between cultures.

For the three dimensions of shame and guilt, the results were coded by the author

and another bilingual (Mandarin-English) Chinese woman. The two coders were given

the descriptions of the three dimensions before they started coding, then they individually

sorted all of the scenarios in each category according to the three dimensions of shame

and guilt. After finishing all the sorting, the coders met together to resolve any

disagreements.

The inter-rater reliability of the shame concepts for the three dimensions in the

Chinese data was 0.89. The inter-rater reliability of the guilt concepts for the three

dimensions in the Chinese data was 0.88. In European Canadian data, the inter-rater

reliability for the shame categories was 0.92, and for the guilt categories was 0.90. The

data were analyzed by using Chi-square statistics to examine differences in the three

dimensions between shame and guilt within and between cultures.

40
 Results

The length of the description of types of emotions (overall shame and guilt) by

gender (male and female) within each cultural group

Because the two samples responded in a different language, comparison between

cultural groups would be meaningless. A 2 (type of emotion) by 2 (gender) mixed design

analysis of variance (ANOVA), with type of emotion as the repeated measures factor,

was therefore conducted on the length of the descriptions separately within each culture.

There was no significant main effect of either emotion or gender on the length of

description of guilt and shame in the two cultural groups, and also no significant

interaction effects within cultural groups.

Themes between Cultures

Main themes of all the categories of guilt in Chinese participants and Euro-

Canadian participants. Only the themes that emerged for more than one participant in

each concept are reported in these and subsequent analyses. All four types of guilt: nei

jiu-1 (guilt 1)—shang hai ta ren (harm to another person), neijiu-2 (guilt 2 ) — wei bei

xin ren (trust violation), zui e gan (guilt 3) — moral transgression, fan zui gan (guilt 4)—

law/rules transgression were related to responsibility. From the scenarios of nie jiu-1

(guilt 1)—harm to another person that were written by the Chinese participants, we

identified several lower level themes. The most prevalent themes were: intentionally said

something that hurt someone (n = 14); accidentally/ thoughtlessly said something that

hurt someone (n = 11); aggressive behaviour (n = 5); failed expectations (other's

41
expectation: n = 4); cheated (n = 2), and failed responsibility/duties of their social role (n

= 2).

From the scenarios of nie jiu-1 (guilt 1)—harm to another person that were written

by the Euro-Canadian participants, the most prevalent themes were intentionally did/said

something that hurt someone (n = 14); accidentally/ thoughtlessly said something that

hurt someone (n = 7); failed one's expectations (own: n = 2; other's: n = 6); failed

responsibilities/duties of their social role (n = 3) and lied (n = 2).

For neijiu-2 (guilt 2)—trust violation in Chinese participants, we obtained the

following themes: failed other's expectations (n = 10); broke a promise (n = 7); broke a

confidence (n = 4); failed responsibilities of their social role (n = 3); said/did something

mean (n = 2); cheating (n = 2); and lied (n = 2).

For neijiu-2 (guilt 2)—trust violation in European Canadian participants, we

obtained the following themes: broke a confidence (n = 8); failed expectations of

relationship (own: n = 3; other's: n = 3); broke a promise (n = 6); cheated (n = 4);

said/did something mean (n = 4); failed responsibilities of their social role (n = 3);

andintentionally hurt someone (n = 2).

For zui e gan (guilt 3—breaks a moral rule) in Chinese participants, we observed

the following themes: aggressive behaviour (n = 15); theft (n = 6); did not do studies (n =

4); cheating (n = 3); and failed expectations (own: n = 3; other's: n = 2).

For zui e gan (guilt 3—breaks a moral rule) in European Canadian participants, we

observed the following themes: cheating (n = 5); said/did something mean (n = 3);

42
selfishness/did not help others (n = 3); lied (n = 2); disobeyed traffic law (n = 2); was

rude (n = 2); and was not faithful in religion (n = 2).

For fan zui gan (guilt 4—breaking the law and rules) in Chinese participants, we

observed the following themes: theft (n = 13); aggressive behaviour or thoughts (n = 9);

played a prank with negative consequences for others (n = 3); and failed expectations

(own expectation: n = 2; other's: n = 2).

For fan zui gan (guilt 4—breaking the law and rules) in European Canadian

participants, we observed the following themes: disobeyed traffic law (n = 10); theft (n =

9); said/did something mean (n = 6); felt guilt about feeling no shame (n = 4); failed

responsibility (n = 2); and lied (n = 2).

Main themes of all the categories of shame in Chinese and European Canadian

participants. Based on the descriptions of each category of shame in Study 1 (xiu chi, can

kui, diu lian, xiu kui, nan wei qing), we identified the following themes for each shame

concept. For xiu chi (shame 1—very deep shame) in Chinese participants, we observed

the following themes: stole (n = 6); did badly in exam/job (n = 6); persevered in

argument when knew they were wrong (n = 3); criticized/blamed (n = 3); said/did

something mean (n = 2); was caught doing something wrong (n = 2); and was caught

spitting (n = 2).

For xiu chi (shame 1—very deep shame) in European Canadian participants, we

observed the following themes: said/did something mean (n = 9); did badly in exam/job

(n = 6); showed something private in public unexpectedly (n = 3); bad parenting (n = 3);

43
cheating (n = 3); lied (n = 2); selfishness/did not help others (n = 2); and mistreated/

rejected others (n = 2).

For can kui (shame 2—failure to attain a personal ideal) in Chinese participants,

we observed the following themes: did not achieve academic/personal/professional goals

(n = 9); did badly in exam/job (n = 8); failed expectations (own: n = 8; other's: n = 5);

selfishness/did not help others (n = 4); and was not studying well (n = 2).

For can kui (shame 2—failure to attain a personal ideal) in European Canadian

participants, we observed the following themes: did not achieve academic/personal/

professional goal (n = 13); failed/did badly at exam/work (n = 12); and failed

responsibilities/duties of their social roles (n = 2).

For diu lian (shame 3— loss of face/reputation) in Chinese participants, we

observed the following themes: failed expectations (own: n = 11); did badly in exam/job

(n = 10); clothing malfunction (n = 6); criticized/blamed/mistreated others (n = 6); made

a mistake (n = 3); and stole (n = 2).

For diu lian (shame 3—loss of face) in European Canadian participants, we

observed the following themes: criticized/blamed/mistreated/teased (n = 12); did badly in

exam/job (n = 7); made a mistake (n = 4); failed expectations (own: n = 3; other's: n = 2);

and negative body image (n = 2).

For xiu kui (shame 4—personal failure and harm to someone else) in Chinese

participants, we observed the following themes: intentionally hurt/betrayed someone (n =

8); cheating (n = 4); denied making mistakes (n = 4); failed expectations (own: n = 4;

44
other's: n = 3); unintentionally hurt someone (n = 3); did badly in exam/job (n = 3); bad

parenting (n = 2); and criticized/blamed others (n = 2).

For xiu kui (shame 4—personal failure and harm to someone else) in European

Canadian participants, we observed the following themes: intentionally hurt someone (n

= 9); failed expectations (other's: n = 5); unintentionally hurt someone (n = 2); lied (n =

2); and selfishness (n = 2).

For nan wei qing (shame 5—embarrassment) in Chinese participants, we observed

the following themes: made a mistake (n = 8); was caught /exposed making a mistake (n

= 6); needed/had insufficient money (n = 5); failed expectations (own: n = 5; other's: n =

2); uncontrollable physical event (n = 4); was caught wearing inappropriate

clothing/clothing malfunctions (n = 2); and received excessive praise (n = 2).

For nan wei qing (shame 5—embarrassment) in European Canadian participants,

we observed the following themes: was caught/exposed making a mistake (n = 11); was

drunk (n = 4); was blamed/misunderstood (n = 3); was caught being rude (n = 3); bad

body image (n = 2); felt inferior to others (n = 2); and observed others' inappropriate

actions (n = 2).

Higher order categories from guilt and shame scenarios in Chinese participants and

European Canadian participants

The lower level themes of guilt and shame from the two cultures could be classified

into eight higher order categories. These were: (1) Others' inappropriate actions: shame

and guilt feelings were caused by other people's improper behaviours. This higher order

category included the following lower level themes: received excessive praise; others

45
inappropriate actions, and was criticized/blamed/ rejected /mistreated/ teased/

misunderstood by others. (2) Displayed/had a flawed character/self, this had many

varieties of lower level themes including negative body image; made a mistake; denied

making a mistake; was drunk/alcoholic; felt inferior to somebody; selfishness/did not

help others; laziness; was rude; needed/had insufficient money; uncontrollable physical

event; bad parenting; not faithful in religion; persevered in argument when knew wrong;

felt no shame in breaking the law/rules, and clothing malfunction. (3) Breaking own

expectations: this included failed own expectations; did badly in exam/job; did not do

studies; could not achieve academic/personal/professional goal; showed something

private in public without expectation, and failed test/competition/performance. (4)

Breaking others' expectations: this included failed others' expectations; neglected family;

broke a promise; broke a confidence, and failed to execute duties of a social role. (5)

Unintentionally harming others: this included played a prank with negative consequences

for others, and unintentionally/accidentally/thoughtlessly hurt someone. (6) Intentionally

harming others: this included had aggressive behaviour/thoughts; said/did something

mean (interpersonal), and intentionally said/did something that hurt someone. (7)

Intentionally breaking social norms/rules: this included theft; disobeyed traffic law;

cheating; lied; infidelity; was caught/ exposed making a mistake, and caught spitting. (8)

Unintentionally breaking social norms/rules: this had only one lower level theme which

was accidently/thoughtlessly making mistakes that break rules. See Appendix B for

details of these themes. The frequencies and proportions of the higher order categories

are shown in Table 2.

46
Table 2

Frequencies of higher order categories of shame and guilt in two cultures

cs CG ES EG
(N=192) (N= 151) (N=157) (N=132)

l.By other's impropriate 18 0 22 30

action (9%) (0%) (14%) (20%)

2. Displaying flawed 33 2 27 11
character/ self (21%) (2%) (18%) (9%)

3. Breaking own 68 13 47 7
expectation (35%) (9%) (30%) (5%)

4. Breaking other's 12 34 11 33
expectations (6%) (23%) (7%) (25%)

5. Unintentional harming 4 14 2 7
others (2%) (9%) (1%) (5%)

6. Intentional harming 10 41 18 28
others (5%) (28%) (12%) (22%)

7. Intentionally breaking 23 35 20 39
social norms/rules (12%) (24%) (14%) (30%)

8. Unintentionally 12 1 4 0
breaking social norms/rules (6%) (1%) (3%) (0%)

Note: CS = Chinese shame; CG = Chinese Guilt; ES = European Canadian shame; EG = European

Canadian guilt; N = number of scenarios reflect that theme.

47
 Higher order category comparisons for guilt and shame within cultures. Chi-square

analyses were used to analyze the proportion of each of the eight higher order categories

by culture (European Canadians versus Chinese) and type of emotions (guilt versus

shame). There were significant interactions in "other's inappropriate actions",

73) = 9.90,p <.05, in "displaying/had flawed self',X 2 (l, N= 73) = 4.37,p < .05, and in

"intentionally harm to others", X2(l, N= 73) = 4.19,p

< .05. These were explored further

by using chi-square analysis to analyze the proportion of the higher order categories by

emotion within each culture.

There was a significantly greater proportion of "other's inappropriate actions"

reported in shame concepts (9%) than in guilt concepts (0%) in Chinese participants, X2{\,

N = 39) = 9.00,p < .05, but there was no significant difference in reporting "other's

inappropriate actions" between shame (14%) and guilt scenarios (20%) in Euro-Canadian

participants, X2(l, N= 34) = 1.06, ns. Thus, the "other's inappropriate action" was more

strongly associated with shame situations than guilt situations in China only.

In Chinese participants, there was a significantly greater proportion of "displayed

flawed self/character" in shame situations (21%) than guilt situations

= 15.68,p < .05. Thus, the "displayed flawed self/character" was more strongly

associated with shame situations than guilt situations in China. For European Canadian

participants, the proportion of scenarios describing a flawed self did not differ between

guilt (9%) and shame (18%) although the difference fell in the same direction, X2(\, N =

34) = 3.00, ns.

48
 In Chinese participants, there was a significantly greater proportion of "breaking

own expectations" in shame concepts (35%) than in guilt concepts (9%), X2(l, N = 39) =

15.36, p < .05, and there was also significant difference for Euro-Canadians (shame: 30%)

and guilt: 5 % ) , X 2 ( l , N= 34) = 17.86,/? < .05. Thus, "breaking own expectations" was

more strongly associated with shame situations than guilt situations in both countries, as

reflected by the lack of interaction in between culture and gender obtained in the earlier

analysis.

For proportions of "breaking others' expectations", in Chinese participants there

were significantly fewer mentions in shame scenarios (6%) than in guilt scenarios (23%),

X2(l, N = 39) = 9.97, p < .05. Similarly, there was also a significant difference in

"breaking other's expectations" between Euro-Canadian shame scenarios (7%) and guilt

scenarios (23%), X2(\, N= 34) = 10.12,/? < .05. Thus, "breaking other's expectations"

was more strongly associated with guilt situations than shame situations in both countries,

once again reflecting the earlier lack of interaction.

For proportions of the higher order category of "unintentional harm to others",

9% of guilt concepts and 2% shame concepts included this theme for Chinese participants:
•y

these proportions were significantly different, X (1,N = 39) = 4.46,p < .05. In the Euro-

Canadian data, 5% of the guilt scenarios and•y1% of the shame scenarios included this

category; these proportions did not d i f f e r , X ( \ , N = 34) = 2.66, ns.

In Chinese participants, there was a significantly lower proportion of "intentional

harm to others" in shame scenarios (5%) than in guilt scenarios (28%),X 2 (1, N = 39) =

16.04,/? < .05. In the Euro-Canadian data, 22% of guilt scenarios were associated with

49
harm to others, while only 12% of shame concepts were, but this difference did not reach

significance, X2(l, N=34) = 2.94, ns.

For the proportions of the higher order category of "intentionally breaking of social

norms/rules" in the Chinese data, 24% of guilt concepts were associated with the theme,

but only 12% shame concepts were, X2(\, N = 39) = 4.00, p < .05. In Euro-Canadian data,

30% of guilt concepts were associated with "intentionally breaking of social norms/rules",

and only 14% of shame feelings were, X2(l, N = 34) = 5.80, p < .05. Thus, "intentionally

breaking of social norms/rules" appears more in guilt than shame scenarios in both

cultures.

For proportions of the higher order category of "unintentionally breaking of social

norms/rules" in the Chinese data, 1% of guilt scenarios, and 6% of shame scenarios

included this theme, X2(\,N = 34) = 3.58, ns. In Euro-Canadian data, no guilt concepts

were associated with it and only 3% of shame concepts were, X (1, N= 34) = 3.00, ns.

Thus, there was no significant difference in the frequency for the "unintentionally

breaking social norms/rules" between shame and guilt concepts in either culture.

Higher order category comparisons for guilt and shame between cultures. Chi-

square analyses were also used to analyze the proportion of each of the eight higher order

categories between the two cultures. We found only that there was a significant

difference in the proportion of "other's inappropriate action" between Chinese guilt

2
scenarios (0%) and European Canadian guilt scenarios

(20%), X (I, N= 73) = 5.40, p

< .05. Therefore, Euro-Canadian participants were more likely to associate guilt feelings

with other people's actions than were Chinese participants.

50
 In sum, Euro-Canadian participants associated "other's inappropriate actions" with

guilt concepts to a greater extent than mainland Chinese participants did. However,

within cultures, mainland Chinese reported more "other's inappropriate actions",

"displaying flawed self/character", and "breaking own expectations" and less "breaking

other's expectations", "unintentionally harm to others", and "intentionally harm to others"

in shame than guilt scenarios. European Canadians reported more "breaking own

expectations", and fewer "breaking other's expectations" and "intentional breaking social

norms/rules" in shame than guilt scenarios. Given that more differences were found

between the shame and guilt scenarios in the Chinese sample than the Euro-Canadian

sample, the results suggest that shame and guilt may be more differentiated for mainland

Chinese than European Canadians .

Three Dimensions of Guilt and Shame

Dimension 1: Focus on public versus private.

Chinese participants. The first dimension focuses on whether participants described

their experiences of shame and guilt as public or private; namely, whether there was an

audience present when people experienced the emotion. A scenario was coded as "public"

if one could infer that an audience was present and it included people in addition to the

victim, for example, "/ was not responsible because I did not arrive on time for my

sister's wedding. I was late, and that caused the wedding to start late. Ifelt very guilty for

not upholding my obligation to be on time for such an important event" The scenarios

were coded separately when transgressors were with victims only, for example, "when I

do not help out a family member when they ask for help from me at times. " This was

51
coded "public—transgressor was with victim only." However, if the scenario did not

show the presence of the victim and/or other people, the scenario was coded as "private".

For example, "In an anonymous paper voting for a new leader, I gave very bad

evaluation to a candidate leader who actually did not do too badly in his job. " If the

scenario did not clearly indicate whether an audience was present it was coded as

"unknown". An example would be: "One day, I had not finished my work which I should

have completed on time. "

For the combined guilt scenarios in the Chinese data, 13% had an audience present,

and 35% showed only the transgressor and the victim together, for a total of 48% (19 out

of 39) in public (with audience or victim present). Another 47% (18 out of 39) described

feeling guilt in private (no audience) and 5% (2 out of 39) were unknown. A Chi-square

comparing the proportion of guilt scenarios that were coded as private showed private

experiences of guilt were not distributed equally across the 4 categories (see Figure 1).

Rather, a minority (18%) of neijiu-1 scenarios were associated with no audience,

whereas the majority of scenarios of neijiu-2 (57%), zui e gan (51%) and fan zui gan

(62%) were associated with private experiences. Chi-square analysis showed that the

proportion of private varied significantly across these four categories of guilt, X2(3,N =

39) = 25.15,/? < .05. Fan zui gan had higher number of private and significantly differed

from neijiu-1 (harm to others) and not significantly differed from neijiu-2 and zui e gan,

and neijiu-1 (harm to others) was different from the others.

In Chinese participants, for the combined shame scenarios, 58% showed the

transgressor was with other people present, and 11% showed the transgressor was alone

52
Figure 18

Public versus private dimension of guilt in Chinese participants

1 public
0.8 private
0.6
0.4
0.2

neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui

gan

Note: Chinese private guilt, X2 (3, N = 39) = 25.15 ,p< .05.

53
with the victim for a total of 69% (133/192) in public (with audience and/or victim

present), whereas a minority (22%, 43 out of 192 scenarios) felt shame in private.

Another 9% were unknown (16 scenarios). The proportion of shame scenarios that were

private were compared across the 5 categories of shame and were not found to be

distributed equally (see Figure 2). Two categories diu lian (8%) and nan wei qing (12%)

showed lower numbers of private scenarios than the other categories (can kui: 50%; xiu

chi: 23%; and xiu kui: 19%), which also showed higher proportions of private scenarios,

particularly, can kui, X2(A,N= 39) = 48.64, p < .05, which is different from the other

categories and had the highest number experienced in private.

Chi-square analyses were used to compare proportions of public and private

scenarios by the two types of emotions (overall guilt and overall shame) within Chinese

participants. There was a significant interaction between whether an audience was present

or not present and whether the emotion being described was shame or guilt within

Chinese participants, X\\, N= 39) = 12.75,p

< .05 (see Figure 3). In shame situations,

public (69%) was higher than private (22%) when experiencing shame, but not in guilt

situations (48% guilt and 47% shame). Thus, the presence of an audience was more

strongly associated with shame situations but the presence or absence of an audience did

not matter in guilt situations. However, as noted above, there was also variability in the

public versus private dimension as a function of the specific types of shame and guilt

being European
described. Canadian participants. For guilt scenarios overall, in terms of the

54
Figure 18

Public versus private dimension of shame in Chinese participants

public
private
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
i
a>x y e>

Note: Chinese private shame: X2 (4, N= 39) = 48.64, p < .05.

55
Figure 18

Interaction between context {public vs. private) and emotions (shame vs. guilt) in Chinese

participants

0.8 public
0.6 private

0.4
0.2

shame guilt

Note: Interaction in Chinese, X (1,N= 39) = 12.75,p< .05.

56
"public" or "private" perspective, 37% showed an audience present, and 21% showed the

victim only present. Thus, 58% showed that the transgressor felt guilt in public. There

were 27% who reported no audience and 15% were "unknown". These results suggest

that the presence of an audience is associated with guilt feelings for European Canadian

participants. We compared the proportion in each dimension across the different

categories of guilt and showed private experiences of guilt were not distributed equally

across the 4 categories, X2(3, N=34) = 14.26,p < .05 (see Figure 4). Rather, several

(38%) of the fan zui gan scenarios, which had the highest number, were associated with

no audience, whereas fewer scenarios of neijiu-1 (24%), neijiu-2 (21%), and zui e gan

(26%>) were described as private. This suggests that the different categories of guilt were

associated with different situations for European participants but unlike the Chinese

participants, for whom it was neijiu-1 that differed from the others, for Euro-Canadian

participants it was fan zui gan that differed from the others.

For shame scenarios overall, 63% showed an audience present and 14% showed the

victim present, with 77% overall showing that the transgressor felt shame in public.

There were 12% where the transgressor felt shame in private and 11% were unknown.

Thus, shame was also experienced primarily in public. The proportion of shame scenarios

that were private were not distributed equally across the 5 types of shame, X2(4, N = 34)

= 92.60, p < .05 (see Figure 5), with one category can kui (41%) showing a higher

number of private scenarios than the other three categories, (xiu chi: 9%; diu lian: 3%;

xiu kui: 3%; and nan wei qing: 3%). This suggests that the different categories of shame

57
Figure 18

Public versus private dimension of guilt in European Canadian participants

public
private
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui

gan

2
Note: Euro-Canadian private guilt: X (4, N = 34) = 14.26,p < .05.

58
Figure 18

Public versus private dimension of shame in European Canadian participants

1
0.8 - i — [
j0.6 - 1
; ;
j 0.4 - m - ;
I 0.2 - I '
; o » _

public • private

2
Note: Euro-Canadian private shame: X (4, N = 34) = 92.60,p < .05.

59
varied on this dimension for European Canadian participants and that most categories of

shame were not experienced in private.

Chi-square analysis was used to analyze proportion of public and private by the two

types of emotions (overall guilt and overall shame) within European participants.

There was a significant interaction between whether an audience was present or not

present in overall shame versus overall guilt scenarios within European Canadian

participants (see Figure 6),X2(\, N= 34) = 7.52,p < .05. However, for European

Canadians, public scenarios were more frequent than private scenarios in both shame and

guilt. Further post hoc tests showed that there was a significant difference in whether

there was no audience present in overall shame versus

overall guilt, X\\, N= 34) = 5.77,

p < .05. Thus, European participants reported experiencing more guilt than shame

scenarios in private.

Cultural effects of audience presence on overall shame and guilt. Chi-square

analysis was used to analyze the proportion of scenarios with an audience present for

overall shame and overall guilt between the two cultures. There was no significant

interaction between whether an audience was present in shame versus guilt scenarios and

culture, X2(l, N= 73) = 0.10, ns.

Dimension 2: Focus on self versus action

Chinese participants. The second dimension refers to whether people focus on the

"self' or their "action" when experiencing shame and guilt. In other words, whether

people who violate social norms or morals feel themselves to be a bad person or just feel

60
Figure 10

Interaction between context (public vs. private) and emotions (shame vs. guilt)

European Canadian participants

: 1 . --
public
0.8
private
0.6
0.4 J
0.2
i o -i— —
shame guilt

2
Note: Interaction in Euro-Canadian, X (1 ,N = 34) = 7.52,p < .05.
that their behaviour was wrong. A scenario was coded as focusing on blaming the self

when the transgressor stated that they blamed him/herself, for example, " / f e e l very

selfish." It was coded as focusing on blaming their actions when the transgressors focused

on their behaviours, for example, "/ was caught for spitting on the bus." If the scenario

did not clearly indicate whether the person blamed him/herself or their behaviours, it was

coded as "unknown". An example would be: "My lies were exposed. "

For the combined guilt scenarios in Chinese participants, 10% showed people

focusing on the self, and 90% showed people focusing on the action. For the breakdown

of the patterns by individual guilt concepts, see Figure 7. The proportions in this

dimension were not found to differ across the four categories of guilt, X (3, N = 39) =

1.44, ns. This suggests that Chinese people in guilt situations focused on blaming their

actions across these four different types of situations.

For the combined shame scenarios overall in Chinese participants, 38% (15 out of

39) were focused on the self, and 60% (23 out of 39) were focused on action. There were

2% unknown. For the individual concepts of shame, please see Figure 8. Most categories

of shame focused "action" although, the categories can kui (52%) and nan wei qing (49%)

were almost equally distributed across focusing on self and behaviour. However, chi-

square tests showed that there were no significant differences in the proportion of

scenarios focused on action across these five categories of shame, X (4,N = 39) = 5.78,

ns. This suggested that people in most shame situations still focused on blaming their

actions.

Chi-square analysis was used to analyze the proportion of self focus and action

62
Figure 18

Self versus action dimension of guilt in Chinese participants

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui

gan
self • action

Note: Chinese guilt action: X2(3, N= 39) = 1.44, ns.

63
Figure 18

Self versus action dimension of shame in Chinese participants

0.8 —

0.6 —

0.4 —

0.2 -

[
xiu chi can kui diu lian xiu kui nanwei
j
j self • action

Note: Chinese shame action: X (3, N= 39) = 1.44, ns.

64
participants. There was a significant interaction between type of blame and type of

emotion within Chinese participants, X2(l, N = 39) = 22.31,p < .05 (see Figure 9). Chi-

square was used to explore further, we found that there was significant difference in the

proportion of scenarios of blaming self between overall shame scenarios (38%) and

overall guilt scenarios (10%), X2(\, N= 39) = 16.32, p < .05. Chinese people in shame

situations appear to have focused on blaming themselves more than in guilt situations.

Moreover, there was a significant difference in focusing on blaming their actions between

overall shame (60%) versus overall guilt (90%), ^ ( 1 , N = 39) = 6.00,p < .05. Thus,

Chinese people in guilt situations focused more on blaming their actions than in shame

situations.

We also examined the differences of focusing on blaming "self' versus blaming

"action" in each shame and guilt situations for Chinese participants. The results showed

that participants focused on blaming their actions rather than self both within shame

situations,X 2 (l, N=39) = 4.94,p < .05, and within guilt situations,X 2 (l, N= 39) = 6.40,

p<. 05.

European Canadian participants. For the combined guilt scenarios overall in the

Euro-Canadian participants, 8% showed people focusing on the self, and 81% showed

people focusing on their actions. There was 11% unknown. For the proportions in the

individual concepts of guilt, please see Figure 10. The proportions in this dimension were

compared across the different categories of guilt and showed all the categories of guilt

focused on "action", specifically neijiu-1 (88%), neijiu-2 (73%), zui e gan (91%) and

65
Figure 18

Interaction between self versus action and emotions (shame vs. guilt) in Chinese

participants

1 1

,0.8
0.6
jo.4
io.2
i
0

shame guilt

Note: Interaction in Chinese, X2(\, N=39) = 22.31, p < .05.

66
Figure 10

Self versus action dimension of guilt in European Canadian participants

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui

gan
self • action

2
Note: Interaction in Euro-Canadian, X (1, N= 39) = 22.31 ,p < .05.
fan zui gan (70%), X2(3, N = 34) = 4.09, ns. This suggests that European Canadians in

guilt situations focused on blaming their actions rather than blaming themselves across all

four types of guilt concepts. For the combined shame scenarios overall in the European

Canadian participants, 15% showed people focusing on the self, and 73% showed people

focused on actions. There were 12% unknown. For the proportions in the individual

concepts of shame, please see Figure 11. The proportions in this dimension were

compared across the different categories of shame all of which focused on "action" (xiu

chi: 85%; can kui: 80%; diu lian: 76%; xiu kui: 52%; and nan wei qing: 70%). Chi-

square showed that there were no significant differences in the proportion of action focus

across these five categories of shame, X (A, N= 34) = 8.97, ns.

Chi-square analysis was used to analyze proportion of self focus and action focus

by the two types of emotions (overall guilt and overall shame) within European Canadian

participants. There was no significant interaction in whether participants focused on

blaming themselves or blaming the actions as a function of the type of emotion within

European Canadian participants, X2(l, N = 34) = 2.54, ns (see Figure 12). In both shame

and guilt situations, scenarios focused more on the action rather than the self.

Cultural effects of self focus on overall shame and guilt. Chi-square analysis was

used to analyze proportion of scenarios focusing on blaming self for overall shame and

overall guilt between the two cultures. There was no significant interaction between the

type of emotion and culture, X2(\, N= 73) = 1.60, ns. In sum, for focus on self versus

action, mainland Chinese and European Canadians blamed their actions more than they

68
Figure 10

Self versus action dimension of shame in European Canadian participants

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

xiu chi can kui diu lian xiu kui nanwei

self • action
2
Note: Euro-Canadian shame action: X (4,N= 34) = 8.97, ns.
Figure 18

Interaction between self versus action and emotions (shame vs. guilt,) in European

Canadian participants

self
action

shame guilt
2
Note: Interaction in Euro-Canadian, X (\,N= 34) = 2.54, ns.

70
blamed themselves.

Dimension 3: Social withdrawal versus repairing behaviours

Chinese participants. The third dimension reflects the extent to which the scenarios

focused on social withdrawal behaviours or repairing behaviours after experiencing

shame and guilt. A scenario was coded as focusing on social withdrawal when

participants wanted to hide or escape from others; for example, "Now I hardly talk to my

friend because Ifeel guilty." A scenario was coded as focusing on reparative behaviours

when participants who did something wrong wanted to fix what had happened; for

example, "I apologized profusely." A scenario was coded as "unknown", which means

the coders could not identify whether it described withdrawal situation or repairing, in

many cases because there was simply no information; for example, "/ said bad words

behind somebody's back, but later he knew what I said. "

Few people responded with either withdrawal (0%) or repairing (17%) in either

culture because we did not specifically ask about how people responded, so few gave that

information. However, the results we were able to code showed the following patterns.

For the combined guilt scenarios in the Chinese participants, 17% showed people

focused on repairing behaviours, and 83% were unknown (uncoded behaviours). For

patterns within the separate guilt concepts, please see Figure 13. The proportions of

"repairing behaviours" across the different categories of guilt varied as a function of the

type of category of guilt, X2(3, N = 39) = 9.92, p < .05. This suggests that the repairing

behaviours were not distributed equally across the 4 guilt concepts, with zui e gan

71
Figure 10

Withdrawal versus repairing action dimension of guilt in Chinese participants

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2 tastfv;
f^iiBP'r- "
tijijir-; AiSllSli
0

neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui

gan
• withdrawal s repairing

Note: Chinese shame repairing, X2(4, N = 39) = 6.12, ns.

showing the lowest frequency. However, all people who reported actions in guilt

situations responded with repairing behaviours.

For the combined shame scenarios overall in Chinese participants, 1 % participants

showed a focus on social withdrawal behaviours, 7% showed a focus on repairing

behavior and 92% were unknown, which means participants did not give further

explanation about how they reacted to their situations or dealt with them. For an analysis

of this dimension by individual shame concepts, see Figure 14. The proportion of

repairing behaviours in this dimension did not differ across the different categories of

shame, X2(4, N = 39) = 6.12, ns. However, we noted that most people in shame situations

who described their actions following the event reported mostly repairing behaviours.

Chi-square analysis was used to analyze proportion of withdrawal behaviours and

repairing behaviours by two types of emotions (overall guilt and overall shame) within

Chinese participants. There was no significant interaction between whether participants

focused on withdrawal or repairing behaviours and type of emotion within Chinese

participants, X2{\, N = 39) = 2.21, ns (see Figure 15).

European Canadian participants. For the combined guilt scenarios overall in the

Euro-Canadian participants, 7% showed people focused on withdrawal, 45% showed

people focused on repairing behaviours, and 48% were unknown. For the proportions in

the individual concepts of guilt, please see Figure 16. The proportions in this dimension

were compared across the different categories of guilt. All the categories of guilt focused

more on "repairing actions", but there was a significant difference in the proportion of

repairing actions across the four categories of guilt, X (3, N = 34) = 11.80,/? < .05. This

73
Figure 10

Withdrawal versus repairing action dimension of shame in Chinese participants

0.6
0.4
0.2
nu r-^ fpisi pom „..,,,„ rr"^

xiu chi can kui diu lian xiu kui nan

weiqing
withdrawal • repairing

2
Note: Chinese shame repairing, X (4, N = 39) = 6.12, ns.
Figure 18

Interaction between response (withdrawal vs. repairing action) and emotion (shame vs.

guilt) in Chinese participants

075

0o4

0.3 11 withdrawal
• repairing
0.1
0

shame guilt

Note: Interaction in Chinese, X {\,N= 39) = 2.21, ns.

75
Figure 10

Withdrawal versus repairing action responses to guilt in Euro-Canadian participants

I • • •
neijiu 1 neijiu 2 zui e gan fan zui gan
| withdrawal • repairing

2
Note: Euro-Canadian guilt repairing: X (4, N= 34) = 11.80,p < .05.
suggests that in the European Canadian sample people in guilt situations focused on

repairing to a different extent depending on the type of guilt. Specifically, they focused

on repairing behaviours more in neijiu-1 than in the other types of guilt.

For the combined shame scenarios overall in the Euro-Canadian participants, 36%

showed people focusing on social withdrawal behaviours, 11% showed people focused

on repairing behavior and, 55% were unknown. Chi-square showed that there was a

significant difference in the proportion of repairing actions focus varied on these five

categories of shame, X2(l, N= 34) = 30.30,/? < .05 (see Figure 17). The proportion of

"repairing behaviours" in this dimension across the different categories of shame

showed most categories of shame had only a small proportion focused on "repairing

behaviour," except can kui. Can kui in Euro-Canadians had an equal proportion of

repairing and withdrawal responses, whereas the other categories had more withdrawal

than repairing.

Chi-square analysis was used to analyze the proportion of withdrawal actions and

repairing actions by the two types of emotions (overall guilt and overall shame) within

European Canadian participants. There was a significant interaction between participants'

focus on social withdrawal or repairing their actions and type of emotion, X2(\, N= 34) =

40.07,/? < .05 (see Figure 18). Further post hoc tests showed that, in shame situations,

European Canadians focused on social withdrawal (36%) rather than focusing on

•j

repairing behaviours (11 %), X\\, N = 34) = 13.30, p < .05, while in guilt situations, they

focused on repairing behaviours (45%) rather than social withdrawal (7%),X2(l,N= 34)

= 27.76,/? <.05.

77
Figure 18

Withdrawal versus repairing action responses to shame in Euro-Canadian participants

0.6
0.4
0.2
0 •
xiu chi can kui diu lian xiu kui nan
weiqing
withdrawal • repairing

Note: Euro-Canadian shame repairing: X (4, N - 34) = 30.30,p < .05.

78
Figure 18

Interaction between response (withdrawal vs. repairing action) and emotion (shame vs.

guilt) in Euro-Canadian participants

0.5
0.4
0.3 withdrawal
0.2
repairing
0.1
0

shame guilt

Note: Interaction in Euro-Canadian, X\\, N= 34) = 40.07,/? < .05.

79
 Cultural effects on withdrawal focus in overall shame and guilt. Chi-square

analysis was used to analyze the proportion of scenarios focusing on withdrawal for

overall shame and overall guilt between the two cultures. There was no significant

interaction between type of emotion and culture, X (l,N= 73) = 0.87, ns. In sum, both

European Canadians and mainland Chinese participants focused more on repairing

actions in guilt than shame scenarios.

Interestingly, in guilt neijiiu-1, there were five cases with both shame and guilt

feelings; in guilt neijiu- 2, there were two cases with both, and in fan zui gan, there was

one case with both. For example, one scenario was from the concept of neijiu-1, which

was guilt about harming another person, is described below.

A close friend had divulged some personal information to me.

When I was with another group of friends (we shared the same
circle of friends), I told everyone what my friend had told me
earlier. I immediately knew that I broke my friends trust and hoped
that she would not come to know. The feeling of guilt and having
disappointed my friend was very overwhelming. I knew that I
spoke out in haste trying to prove that we were the closest amongst
all our friends. I was afraid that this would ruin our friendship. My
friend did find out that I had told everyone her confidential
information and she confronted me. I was very ashamed and I felt
a lot of guilt for having broken my friends trust. When I saw my
friend after the incident, I apologized profusely. She did accept my
apology, but there was tension for some time. The feeling of guilt
was more long term and it slowly faded once I saw our relationship
return. Today our relationship is as strong as ever.

80
 Discussion

Main themes of guilt and shame between two cultures

Main themes of guilt between two cultures

In this study we found similarities and also differences in reports of shame and

guilt between Chinese culture and European Canadian culture. With respect to the guilt

category nei jiu-1 (guilt 1) — shang hai ta ren (harm to another person), they shared

common themes such as intentionally said something that hurt someone,

accidentally/thoughtlessly said something that hurt someone, lied/cheated, failed one's

expectations and failed responsibilities/duties of their social role. But the difference

between the two cultures was that Chinese participants had a theme of aggressive

behaviours (e.g., I had a fight with my classmate and injured his head; When I was young,

I fought with my best friend.).

For nei jiu-2(guilt 2) — wei bei xin ren (trust violation), the common themes

between the two cultures were broke a promise, broke a confidence, failed one's

expectations, said/did something mean, lied/cheated/infidelity, and failed

responsibilities/duties of their social roles. European Canadian participants, however, also

had a theme of intentionally hurting someone, which they had included in descriptions

nei-jiu-2 (guilt 2), suggesting perhaps less distinction between the two types of guilt

among the European Canadians.

For zui e gan (moral transgression), there was a lot of variability in the themes

generated by participants in these two cultures, although there were some common

themes as well. Common themes were not doing studies, failed one's expectations,

81
lied/cheated, and selfishness. However, European Canadian participants provided many

different scenarios that also reflected violating morals, such as said/did something mean,

disobeyed the traffic law, was rude, was not faithful in religion. These results showed that

a broader range of occurrences were identified as violating morals for European

Canadians.

For fan zui gan (law/rules transgression), the common themes between the two

cultures included theft, and lying/cheating. Interestingly, European Canadians gave ten

examples of the same scenario, which was violating traffic laws/rules, perhaps because

driving cars is a really common activity for Western people. In contrast, most Chinese

adults in mainland China do not have their own cars, thus driving behavior/events seldom

happened to them. Also European Canadians gave examples of feeling no shame in

breaking the law/rules, and said/did something mean, but mainland Chinese focused on

playing a prank with negative consequences for others, and failing expectations. This

suggests a different understanding of this category between the two cultural groups.

Main themes of shame between two cultures

For xiu chi (deep shame), there were some common themes between these two

cultures, namely said/did something mean, did badly in exam/jobs, criticized/mistreated/

and being rejected by others. European Canadians also included some other unique

themes: showed something private in public unexpectedly, bad parenting, and

cheated/lied. Unique Chinese themes included being caught spitting in public, theft,

persevered in argument when knew they were wrong, and was caught making a mistake.

Public spitting is actually quite a common behavior in China but is currently discouraged.

82
If somebody is caught spitting in a public place, not only will she/he lose her/his face and

be criticized, but they would also be fined right away.

For can kui (failure to attain a personal ideal), there were some common themes

between these two cultures, namely not achieving academic/personal/ professional goals,

and failed/did badly at exam/jobs. European Canadians also included the unique theme of

failed responsibilities/duties of social roles. A unique Chinese theme was not doing well

at one's studies.

For diu lian (loss of face), there were some common themes between these two

cultures, such as failed one's expectations, did badly in exam/job, made a mistake, and

criticized/blamed/mistreated/teased others. European Canadians included one unique

theme, bad body image. Unique Chinese themes were clothing malfunction, such as

having an article of clothing break or wearing it inside out, and theft.

For xiu kui (personal failure and harm to someone else), common themes between

these two cultures were intentionally hurt someone, unintentionally hurt someone, failed

expectations, and cheated/lied. However, European Canadians also included selfishness.

Chinese participants also provided some unique themes: criticized/blamed others, and

denied making mistakes.

For nan wei qing (embarrassment), common themes between these two cultures

were caught /exposed making a mistake, criticized/teased/ rejected/misunderstood, and

failing expectations. European Canadians had several unique themes: bad body image,

other's inappropriate action, was caught being rude, was drunk, and felt inferior to others.

83
Chinese unique themes were clothing malfunctions, received excessive praise,

uncomfortable with sex related things and needed/ had insufficient money.

Themes that appeared only in European scenarios were "disobeyed the traffic law",

"was not faithful in religion", "was caught being rude", "was drunk/alcoholic", "felt no

shame after breaking the law/rules", "private thing showing in public unexpected",

"other's inappropriate actions", and "bad body image". These unique themes from

European Canadians suggest that in modern Western societies, people tend to focus

on a good self-image, healthy life styles, belief in religion, protecting one's own private

rights, and maintaining good manners. Themes that appeared only in Chinese scenarios

were "played a prank with negative consequences for others" (from guilt scenarios),

"persevered in argument when knew wrong" (from guilt and shame scenarios), "was

caught spitting", "uncomfortable with sex related things", "received excessive praise",

"needed/had insufficient money", "denied making a mistake", and "clothing

malfunction". These themes were from both guilt and shame scenarios. This pattern

suggests that mainland Chinese participants still advocate traditional Confucian values

such as having a humble and modest attitude, being polite to others, and engaging in

more self-blame than criticizing others; even not talking about sex related things in public

is a norm that has existed for many years in mainland China.

However, there some themes appeared in more types of guilt or shame in Chinese

than European scenarios. For example, "made a mistake" appeared in all Chinese shame

themes, but only in European diu lian, and nan wei qing categories; "aggressive

behaviour" appeared in Chinese nei jiu-1, zui e gan, and fan zui gan but appeared only in

84
European zui e gan. Some themes appeared in both shame and guilt for Europeans but

appeared in only guilt for Chinese. For example, "failed responsibility/duties of the social

roles " only appeared in Chinese neijiu-1 (shang hai ta ren) and neijiu-2(wei bei xin ren),

but appeared in European neijiu-1 and neijiu-2, zui e gan and can kui.

As noted above, some themes appeared in both guilt and shame concepts for

Europeans, such as "failed one's expectation" (own or other's); "lied"; "cheating";

"theft"; "intentionally hurt someone" ; "unintentionally hurt someone"; "did badly in

exam/job"; "said/did something mean"; "selfishness"; and "failed responsibility/duties of

the social roles". Similarly, some themes also appeared in both guilt and shame concepts

for Chinese participants, such as "failed expectations"; "lied"; "cheating"; "theft";

"intentionally hurt someone"; "unintentionally hurt someone"; "did badly in exam/job";

"said/did something mean", and "selfishness".

Thus, similar scenarios could be described in either shame concepts or guilt

concepts. This is consistent with previous studies, in which researchers found that shame

and guilt often are experienced simultaneously (Hynie & MacDonald, 2001; Sabini &

Silver, 2005). However, the distinctions between shame and guilt experiences seemed to

differ between cultures, such that some situations were much more clearly associated

with only one of the emotions in only one of the cultures. Moreover, some events were

associated with shame or guilt in only one culture, and were not mentioned in any of the

scenarios in the other culture.

In a similar study, Henkin (2004) asked 146 mainland Chinese college students and

72 European American college students to recall situations that caused them to

85
experience either shame or guilt. In her study, the experiences of shame and guilt were

coded by themes and categories, and she explored the similarities and differences

between Chinese and American cultures. Her findings suggest that shame is more closely

related to Chinese culture, and guilt is more closely related to American culture. In

contrast from Henkin's study, this current study was based on five types of shame and

four types of guilt. Nonetheless, we found themes that were similar to those found in

Henkin's study. These include cheating, infidelity, deceit, being exposed making a

mistake, intentionally saying something that hurt someone, said/did something mean

(knowingly did something wrong in Henkin's study), failing the responsibility/duties of

the role (did not do something they should have in Henkin's study), an uncontrollable

event, and was drunk (lost control in Henkin's study), other's inappropriate actions

(ashamed by other's perception or embarrassed by other's action in Henkin's study),

selfishness, unintentionally hurt others, cloth malfunction, private things showing in

public unexpectedly or being criticized/teased (public embarrassment in Henkin's study),

did not achieve academic/personal goals, did badly in exam/job (poor academic

performance in Henkin's study), received excessive praise (ashamed by other's

action/perceptions in Henkin's study), was rude (rude to others), failed responsibilities/

duties of the social role (unfulfilled obligations or regret not spending much time with

family in Henkin's study), and broke a promise (forgetfulness in Henkin's study).

We also found about fifteen themes in this current study that did not appear in

Henkin's study. These themes included aggressive behavior, failed one's own

expectations, theft, disobeyed traffic law, was not faithful in religion, played a prank with

86
negative consequences for others, persevered in argument when knew one was wrong,

caught spitting, made a mistake, bad parenting, needed/ had insufficient money, bad body

image, denied making mistakes, uncomfortable with sex related things, and felt inferior

to others.

The results of this study showed that although participants were from two different

cultures, and used two different languages to provide examples and describe their shame

and guilt feelings, they seemed to experience a range of different types of shame and guilt

experiences. European Canadians, for example, even when they didn't have concepts and

or words for many categories, were able to provide examples that had similar

characteristic to Chinese examples. These results are consistent with the observation that

shame and guilt are universal self-conscious emotions and perhaps quite pervasive and

complex in everyday life (Wang et al., 2009). An examination of the differences suggests

that many cultural differences had more to do with opportunities for specific behaviours

(e.g., driving) or specific cultural norms (e.g., spitting).

Interestingly, as noted above, there were many themes that appeared in description

of both shame and guilt situations. Therefore, similar situations may generate either

shame or guilt (or both) in both cultures. This suggests that it may be individual

differences that determine which of these self-conscious emotions are experienced (cf.

Tangney, 1995). Moreover, there were several scenarios where participants reported

feeling both shame and guilt simultaneously, suggesting that these two types of emotions

can be experienced together, and this appeared to be true for both cultural groups (Hynie,

& MacDonald, 2001; Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996).

87
 Our findings showed that all the scenarios of shame and guilt in this study involved

socially painful experiences. They did appear to involve negative self-labeling, which

was consistent with Buss's study (2001). The themes generated showed that the range of

experiences was wider than in previous studies, perhaps because we required participants

to generate several examples of shame and guilt (one for each sub-type). However, this

may better reflect the full range of shame and guilt experiences. In sum, in two different

cultural groups and languages, participants could express a range of self-conscious

emotions and situations, even when their language lacked a full vocabulary for their

expression. This result supports the global consistencies of experiencing shame and guilt

(Wang et al., 2009).

Higher order categories comparisons within and between cultures

The results showed that the higher order category "other's inappropriate action"

was more strongly associated with shame situations than guilt situations in China.

Chinese participants associated more shame than guilt with other people's excessive

praise, their inappropriate actions, and their critiques and teasing. This is consistent with

Henkin's finding (2004) that the theme "ashamed by other's perceptions" was dominant

in shame stories but not in guilt stories of Chinese participants. This might be related to

the fact that Chinese participants come from a more collectivist culture, which focuses on

relationships with others and trying to be accepted by others. Thus, others' negative

evaluations would have a very strong influence on their reports of shame. This result also

supports Huang's (2005) explanation that Chinese people are concerned with saving face

and avoiding losing face. Huang emphasized that self-identity plays a key role in

88
experiencing shame. This theme was most strongly represented in Chinese shame stories.

However, European Canadian participants had more scenarios associating guilt with

other's inappropriate action (i.e., the categories: other's inappropriate actions, be blamed/

criticized/rejected/mistreated/teased/misunderstood by others) than Chinese participants

(i.e., the categories excessive praise, be blamed/ criticized/rejected/mistreated/teased/

misunderstood by others). Perhaps European Canadians, who live in an individualistic

culture, responded to others' negative evaluations with less severity than mainland

Chinese, who live in a more collectivistic culture. Euro-Canadians experienced guilt

feelings more easily by other's inappropriate action/perception than did Chinese

participants.

For Chinese participants, "displayed/having a flawed self/character" was more

strongly associated with shame situations than guilt situations. Chinese participants'

description of scenarios that elicited shame included descriptions of shortcomings, such

as their selfishness, laziness, bad body image, drunkenness, and inferiority to others. If

individuals had exposed mistakes/errors in their roles, their feelings of belonging would

be threatened and they might then feel devalued and feel shame. This result was

consistent with what would be expected for participants from collectivist cultures, and

with findings from past studies (Harvey, et al., 1997; Qian et al., 2001; Wang et al., 2009).

This theme was more strongly represented in Chinese shame stories than European

Canadian shame stories.

Both cultural groups reported that "breaking own expectations" was associated with

more shame than guilt, whereas "breaking other's expectations" was associated with

89
more guilt than shame. This clearly mirrors past research on shame and guilt, in which

shame is more self-focused and guilt is more other-focused. Individuals do not like to

violate their own expectations. If they do, they feel disappointed with themselves and

evaluate themselves negatively. Because they cannot reach their expected goals, they

then feel ashamed of themselves. For breaking other's expectations and feelings of guilt,

participants reported that they failed their parents', spouses' and good friend's

expectations, they felt regret for those people who were concerned about them and put

their hopes on them. This theme of "breaking own expectations" was more strongly

represented in Chinese shame stories than in European Canadian shame stories. However,

the theme of "breaking other's expectations" was more strongly represented in European

guilt stories and shame stories than in Chinese guilt and shame stories. Although one

might expect a greater emphasis on others' expectations in a collectivist culture, this

finding is consistent with the observation that Chinese morality emphasizes positive

duties; in other words, living up to one's own positive expectations. A failure to do so

would be a moral failing, and should therefore elicit negative self-conscious emotions.

The results also showed that "unintentional harm to others" elicited more guilt

feelings than shame for Chinese participants. This theme was more strongly represented

in guilt stories than in shame stories in both cultures but was more strongly represented in

Chinese guilt stories than European guilt stories. The results also showed that "intentional

harm to others" elicited more guilt feelings than shame for Chinese participants. This

theme was more strongly represented in guilt stories than in shame stories in both

cultures but was more strongly represented in Chinese guilt stories than European guilt

90
stories. The greater emphasis on reporting harm to others for Chinese participants

perhaps reflects a cultural norm for thinking about the consequences of one's actions for

others. The results also showed that "intentional breaking social norms/rules" elicited

more guilt feelings than shame for both Chinese and European Canadian participants.

This theme was more strongly represented in guilt stories than in shame stories in both

cultures but was more strongly represented in European guilt stories than Chinese guilt

stories.

Three dimensions of guilt and shame comparisons

As noticed above, although English lacks equivalent terms for all the categories,

European Canadians also distinguished between the different types of shame and guilt.

This suggests that European Canadians have a much richer representation of shame and

guilt than their limited linguistic terms might suggest. However, the concepts are not

identical; the patterns based on the three dimensions were not the same even though

based on the definitions of five types of shame and four types of guilt rather than actual

terms.

Public versus Private

This study showed that Chinese participants reported shame and guilt scenarios in

both "public" and "private" situations, which is consistent with some Chinese scholars'

findings (Xie & Qian, 2000). In contrast, though, Qian and Qi (2002) found that Chinese

participants felt more shame with others but reported feeling guilt with or without others

present.

91
 With respect to the differences in the "public" versus "private" dimension in the

European Canadian participants of the current study, they also reported shame and guilt

scenarios in both "public" and "private" situations. This is consistent with past studies in

Western countries (Tangney et al., 1994; Tangney, 1995; Tangney et al., 1996; Tangney

& Dearing, 2002). European Canadian participants reported more private guilt than

private shame scenarios. However, we found that for both samples, the absence of an

audience was more strongly associated with guilt situations than shame situations and the

presence of an audience was more strongly associated with shame situations than guilt

situations. This is consistent with Chinese scholars' studies (Li et al., 2004) with Chinese

participants and also consistent with Western scholars' work with Western data (Tangney,

1995). However, although there was a significant difference between "audience present"

or "not present" in both shame or guilt situations, we still found that several participants

reported "private shame" and "public guilt" in both cultures, which is also consistent with

some past studies (Hong & Chiu, 1991; Tangney, et al., 1996; Xie & Qian, 2000).

With respect to the differences between Chinese and European Canadian

participants, Chinese participants reported significantly more "private" guilt than

European Canadian participants. Maybe this was the influence of cultural background.

Chinese transgressors, who are from a more collectivist country, may be more concerned

about their relationship with others and want to save face when they do something wrong.

This means that they could feel guilty even if no one knows their wrongdoings, because

they may focus automatically on others' concerns and opinions more, or they may worry

more about the strength of their relationships than do European Canadians.

92
 Self versus Action

Previous research describes that an individual who feels shame feels as if the self as

a whole person is at fault for committing the action that resulted in shame (Lewis, 1971),

and feels the entire self is bad or wrong. In contrast, an individual who feels guilt feels as

if part of the self did wrong action, and thus guilt results from the self s actions (Lewis,

1971). Although most research suggests that guilt focuses on actions rather than self

(Lewis, 1971; Niedenthal et al., 1994), there have been some arguments about whether

people blame the self or blame others when they experience guilt and shame (Tangney, et

al. 1996). However, Chinese scholar Xie (2000) found that people experiencing shame

wanted to change their actions rather than their self, and there was no difference in

changing self between the shame and guilt groups, suggesting that this distinction may

not exist in Chinese samples.

In this study, Chinese participants and European Canadian participants both

reported blaming their actions more than themselves overall in both shame and guilt

situations. This is consistent with previous findings with Western samples and may be

because action blaming causes less tension and is less painful than self blaming. However,

Chinese participants blamed themselves more than European Canadian participants did in

shame situations, and Chinese participants in shame situations focused on both self and

actions when experiencing shame, whereas Euro-Canadians focused more on actions in

both shame and guilt scenarios.

This greater emphasis on self-blame among Chinese participants might be caused

by Confucian moral standards that made Chinese participants feel very bad about

93
themselves and blame themselves harshly after wrongdoings compared to European

Canadians. However, it may also be the result of norms regarding responses to

wrongdoing. The social norm in Chinese society expects more self-blame when one

speaks of transgressing, and thus the differences in self-blame may reflect cultural norms

for discussing transgressions, rather than actual differences in self-blame. Chinese

traditions in which Confucius emphasized the sense of shame have retained their

influence, even to the present day in mainland China. Since the People's Republic of

China was established in 1949, Chairman Mao advocated criticism and self-criticism for

the entire society (Ou, 2002), which means that when a person does wrong things,

everybody should point it out and criticize his/her mistakes, and that he/she should also

criticize himself/herself in order to serve the well-being of the society. Most Chinese

people become accustomed to criticizing themselves in order to improve themselves and

this may be the cause of the differences in self-blame between the two cultures.

Social withdrawal versus repairing behavior

Past research explains that an individual experiencing shame may wish to hide or

try to escape the situation (Buss, 2001; Lewis, 1992; Tangney, 1990; Tangney & Fischer,

1995). In contrast, an individual who feels guilt often has the desire to correct their

actions (Buss, 2001; Lewis, 1992; Tangney, 1990). In this study, participants in both

cultures focused more on repairing behaviours in guilt than shame scenarios. They all

wanted to apologize to the victims and wanted to repair their wrongdoings in guilt

situations. However, European Canadian participants focused more on withdrawal in

shame than guilt situations. In contrast, no Chinese participants raised the possibility of

94
withdrawal in guilt situations and only 1% raised it as a possibility in shame situations.

This may be because shame is thought to be a very negative emotion in Western

countries but shame has a positive meaning in China. Western people might therefore

prefer denying and suppressing this feeling and withdrawal in these situations, relative to

Chinese participants (Wang et al., 2009).

Very interestingly, in both shame and guilt situations, Chinese participants focused

on repairing behaviours more than social withdrawal. Because the maintenance of

harmony is of central importance in Chinese culture, which advocates that citizens have a

sense of shame, Chinese participants should know their wrongdoings and self-criticize

and correct their actions (Ou, 2002). Shame therefore can and should be publicly

discussed. On the other hand, European Canadian participants in shame situations

focused on social withdrawal more than on repairing behaviours, but in guilt situations,

they focused on repairing behaviours rather than social withdrawal. This is consistent

with other studies conducted with Western samples. For example, a study of American

undergraduates found that guilt improved relationship outcomes while shame harmed

them (Leith & Baumeister, 1998). Differences between interdependent and independent

self-construal might explain these findings. Shame primarily serves as a threat to the

uniqueness and self-worth of European Canadians who live in an individualist culture.

Moreover, Americans experience guilt as a moral transgression. Shame is felt when

identity is called into question and has no necessary connection with responsibility

(Lindsay-Hartz, 1984).

95
 Thus, social withdrawal was not a response to shame or guilt situations for Chinese

participants whereas European Canadian participants' shame and guilt scenarios focused

on more withdrawal than Mainland Chinese scenarios did. However, the majority of the

responses to shame and guilt could not be coded in terms of withdrawal or repairing

actions; most scenarios were coded "unknown". This is no doubt because we did not

specifically ask questions regarding the actions taken following the event. If we added

more detail to the questions we asked about how people would respond to shame and

guilt situations, we would have had more information from a greater proportion of the

participants. In light of how few respondents provided information about how they

responded to these shame and guilt eliciting situations, caution must be taken in

interpreting the findings. Additionally, there were some cells with low frequencies in the

Chi-square analyses that examined actions taken, including some frequencies equal to

zero. Because Chi-Square analyses conducted with low and null frequencies are unstable,

caution must be taken in any interpretations of this dimension.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are some limitations in this study. Although we obtained 343 Chinese

scenarios and 289 European Canadian scenarios from the participants, the sample size in

this study was not very large. Moreover, the samples were not randomly selected. Future

studies should recruit more participants in both cultures and randomly select them. In

this way, we can get more representative scenarios describing experiences and

expressions in shame and guilt events.

96
 The questions we asked in this study were quite general and therefore answers were

not as detailed as they might have been if we had led participants through a series of

more detailed questions. Participants were only asked to describe a situation where they

experienced a particular emotion in as much detail as possible. A more detailed set of

questions, such as asking specifically What happened? Who was present? What were you

thinking when it happened? What did you do afterwards? might have elicited more

relevant information. However, we also obtained the scenarios as participants thought of

them, and obtained the most salient aspects that came to participants' minds. Finally, we

did not measure any possible mediating cultural variables like interdependence and

independence. We can therefore only infer which variables might explain the cultural

differences we observed and indeed, they may be due to other cultural differences that we

have not thought of. It remains to be seen whether differences observed in how

participants described their experiences might be affected by psychological variables that

are thought to differ between cultures or whether they are due more to social/cultural

norms about self-regulation and emotion expression.

97
 Study 2: Pilot Testing Scenarios

Introduction

In order to further evaluate how participants in China and Canada react to different

kinds of shame and guilt, we wanted to develop prototypical scenarios that captured the

main themes in these concepts. The point of Study 2 was therefore to develop these

scenarios. We generated three scenarios for each category of shame and guilt based on

the most frequent themes obtained in Study 1. We then evaluated how well those

scenarios met the definition of their representative categories in order to select the two

most representative scenarios for each category.

Frank, Harvey, and Verdun (2000) conducted a study of whether the five Chinese

forms of shame and two types of guilt were distinguishable by Americans. In their study

they provided two scenarios for each category of shame except nan wei qing (shame—

embarrassment), for which they had only one scenario. These scenarios were generated

by the first two authors. They also gave participants scenarios from two categories of

guilt, namely neijiu 1 (guilt 1)— shang hai ta ren (harm to another person) and neijiu 2

(guilt2)— trust violation, but did not give the Chinese terms for these two types of guilt

(Gore & Harvey, 1995). Frank et al. (2000) did not provide scenarios for the other two

categories of guilt (fan zui gan—law/rules transgression and zui e gan—moral

transgression), therefore failing to explore the full range of Chinese shame and guilt

concepts. Moreover, some of the scenarios given in Frank et al.'s study seemed too

extreme and unusual to generate realistic responses from undergraduate students. For

instance, the two examples for xiu chi (deep shame with perceived social failure, desire

98
to hide, and self-banishment) described either the person or their father being arrested for

criminal or "indecent" acts. These kinds of extreme events may be difficult for most

people to imagine. Finally, these scenarios were based entirely on the authors'

interpretations of the categories, and not on how these categories of self-conscious

emotions were actually experienced by Chinese adults. We felt it was important to

develop a new set of scenarios that included all of the categories of shame and guilt and

to include scenarios that reflected when and how these emotions were experienced in

people's lives.

The goal of Study 2 was thus to create three scenarios based on the most frequent

themes generated from the different categories of shame and guilt by our Chinese

participants in Study 1. A different group of participants then rated how well each

exemplar scenario matched the definitions of the each of the nine Mandarin categories of

shame and guilt.

Methods

Participants

Five participants were recruited by the female experimenter from known associates

and colleagues. Two were European Canadians (2 females, mean age= 37.00 years old),

and three were Chinese immigrants (1 female, 2 males, mean age 34.67 years). They

were all living in Toronto, Canada.

Materials

Creating three scenarios for each category of guilt and shame

99
 The scenarios were based on the three most frequent themes that emerged from the

descriptions of each type of shame and guilt in Study l 3 . Since the themes in Chinese and

Canadian scenarios were similar, but the terms came from Mandarin, we focused on

Chinese themes for the development of the scenarios For each category of shame and

guilt, we identified the three themes which had the highest frequency within each

category and then wrote a scenario that described these themes in a way that could be

relevant to university students in either China or Canada (see Table 3). These scenarios

would represent a reasonable degree of group consensus regarding important meanings of

shame and guilt in Chinese.

Main Themes of All the Forms of Guilt

From the scenarios of nie jiu-1 (guilt 1)—harm to another person that were written

by the Chinese participants, the three scenarios were written based on the following

themes: intentionally saying something that hurt someone, accidently/ thoughtlessly

saying something that hurt someone, and aggressive behaviour. For neijiu-2 (guilt 2)—

trust violation, the three scenarios were written based on the following three themes:

failed own expectations, broke a promise, and broke a confidence. For zui e gan (guilt 3—

-breaks the moral), the three scenarios were written based on the following themes:

aggressive behaviour, theft, and not doing studies. For fan zui gan (guilt4—breaking the

law/rules), three scenarios were written based on the following themes: stealing,

aggressive behaviour/thoughts, and playing a prank with negative consequences

for others. For each of these categories of guilt, we then created three scenarios based on

these themes, which are shown in Table 3.

100
Table 3

The three most frequent themes for each category shame and guilt

Categories of guilt Scenarios and main themes

and shame
A 1. nei jiul (guiltl)- 1. You are at a party and talking with some friends about the
shang hai ta ren— classes you took last term. You make a joke about how easy one
harm to another class is, and how dumb a person would have to be not to get an A
person in this class. One of your friends looks shocked and hurt and you
suddenly remember her telling you that she only got a D in the
course last term and had to take the course again. You realize that
she must think you are talking about her.
(thoughtlessly saying something that hurts someone)
A 2. nei jiul (guilt 1)- 2. You are shopping with a friend, who tries something on in
shang hai ta ren— every store, but cannot decide whether she likes anything enough
harm to another to buy it. You are hot and tired and starting to feel irritated by her.
person She is trying on the fifth pair of jeans in yet another store and once
again cannot decide if she likes them or not. She tells you that she
likes them but is worried that they make her look fat. You snap
back that everything makes her look fat so she may as well get the
ones she likes. You mean this to be funny, but your friend is
visibly shaken and rushes back into the change room in tears.
(intentionally saying something that hurt someone)
A 3. nei jiul (guilt 1)- 2. It is the first real snowfall of the year, and you and some friends
shang hai ta ren- are throwing snowballs and laughing and chasing one another.
harm to another Another friend shows up and calls your name. You have a
person snowball in your hand so you playfully throw it at him. But you
throw it harder than you had intended, and it hits him in the face,
breaking his glasses. He shouts and covers his face as blood starts
to run from a cut above his eye.
(aggressive behaviour)
B 1. neijiu2(guilt2)- 3. Your friend works as a cashier in a small clothing store. You
wei bei xin ren— stop in to visit with her and she asks you to watch the store while
trust violation she goes to get something from the back room. There are a couple
of teenagers in the store who are looking at a pink shirt and
giggling. You watch them for a while but then get distracted and
start flipping through a magazine that your friend left on the
counter. When you look up again, the teenagers, and the shirt, are
gone. You realize that they have stolen it, and that your friend is
now going to get into trouble with her boss.
(failed other's expectations)
B 2. nei jiu2(guilt2)- 4. You are looking to buy a used computer and find a great laptop

101
wei bei xin ren— that is advertised for about $100 more than you can afford. You
trust violation ask a friend if you can borrow the $100 so that you can buy the
computer, and promise to pay him back after you get your next
pay check. Right after you get the computer, several major events
happen in your life, and you completely forget about the money
and don't pay him back.
(broke a promise)
B 3. nei jiu2(guilt2)- 4. A good friend confides in you about how much she is attracted
wei bei xin ren— to a man you both know, even though he already has a girlfriend
trust violation and is clearly not interested in your friend. You promise that you
won't tell anyone about this, but several weeks later this man's
name comes up at a party, and you tell the people you are talking
to about your friend's crush on this man.
(broke a confidence)
C 1. fan zui gan 5. You are in a store with some friends of yours and you see a pen
(guilt -break law with a funny picture on it. You think it's cute, but don't think it's
worth the $10 they are asking for it. You look around and see that
the store owner is talking to your friends and not paying attention
to you. On an impulse, you grab the pen and slip it inside your
coat. You then leave with your friends, without paying for the pen.
(theft)
C 2. fan zui gan 6. You have been up studying for days and are exhausted. You
(guilt 5^-break law finally get into bed and try to get a couple of hours of sleep before
you have to get up to start studying again. Just as you fall asleep,
you are awakened by your roommate's cat, which is meowing and
meowing outside of your roommate's bedroom door. You lie
awake, waiting for your roommate to wake up and do something
about the cat. After 15 minutes, furious with the cat and with your
roommate, you stomp out of your bedroom, grab your roommate's
cat, open your roommate's bedroom door and hurl the cat all the
way across the room.
(aggressive behaviour)
C 3. fan zui gan 6. As a joke, you unscrew the front wheel of a bike that belongs to
(guilt 3j-break law one of your neighbours, a woman you don't like very much. You
think that the wheel will fall off as soon as she unlocks her bike.
However, later that day, you watch from the window of your
living room as she comes out of her house, unlocks her bike, and
then gets on and cycles away. She is less than half a block away
when the front wheel comes off and she falls forward over the
handlebars of the bicycle. People rush to help her, because she is
obviously hurt.
(prank with negative consequences for others)

102
D 1. zui e gan 7. One day at work your supervisor calls you into her office and
(guilt 4>-break asks you about how you and a co-worker have been dividing your
moral tasks. You have heard that your supervisor is considering
promoting your co-worker to a new position and realize that she is
really looking for information about your co-worker's skills and
abilities. You and this co-worker have recently had an argument
and you are still angry, so you tell your supervisor that you do all
the tasks requiring responsibility and judgment and imply that
your co-worker is unreliable and does no work, even though these
things are not true.
(aggressive behaviour)
D 2. zui e gan 8. Your friend has a garden plot in a community garden. One day
(guilt 4)-break you go to visit her while she works in her little plot of land. You
moral notice that one of the neighbouring plots has many ripe
strawberries growing in it. While your friend is not looking, you
pick and eat all of the neighbour's ripe strawberries, leaving
hardly any berries on the plants.
(theft)
D 3. zui e gan 8. You know that you have a term paper that is due at the end of
(guilt 4)-break the month and that you need to start working on it right away, but
moral you keep postponing starting the paper, and keep going to movies,
watching television, and spending time with your friends instead
of working. You end up having to research and write the entire
paper in less that a week in order to get it done in time.
(did not dog studies)
E1. shamel-xiu chi 9. Your class was assigned a reading and you didn't do it. Your
instructor asks you and two other students to lead the discussion of
the reading for this class. You pretend to have done the reading
and hope that you can get away with it, but 10 minutes into the
class the instructor stops the discussion and explains to the class
how the comments you have made about the reading show that
you have not having done the reading and that you have lied to the
class about it.
(did badly in exam/job)
E 2. shamel-xiu chi 10. You enter a classroom early and see an ipod lying on the floor
under a chair. You realize that it must have fallen from someone's
coat or bag. No one is around, so you decide to take the ipod for
yourself because you've always wanted one. You quickly pick it
up and start stuffing it into your own bag. Just then, a group of 3
students shows up at the door and one shouts "Hey, that's mine—
you're stealing my ipod!"
(theft)

103
E 3. shamel-xiu chi 10. You are getting ready to leave a party at your friend's house
but can't find your cell phone. One of the people who already left
the party was once arrested for shoplifting, and you think that they
must have taken your phone. You tell your friend about your
missing phone, and about your suspicions. Your friend gets very
angry and says that the other guest could not have taken the
phone. You also get angry and you and your friend start having a
heated argument. Several other people come by and get involved
in the argument, most of them defending the departed guest.
About 10 minutes into the argument you remember that you
actually left your phone at home, so you turn and stomp out of the
party without admitting that you are wrong.
(persevering in an argument when knowing you are wrong)
F1. shame2-can kui 11. You study hard for an exam in a course that you really like. It
is on a topic you hope to keep studying in the future. When the
exam results come back, you get a 70%, while all of your friends
in the class get marks over 80%.
(did badly in exam/job)
F 2. shame2-can kui 12. You have always hoped to be a medical doctor, ever since you
were a child. But you haven't really studied as hard as you know
you should, and in your third year of university, you realize that
your grades are not good enough to get you into any of the
medical schools in North America, and you will never become a
doctor.
(cannot achieving academic/personal goals)
F 3. shame2-can kui 12. You have spent many years taking lessons on several musical
instruments and music is a central and important part of your life.
Although you have played piano, guitar and clarinet for as long as
you can remember, though, you have never become more than
just adequate at any of them. You finally realize that you will
never be more than a mediocre musician.
(failed own expectations)
G 1. shame3-diu 13. You are voted as the best speaker in your class in high school
lian and are asked to give a speech at the graduation ceremonies in
front of all the graduating students and their parents. You have
memorized your speech but when you get up in front of the
audience, you are so nervous that you forget your speech. You try
to read it from your notes, but you get all confused and realize that
you have mixed up the pages.
(failed own expectations)
G 2. shame3- diu 14. You are in a rush to get ready for class first thing in the
lian morning. You get up and get dressed in a hurry. You arrive in
class late, and most of the seats are already taken. You find a seat

104
 at the front, take off your coat and sit down. Only then do you
realize that you have put your shirt on inside out.
(clothing malfunction)
G 3. shame3- diu 14. You and some friends join a basketball competition where
lian students from different colleges compete to see how many
baskets they can shoot from the foul line. Before long you realize
that you are by far the worst person in the competition and that
everyone else is succeeding more than twice as often as you do.
(failed test/competition/performance)
H1. shame4-xiu kui 15. You start dating a person who is very nice and who you know
really likes you. One night you are at a party and meet someone
else who you know you couldn't really have a relationship with
but whom you find very attractive. Although you know that it
would break your partner's heart if they found out, by the end of
the evening, you and this sexy stranger are kissing in a dark corner
of the living room.
(cheated)
H 2. shame4-xiu kui 16. A friend of yours gets in an argument one night as you and
your friend are leaving a bar. The argument descends into
pushing and shoving. You join your friend in this argument and
when the pushing starts, you shove the stranger as hard as you
can. The stranger falls over, hit their head on the car behind them,
and is knocked unconscious.
(intentionally hurt someone)
H 3. shame4-xiu kui 16. When you start university, you tell a few people that you know
a famous music producer who lives in your neighbourhood. A new
friend of yours who is a musician hears about this and asks if you
could get this producer to listen to his demo tape. You take the
tape and then, rather than admitting that you lied about knowing
the producer, tell your friend that you gave the producer the music
tape. Whenever your friend asks about whether the producer has
commented on the tape you say no, and your friend ends up
thinking that this producer hated his tape.
(denying making a mistake/wrongdoings)
11. shame5-nan wei 17. The professor in one of your classes always asks people for
q mg-embarr as sment answers to the homework questions. You pride yourself on always
having them right. This week you are quick to offer an answer to
the professor's first question, and the professor smiles at you
expectantly as you start answering. The smile turns to puzzlement
and a frown as you are speaking, though. The professor says that
your answer is not correct and actually completely misses the
underlying concept. Several students laugh at you as the professor
turns to get the correct answer from someone else.
(caught making a mistake)

105
I 2. shame5- nan 18. You are looking for a bathroom at a party, and walk into a
wei qing- dark bedroom by mistake. You are surprised to stumble into a
embarrassment couple who are engaged in a passionate embrace on the bed. You
quickly back out mumbling apologies and hear them laughing as
you close the door.
(make a mistake/wrongdoings)
13. shame5- nan 18. Your friends all have more spending money than you do.
wei qing- Going out with them is becoming difficult since you cannot afford
embarrassment to eat or drink at the same places that they do. This time when
they ask you out on a Friday night, you say that you cannot go out
and need to stay in to study. In front of all of your friends, one of
them says that if money is the issue, she'll just pay for you,
thereby making you feel cheap as well as poor.
(needed/had insufficient money)

Note: For xiu chi, can kui, diu lian, two representative themes were successfully chosen from the
second time rating in Study 2. Please look at Appendix Ffor the final scenarios.

106
Main Themes of All the Forms of Shame

Based on the descriptions generated for each category of shame in Study 1 (xiu chi,

can kui, diu lian, xiu kui, nan wei qing), we identified the following themes for each

category. For xiu chi (shame 1—very deep shame), three scenarios were written based on

the following themes: theft, doing badly on an exam/job, and persevering in an argument

when you know you are wrong.

For can kui (shame2—failure to attain a personal ideal), three scenarios were

written based on the following themes: not achieving academic/ personal/professional

goals failing/doing badly at exam/job, and disappointed own expectations.

For diu lian (shame3— loss of face/reputation), three scenarios were written based

on the following themes: failed own expectations, failing a test/competition, and clothing

malfunction.

For xiu kui (shame4— perceived personal failure resulting in harm to someone

else), three scenarios were created based on the main themes: intentionally harming/

betraying someone, denying making a mistake/ wrongdoing, and cheated.

For nan wei qing (shame5—embarrassing), three scenarios were written based on

the following themes: making a mistake/wrongdoings, caught making mistakes/breaking

rules, and needing/having insufficient money.

Ranking the Representativeness of the Scenarios

In order to identify the two most typical examples of shame and guilt categories, we

asked participants of Chinese and European origin, residing in Toronto, to rank order the

examples in each category of shame and guilt (see Appendix B). For each category,

107
participants were given the definition of each concept, and then the three scenarios we

had generated for that concept. Participants were given all materials in English.

Participants returned the package to the experimenter after finishing the survey.

Results

The rankings of the scenarios were summarized for each type of shame and guilt

(see Table 4). Mean rankings are provided in Appendix C. For the category "neijiu

1 (guilt 1) — shang hai ta ren (harming another person) ", scenarios Al and A3 were

selected: accidentally/thoughtlessly saying something and aggressive behaviour.

For the category "neijiu 2 (guilt 2) — wei bei xin ren (trust violation) ", B2 and B3

were retained: breaking a promise and breaking a confidence.

For the guilt category ''fan zui gan — breaking the law and rules ", the two most

preferred scenarios, CI and C3, represented theft and a prank with negative consequences

for others.

For the guilt category "zui e gan — breaking moral codes ", the two preferred

scenarios, D1 and D2, described aggressive behaviour and theft.

For the category "xiu chi (shame 1) — very deep shame/ perceived social failure",

El was the strongest example but it appeared that neither E2 nor E3 were very good

examples of xiu chi.

For the category ucan kui (shame 2) — failure to attain a personal ideal", F2 was

the strongest example but it appeared that neither F1 nor F3 were very good examples.

For the category lldiu lian (shame 3) — loss of face/reputation", Gl, which

108
Table 4. Percentage of coders ordering the three scenarios into each of three rank orders

for each category of shame and guilt

Categories/scenarios of shame and Ranked first Ranked Ranked

guilt second third

guilt about Scenario 1 60% 40% 0%

harming another Scenario 2 20% 0% 80%
person Scenario 3 20% 60% 20%
Guilt—trust Scenario 1 0% 40% 60%
violation Scenario 2 60% 20% 20%
Scenario 3 40% 40% 20%
fan zui gan (guilt)— Scenario 1 80% 20% 0%
—break Scenario 2 20% 0% 80%
a law/rules Scenario 3 20% 60% 20%
zui e gan (guilt)— Scenario 1 80% 20% 0%
break the moral Scenario 2 0% 80% 20%
Scenario 3 20% 0% 80%
xiu chi—very deep Scenario 1 40% 60% 0%
shame Scenario 2 40% 0% 60%
Scenario 3 20% 40% 40%
can kui—failure to Scenario 1 20% 20% 60%
attain a personal Scenario 2 80% 20% 0%
ideal Scenario 3 0% 60% 40%
diu lian—loss of Scenario 1 80% 0% 20%
face/ reputation Scenario 2 20% 20% 60%
Scenario 3 0% 80% 20%
xiu kui— perceived Scenario 1 0% 100% 0%
personal failure Scenario 2 60% 0% 40%
and harm others Scenario 3 40% 0% 60%
embarrassment Scenario 1 40% 40% 20%
Scenario 2 20% 0% 80%
Scenario 3 40% 60% 0%

109
described not doing as well as expected was the clearest example, but the other two were

not very good examples.

For the category "xzu kui (shame 4) — perceived personal failure resulting in harm

to someone else", H2 and HI, which are intentionally harming/betraying someone and

unintentionally hurt someone, were the better examples.

For the category "nan wei qing (shame 5) — embarrassment", We retained

scenarios II and 13, being caught making a mistake and having insufficient money.

Because the scenarios for the categories of xiu chi and can kui lacked two clear

examples, we asked another group of seven participants to rate those categories again

with new scenarios added to the three original scenarios (see below). The new scenarios

were based on other themes that were of equal or similar frequency to the original themes

we used to create the first set of three scenarios. For example, we added another two new

scenarios for xiu chi based on the themes criticized/blamed others and theft. For can kui

the new themes were not achieve personal goal and selfishness/not helping others. Diu

lian also needed to be re-evaluated because of a confusion in how the ranking instructions

were presented for this category, but in this case we used the same three scenarios as

before (see Appendix D).

Seven additional participants were recruited by the author. All of them were adult

Chinese immigrants living in Toronto, Canada. The procedures were similar to the earlier

procedure but included only the three problematic concepts. The scenarios of xiu chi and

can kui were ranked from 1 to 5 since there were 5 scenarios, with 1 representing the

110
strongest example of each type of shame or guilt, and 5 representing the weakest example.

The ranking range for diu lian was same as before, from 1 to 3.

For the category "xiu chi — very deep shame, perceived social failure ", the

percentages are shown in Appendix E i. We also calculated the mean ranking of each

scenario (see Appendix E 2). Scenarios E2 and E4 were ranked as being superior to the

other three (El; E3; E5). Therefore, we decided to keep these two scenarios, which

described criticized/blamed others and theft.

In the same way, we also calculated the mean ranking of the shame category "can

kui— failure to attain a personal ideal"'. Scenarios Fland F5 were ranked as better than

the other three. We therefore decided to keep these two scenarios, which were related to

the themes of failing/doing badly at exam/job, and not achieving personal goals.

For the category "diu lian— loss offace, loss of reputation " scenarios Gland G2

were ranked as more representative than G3. We therefore decided to keep these two

scenarios, which were related to the themes of failed own expectations and clothing

malfunction.

Discussion

Themes of categories of guilt and shame

Compared with the scenarios used in past research (Frank et al., 2000), the

scenarios we created fit the concepts more clearly, had much more detail (those of Frank

et al., were limited to a single short sentence), and were based on the actual experiences

of participants in Study 1. Thus, they were more likely to be believable and relevant for

undergraduate students. For instance, our examples of neijiu 1—harm to another person,

111
which were accidentally/ thoughtlessly saying something that hurt someone, and

accidentally physically hurt someone, more closely fit the definition of "not fulfilling

responsibilities and hurting somebody; feeling sorry and the sense of owing others" than

Frank et al.'s scenario (2000), which was about harming another person intentionally.

Their example was not a common scenario for participants in neijiu 1 in Study 1.

Admittedly, extreme examples may be better examples, but also be uncommon, because

of their extremity, and thus not show up in the recollections of our participants from

Study 1, but if most people have never have experienced a particular situation, it seems

unlikely that they would be able to imagine how they would respond to it (Wilson,

Meyers, & Gilbert, 2001). Relying on participants' actual recalled situations and

emotions is more likely to provide an accurate portrait of how these emotions are really

experienced, even if the emotional impact is weaker than what would be experienced in a

more extreme situation.

There were some unexpected findings. For example, zui e gan— moral

transgression and fan zui gan —law transgression had the same two themes, namely

theft and aggressive behaviour. However, when we went through these examples, we

found the severity to be quite different, with the former referring to a violation of internal

morals and the latter to the violation of external rules or laws. In general, we found that

all four types of guilt involved one's own personal reaction to one's own behaviour. They

all aroused a sense of indebtedness but were each related to a different kind of

responsibility.

112
 For the shame category of xiu chi (very deep shame), it had the same theme of

"theft" as did zui e gan and fan zui gan, but the degrees of transgression in the examples

of xiu chi were not serious, and did not violate the law. Indeed it was very similar to zui e

gan, which is about moral transgression. These themes fit xiu chVs definition, which is

"deep shame and the feeling of having stains on one's face".

Ratings of the problematic scenarios

The rankings showed that most participants agreed on two scenarios for all the guilt

categories, and two for can kui and nan wei qing shame categories. However, there was

less agreement for the xiu chi—shame 1, can kui—shame 2, and diu lian—shame 3

categories. For these three categories, there was only one representative scenario that the

majority of the raters agreed upon. Participants could not clearly identify which of the

other two scenarios was best; thus, these other two scenarios were probably not

representative. We therefore wrote and added another two new scenarios based on the

different themes with same frequencies in order to come up with some improved

examples for xiu chi and can kui, with new scenarios. Then we asked another group of

seven participants to rate them. Two scenarios were successfully chosen for each

category for this new set. This could be due to our failing to capture the nuances of the

scenarios that our participants' described for us (they had to be changed to be equally

plausible for both Chinese and European participants, and so some details were changed).

It is also possible that the scenarios participants recalled most frequently were those that

were easiest to describe, rather than those that best fit the emotion, and thus less

frequently mentioned examples may have been better examples. It was, of course, for this

113
reason that we did not rely on frequency alone to choose our study scenarios, but rather

also required ratings of representativeness from additional participants. Some examples

of the differences between frequency and representativeness are discussed below.

From observing the relationship between the frequencies in Study 1 and the

rankings in this pilot study, it can be seen that there was strong agreement about the

nature of the guilt concepts. Scenarios were generally ranked in the same order as the

frequency with which they were listed in Study 1. Similarly, for all the categories of

shame, the rankings showed that most participants agreed on two scenarios of xiu kui

(shame 4— perceived personal failure resulting in harm to someone else) and nan wei

qing (shame 5—embarrassed). Nonetheless, there were some differences. For instance,

the two scenarios we generated for nie jiul (guilt 1)—shang hai ta ren (harm to another

person) were accidentally/ thoughtlessly saying something that hurt someone, and

accidentally physically hurt someone. Comparing the frequencies in Study 1, they were

not ranked in the same order as the frequency with which they were generated. Although

the theme of intentionally saying something that hurt someone had the higher frequency,

the other two themes had higher rankings of representativeness. It is possible that

intentionally hurting someone stays in one's mind more strongly, even though it may be

seen as less prototypical of the category.

Another thing that must be attended to is the differences between listing

features/definitions and picking the most representative features/definitions. For example,

for the shame category xiu chi (shame 1—very deep shame), the result of the first

rankings showed that neither E2, theft, nor E3, which was about persevering in an

114
argument when knowing you are wrong, were good examples. We added extra two

scenarios, E4: did something bad to others and E5: getting caught doing something

wrong, five examples based on four themes, stealing (n = 5), did badly at job (n = 5),

persevering in an argument when knowing you are wrong (n = 2) and caught doing

something wrong (n = 2), and asked participants to rank them again. In the second set of

rankings, we found that E2 (theft) and the new E4 (getting caught doing something

wrong) were better. Although the theme of doing badly in a job had the highest frequency,

most people ranked the theme of getting caught doing something wrong as more

representative of the concept. Perhaps one type of event occurs more often whereas the

other is a better example of the concept and much more representative. A similar state of

affairs occurred for can kui.

Some similar themes emerged across the five shame and four guilt categories. This

suggests that these different concepts are interrelated and may not be clearly

differentiated in people's minds, even within a Chinese sample. Many of the emergent

themes created from coding the stories were interrelated as well. This is not inconsistent

with other research using the much simpler distinction between overall shame and overall

guilt. Previous studies (Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1989) have also found that even

well-educated young adults have difficulties distinguishing between shame and guilt in

the abstract, because the distinctions between shame and guilt may be subtle (Sabini &

Silver, 2005), and shame and guilt often are experienced simultaneously (Hynie &

MacDonald, 2001; Tangney, et al., 1996). Thus, while these concepts may have distinct

representations, causes, and consequences for Mandarin speaking Chinese, the

115
boundaries among these concepts may be fuzzy. However, broad differences were

observed and general patterns could be identified, suggesting that being conscious of

these distinctions should be worthwhile.

116
 Study 3

The Self-regulation of Shame and Guilt among Mainland Chinese, Chinese

Canadians, European Canadians, and International Chinese Students in Canada

Responses to Guilt and Shame

In Study 1,1 explored cultural differences in how Chinese and Euro-Canadian

participants experience shame and guilt. I hypothesized, and found, that the experience of

shame and guilt can differ as a function of culture. Cultural factors such as beliefs, social

norms and values can not only influence the experience of shame and guilt, but can also

guide and shape individuals' responses to these experienced emotions.

Because shame and guilt are social emotions, responses to the experience of shame

and guilt are likely to be affected by the attitudes and values a culture has about

relationships. Individualistic countries such as Canada and the United States emphasize

independent concepts of the self. People reared in cultures with highly individualistic

values tend to develop a view of self as an independent agent, and view themselves in

terms of their independence, autonomy, solitude, and self-reliance. For people with an

independent self-concept, behaviour is likely to reflect personal goals (e.g., I need to get

good grade because I want to go to medical school) (Triandis, 1990).

In contrast, collectivistic countries such as China, India, and Japan promote

interdependent concepts of self, view themselves in terms of their connections with

others, and cannot separate themselves from their social contexts (e.g., Good grades will

bring honor to my family) (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995). Thus, other

117
people's thoughts and feelings are as important and meaningful in eastern countries as

one's own thoughts and feelings.

Western research has found that reactions to the experience of shame and guilt

differ in terms of the motivations they evoke and their appraisals (Hong & Chiu, 1992;

Lewis, 1971; Lickel et al., 2005; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Feelings of guilt are

differentiated from shame in that they remain focused on a specific behavior and the

harm it may cause others (Tangney, Wagner, & Gramzow, 1989). North American

research suggests that people experiencing guilt usually rectify the problem, and engage

in more approach related behaviors designed to confess, apologize, and repair the

situation and relationship (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney et al., 1996; Wicker,

Payne, & Morgan, 1983).

In contrast, people experiencing shame have an intense emotional response and a

fear that they will be rejected by others. The feeling of shame results in a disruption of

social contacts, linked to a desire to insulate oneself from negative evaluation, and

distance oneself from the social situation and interpersonal relationships (i.e., the desire

to hide, disappear, and escape or it is converted to rage and striking back) (Lewis, 1971;

1985; Lickel et al., 2005; Qian, Liu, & Zhang, 2003; Tangney, 1995; Tangney et al., 1996;

Wicker et al., 1983). Thus, with the exception of acts of aggression, research on people in

North America finds that people experiencing shame exhibit more avoidance related

behaviors and social withdrawal following wrongdoings (Lewis, 1971; Tangney et al.,

1996; Wicker et al., 1983).

118
 In Study 1,1 compared the cultural differences between shame and guilt for

mainland Chinese and European Canadians in scenarios describing experiences of shame

and guilt on three different dimensions. One of these dimensions was the extent to which

the scenarios focused on repairing actions or withdrawal. I found that both European

Canadians and mainland Chinese focused more on repairing actions in guilt than shame

scenarios. However, European Canadian's shame scenarios focused on more withdrawal

than mainland Chinese scenarios, and European Canadian's guilt scenarios included more

repairing actions than mainland Chinese scenarios. However, the majority of the

scenarios in Study 1 included responses to shame and guilt that were "unknown." This is

probably due to the fact that we did not explicitly ask about how participants responded

to the situation, or their emotions. The present study examines cultural differences in the

self-regulation of shame and guilt based on explicit self-report questionnaires.

Because shame and guilt involve self-representations, cultural differences in the

self-regulation of shame and guilt might be influenced by personality traits relevant to the

self-concept. Therefore, in this study we added two variables known to differ between

East Asian and North American cultures, namely self-construal and self-monitoring, and

examined whether cultural differences in the self-regulation of shame and guilt is

mediated or moderated by these two factors.

Self-Construals and Self-Conscious Emotions

Because shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions, how people experience them

may be influenced by different self-construals. Self-construal is defined as a constellation

of thoughts, feelings, and actions concerning one's relationship to others, and the self as

119
distinct from others (Singelis & Sharkey, 1995). Cultural norms, values, and beliefs play

a powerful role in shaping the way in which people conceive of themselves (Markus &

Kitayama, 1991; Shweder & Bourne, 1984; Triandis, 1989). The cultural level variables

of individualism and collectivism influence how people construe the self as it relates to

the larger society. Markus and Kitayama (1991) identified two types of self-construals

that emerge as a result of living in collectivist or individualist cultures. The independent

self-construal is defined as a "bounded, unitary, stable" self that is separated from social

context. Individuals with highly independent self-construals are usually found in

individualist cultures (e.g. Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and Australia). They

emphasize unique aspects of self and focus on their own abilities, traits, characteristics,

goals, values, individuality, independence, and attributes rather than relational or

contextual factors (Aaker, 2000; Lee, Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000; Markus & Kitayama,

1991). To maintain and enhance this independent view of the self, one must maintain a

sense of autonomy from others and be true to one's own internal structures of preferences,

rights, convictions, and goals (Markus & Kitayama, 1994).

In contrast, members of collectivistic Eastern cultures (e.g. China, Korean, Japan,

and India) tend to have a strong interdependent self-construal. An interdependent self-

construal is defined as a flexible self, one that emphasizes public features, such as

statuses, roles, connectedness, harmony of interaction, and the importance of conformity,

social context, and relationships (Berry, 1979). It is broadly defined in terms of the self

concept in relation to others. Both self and others are not separate from the situation. An

interdependent self is correlated with engaging in appropriate actions to regulate

120
behaviours and having a strong desire to fit into groups and maintain social harmony

(Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989).

In collectivist cultures, self and other are connected with the social context. Consequently,

people tend to focus on their responsibilities and obligations to others and try to avoid

behaviors that might cause social disruptions or disappoint significant others in their lives

(Heine et al., 1999). People who have an interdependent self do not want to stand out or

seem special. They tend to communicate indirectly and to be attentive to other's feelings

and unexpressed thoughts. Singelis found that Asian Americans are both more

interdependent and less independent than European Americans (Singelis & Sharkey,

1995; Singelis, 1994). Similar results have been found in studies comparing Euro-

Americans and Hong Kong Chinese (Singelis et al., 1999; Lee et al., 2000) and

comparing the people of United States and Taiwan (Neff, Pisitsungkagarn, & Hsieh,

2008).

Interestingly, some researchers link self-construal with embarrassment. People with

interdependent self-construals emphasize external harmonious relationships, concern for

others' evaluations and are more likely to want to fit in harmoniously with those around

them. For instance, Singelis and Sharkey (1995) stated that people from collectivist

Eastern cultures are likely to be more susceptible to embarrassment than those from

individualist Western cultures. They are more concerned about public face-saving. They

also found that having an independent self-construal is negatively correlated to a person's

susceptibility to embarrassment. Moreover, those with an interdependent self-construal

121
may be more aware of the potential evaluations of the self by others, and may also

respond differently to the experience of a negative self-evaluation.

Bagozzi, Yerbeke and Gavino (2003) explored this possibility among salespeople

from Holland (an individualist country) and the Philippines (a collectivist country).

Bagozze et al. compared self-regulation to shame in a work situation between the

Filipinos, who should have interdependent self-construals, and the Dutch, who should

have independent self-construals. They found that the Filipino salespeople were more

likely to try to repair the collective self and merge with others when experiencing shame,

as opposed to the Dutch, who sought to withdraw. The authors interpreted their findings

in terms of interdependent and independent self-construals, concluding that to maintain

and enhance the interdependent view of the self, individuals will tend to think and behave

in ways that emphasize their connectedness to others and that strengthen existing

relationships. Thus, following a shame experience, those with interdependent self-

construals will seek to repair the self by reconnecting with the collective, whereas those

with independent self-construals will seek to repair the self by retreating into isolation.

However, the authors did not measure actual self-construal in their samples, leaving it

unclear whether their findings are actually attributable to self-construal, or to other

cultural differences.

We propose to test whether this difference also exists between Euro-Canadian and

Chinese participants, and explicitly test whether interdependence might mediate any

differences observed. European Canadian and Chinese people have been found to differ

in the nature of their self-construals, and these self-construals might predict how Chinese

122
and Euro-Canadians respond to shame. When shamed, people become aware that their

actions or accomplishments are negatively evaluated and come to feel that their self has

been denigrated and ridiculed. As a result, they might take protective actions to preserve

the self when confronting these negative emotions. However, in individualist cultures the

self-concept is separated from others, so protection for Euro-Canadians may mean

withdrawal, whereas in collectivist cultures it is connected to others and so protection for

the Chinese may mean seeking reconnection.

Self-Monitoring and Self-Conscious Emotions

Another factor that is closely related to self-consciousness is self-monitoring

(Snyder, 1974; 1979). This personality factor may link to emotional regulation and

influence people's self-regulation strategies (Bono & Vey, 2007). Snyder (1974, p. 526)

characterizes self-monitoring as "self-observation and self-control guided by situational

cues to social appropriateness". It is a trait focused on individual differences in the

tendency to monitor and regulate the public self, and to control one's behaviour (e.g.,

facial expressions, mannerisms, etc.) in accordance with what are considered appropriate

behaviours in a given context (e.g., "looking good" in front of others) (Snyder, 1974;

1987). The core of self-monitoring is the tendency to adapt behaviours to present a public

self that is consistent with the demands or expectations of a particular situation. High

self-monitors are very self-conscious and wish to conform to and please others, and are

therefore sensitive to other people and their environmental cues, which guide their

actions (Berger & Perkins, 1978; Tardy & Hoseman, 1982). People who are high self-

monitors tend to monitor their surroundings and look for cues in the social situation to

123
tell them how to behave and adjust their attitudes and behaviours in order to produce

positive reactions, fit in the situation (Edelmann, 1985) and create desired public

appearance (Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). In contrast, low self-monitors rely on their own

values and motives to guide their behaviours (Michener, Delamater, & Schwartz, 1986).

Their behaviours are therefore thought to functionally reflect low self-monitors' own

inner states, including their attitudes, traits, and feelings.

People who experience shame are more sensitive to contextual cues and pay more

attention to others than are those who experience guilt (Lewis, 1985; Tangney & Dearing,

2002). In light of the findings above, in this study we predicted that high self-monitors

would be more likely to experience shame relative to low self-monitors, as they are

always attending to how others view them. Indeed, Edelmann (1985) found that there was

a significant positive relationship between embarrassibility and self-monitoring.

Although embarrassment, guilt and shame are different emotions, all are self-conscious

emotions and may therefore be related to self-monitoring.

Previous studies have also found that self-monitoring varies by culture (Gudykunst

et al., 1992; Gudykunst, Yang, & Nishida, 1985). As noted above, individualism and

collectivism are major dimensions of cultural variability (Triandis, 1988) and are

associated with independent and interdependent self-construals. Individualists are

concerned more about individual goals. Collectivists emphasize the views, goals and

needs of their ingroup (Triandis, 1991), and pay less attention to the need for uniqueness

and to internal control (Leung & Bond, 1984; Yamaguchi, 1994). Collectivists do what

their ingroups want them to do. Collectivism should therefore be correlated positively

124
with a strong sensitivity to rejection and self-monitoring, and negatively with the need for

uniqueness, which individualism emphasizes (Yamaguchi, 1994).

However, there are some conflicting results about cultural differences in self-

monitoring studies. Gudykunst, Yang, and Nishida (1985) found that American samples

reported significantly higher levels of self-monitoring than Japanese and Korean samples.

They argued that, in social situations, individualistic people try to behave the way

prototypical others would behave. High self-monitors draw on their knowledge of

prototypic persons and imagine what the prototypic person in the situation would be and

try to be that person and approximate their behaviours (Snyder, 1979). Thus,

individualistic people tend to have high self-monitoring. However, collectivists pay much

more attention to the social situation, and give less importance to what prototypical others

would do. Therefore, they have low self-monitoring.

In contrast, other researchers found an inverse relationship between collectivism

and self-monitoring. Because collectivist cultures focus on social context and status, they

pull for high self-monitoring. Individualistic cultures focus on the self and the expression

of one's unique beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions. These researchers argue that people in

individualist cultures are therefore more likely to be low on self-monitoring. For example,

some researchers stated that collectivists are more likely to use self-enhancement, high

self-monitoring and social comparison and regulation of expectations. Individualists are

more likely to display high personal control and focus on personal performance (Hattie,

2008; Purdie, Hattie, & Douglas, 1996). Thus, increased self-monitoring should be

associated with increased susceptibility to feelings of shame and guilt. However, it is not

125
clear whether Chinese and European Canadians will differ on self-monitoring, or what

cultural differences on this variable might look like. Moreover, the greater importance of

norms and roles in collectivist culture, as opposed to valuing autonomy and uniqueness,

should also result in greater conformity to cultural norms around how to respond to

shame and guilt. Thus, self-monitoring might have a different effect in each culture and

across cultures and moderate, rather than mediate, differences in the self-regulation of

shame and guilt.

Gender differences in the self-regulation of shame and guilt

According to the broader literature on gender differences, women and men may

have different expectations, attitudes and responses to expressions of autonomy and

relatedness. Across cultures, women are often socialized in ways to increase dependence

and compliance, while autonomy is nourished more in men in their lifespan (Antill, 1987;

Best & Williams, 1993; Mizuta, Zahn-Waxier, Cole, & Hiruma, 1996). In line with these

differences in socialization in many cultures, men perceive themselves to be more active,

powerful and dominant than women do (Antill, 1987; Best & Williams, 1993; Crawford,

1992). Individual differences in gender role development predict numerous psychological

phenomena, including cognitive skills, relational capacities, behavioural scripts (Eckes &

Trautner, 2000), and the individual's communication behaviour (Athenstaedt, Haas, &

Schwab, 2004). Lutz (1996) found that people believe that women are more emotional

than men and there is research to support this belief. Emotional intelligence (Guastello &

Guastello, 2003) and emotional responsivity have been found to be higher among women,

with women's emotional responses to anxiety and sadness, for example, being found to

126
be stronger than that of men (Chaplin, Hong, Bergquist, & Sinha, 2008). Women also

have been found to be more likely to share these feelings, and to realise the relational

benefits of sharing more than men. Women also report more mental ruminations (Singh-

Manoux, 2000).

These gender differences in emotionality have also been found for the emotions of

shame and guilt. Harder (1995) used the shame and guilt sub-scales of the "Test of Self-

Conscious Affect" (TOSCA) developed by Tangney, Wagner, and Gramzow (1989) on

several samples and found that women registered significantly higher shame and guilt

scores than men. Lutwak and Ferrari (1996) also found that women reported significantly

greater tendencies to experience shame and guilt than men. Interestingly, Benetti-

McQuoid and Bursik (2005) studied individual differences in guilt and shame responses

on 104 young adults, most of whom were European American. The results indicated that

responses to ameliorate feelings of guilt and shame may reflect stereotypical response

patterns and gendered scripts. Although women reported greater proneness to guilt and

shame, men reported more trait guilt. To my knowledge, cross-cultural gender differences

of self-regulation to shame and guilt have not been studied in Canada and China. Gender

was therefore also examined in Study 3.

The Purpose of the Study 3

The study presented here addresses self-regulation to the experience of shame and

guilt in undergraduate students in mainland China and Canada. In contrast to previous

studies, we presented participants with several scenarios which were based on the four

types of guilt and five types of shame found in Chinese. Participants were asked to

127
complete a self-report scale about how they would respond to these shame and guilt

eliciting situations rather than asking them how they would respond to feelings of shame

and guilt.

We also explored the role that acculturation and local norms might play in self-

regulation by comparing young adults of Chinese origin in China with Chinese

immigrants and Chinese international students living in Canada. There are no current

studies that have also included Chinese immigrants from mainland China in Canada,

those whose parents were raised in China but who were themselves raised in Canada. We

were interested in finding out whether Chinese immigrants and international Chinese

bore more resemblance to their Chinese peers, with whom they might share family

experiences, or their Euro-Canadian peers, with whom they share their immediate

environment.

Given that shame and guilt are important aspects of socialization in early childhood,

immigrants' responses to shame and guilt may be strongly affected by their parents'

child-rearing attitude and styles. Children of Chinese immigrants might internalize their

parents' social beliefs, social identity and moral norms and thus may experience shame

and guilt in ways that are more consistent with their parents' culture than their peers'

culture (Lay & Verkuyten, 1999). However, shame responses that are inappropriate to

North American adolescents and young adults can result in rejection by one's peer group.

Therefore, it is important to compare Chinese immigrant students to their Chinese and

European-Canadian peers to determine how they negotiate this difference.

128
 Study 3 also included international Chinese students in Canada. Canada's overall

international enrollment numbers have been steadily increasing for the past twenty years,

and China is the second largest source of international students to Canada (South Korea is

number 1) (Citizenship and Immigration of Canada, 2006). Since the 1990's, the Chinese

government has formulated and practiced a policy of supporting students and scholars to

study abroad, Chinese students studying abroad expanded to 200,000 by the year 2010.

As the number of international students grows, some researchers have paid considerable

attention to the acculturation of international students in North America. Acculturation is

a process that begins with firsthand contact between two autonomous cultural groups

through which changes occur in either or both of the contacting groups (Redfield, Linton,

& Herskovits, 1936). International students provide an interesting comparison group, as

they are only beginning to acculturate to North American culture, and they may reveal

how quickly the regulation of responses to shame and guilt are affected by local social

norms.

As noted earlier, we predicted that individuals of Chinese descent would respond to

shame in ways consistent with the collectivist participants in Bagozzi et al. (2003).

Actions should be taken to protect the unity of the collective in Chinese, Chinese

Canadian and Chinese international students, and this should be mediated by having more

interdependent self-construals. They should therefore respond to shame situations with

more approach. In contrast, and consistent with past research in Western samples,

European Canadian participants, who should have a more independent self-construal,

should focus on protecting the individual alone. They should therefore respond to shame

129
situations by withdrawing from others. Since Bagozzi and his colleagues did not actually

measure self-construals in their participants, it still remains to be seen whether

interdependence and independence mediate cultural differences in responses to shame.

Guilt was expected to result in approach responses in both cultures, although with greater

concern about interpersonal relationships, one might expect more approach from Chinese

participants.

Shame and guilt responses may also differ as a function of self-monitoring.

European-Canadians were hypothesized to be lower on self-monitoring, whereas

participants of Chinese origin were expected to have higher self-monitoring. Because

high self-monitors pay much more attention to the norms and the values of others, they

may be more susceptible to feelings of shame and guilt and respond in ways that are more

consistent with cultural norms. Thus, the effects of culture on self-regulation of shame

and guilt might be mediated by self-construals but moderated by self-monitoring.

Thus, the following hypotheses were tested:

Hypothesis 1: There will be a main effect of culture on responses to shame.

In terms of behavioural responses to shame and guilt, it was hypothesized that

Chinese young adults would self-regulate their guilt similarly to Europeans (i.e., no

differences in guilt were hypothesized) but their felt shame differently, because of the

implications of shame for their self-concept. When experiencing guilt, it was expected

that participants from all cultural groups would prefer approach over withdrawal.

However, based on past research, it was hypothesized that young adults of Chinese origin,

when feeling shame, would adopt actions that are designed to make them better group

130
members and thus would try to approach the group to maintain relationships. In contrast,

when young adults with a European background experienced shame, they would adopt

protective actions that distance themselves from others and involve withdrawal. Canadian

Chinese and international Chinese students were hypothesized to fall between these two

groups.

Hypothesis 2: There will be a main effect of gender on responses to shame and

guilt.

Because previous studies showed that boys experienced less shame than girls

(Alessandri & Lewis, 1993) and women express shame more openly than men (Lutwak &

Frrari, 1996), it was predicted that, in shame and guilt situations, women in all groups

would endorse more approach actions to maintain better relationships with others than

men would.

Hypothesis 3: Cultural differences in responses to shame will be mediated or

moderated by self-construal.

Responses to shame and guilt will be influenced by different self-construals.

Cultural differences in regulating shame may be due to two sources: cultural norms

regarding how one should respond and interdependence. Mainland Chinese were

expected to have higher interdependent and lower independent self-construal than

European Canadians and also to live in a culture than endorses more approach following

a shameful experience. If responses to shame are due to cultural norms, then

interdependence should moderate responses to shame. People who are higher on

interdependence should conform more to cultural norms. In this case, if interdependence

131
moderates the effects of culture on self-regulation, then among mainland Chinese and

European Canadian participants, those with higher interdependence should engage in

more approach and withdrawal, respectively.

However, interdependent self-construals, which emphasize external harmonious

relationships and concern for others' evaluations, may be correlated with approach

regulation of self-conscious emotions. Moreover, if interdependence mediates the effect

of culture, then cultural differences in approach responses to shame situations should

disappear once interdependence is taken into account. Chinese immigrants and

international students are predicted to fall between Chinese or Western norms on both

interdependence and responses to shame.

Hypothesis 4: Responses to shame will be moderated by self-monitoring.

The experience of shame should also be influenced by differences in self-

monitoring (Snyder, 1974; 1979). Similar to the effect of interdependence, because self-

monitoring influences conformity to social norms, to the extent that withdrawal and

approach are cultural norms, self-monitoring should interact with cultural group to affect

approach and avoidance. Mainland Chinese from a collectivist culture focus on looking

for more social cues and adjust their behaviours accordingly to the social situation

(Edelmann, 1985; Tardy & Hoseman, 1982). Although there are inconsistencies in past

research about cultural differences, we predicted that mainland Chinese would be higher

self-monitors overall. Moreover, the more they endorse self-monitoring, they more they

should endorse positive approach actions to respond to shame situations. In contrast,

132
European Canadians should be low self-monitors. However, the higher they are on self-

monitoring the more they should adopt avoidance actions in shame situations.

Method

Participants

In Study 3, we examined the effects of culture and gender on responses to guilt and

shame among 69 undergraduate Chinese students in China (MC, N = 69; return rate:

98 %. M= 21.41, SD= 1.00), 86 Chinese Canadians students (CC, N = 86; return rate:

94 %. M= 20.42, SD = 2.07), 99 students of European Canadian descent (EC, N = 99;

return rate: 87 %. M= 19.53, SD = 3.0) and 65 international Chinese students in Canada

(IC, N = 65; return rate: 95 %. M= 23.96, SD = 5.18). These participants ranged in age

from 17 to 45 years, with a median of 20 years. IC (M= 23.96 years old) was older than

all other groups, and EC (M= 19.41 years old) was younger than others, F (3, 305) =

34.36,p=.00. MC (M= 19.92 years old) and CC (M= 21.41 years old) did not differ in

age.

Sixty out of 99 European Canadian participants were recruited using an

undergraduate research participant pool (URPP) and answered on-line. The remaining 39

European Canadians participants answered on paper. These participants were recruited

from business classes (N = 16) and psychology classes (N = 15). Finally, some students

were recruited in person on campus (N = 8). All of the European Canadian students were

either born in Canada or moved to Canada with their parents from European countries

prior to the age of 8 years, and were of European descent. Participants who were

recruited in person on campus were told that they must be of European descent and be

133
born in Canada or to have moved to Canada before the age of eight. The majority (92%)

of the Euro-Canadian participants were born in Canada. Another 4% were born in Eastern

Europe and moved to Canada before the age of 8 and 4% were born in the United States.

In terms of the countries where their mothers were born, 77% had mothers who were

born in Canada; 3 had mothers (3%) who were born in Northern Europe (e.g., England,

Holland, Scotland, Germany); 7 mothers (7%) were born in Eastern Europe (e.g.,

Hungary, Czechoslovakia); and 13 mothers (13%) were born in Southern Europe (e.g.,

Italy, Greece). For the countries where fathers were born, 72% fathers were born in

Canada; 8 fathers (8%) were born in Northern Europe; 8 fathers (8%) were born in

Eastern Europe; and 12 fathers (12%) were born in Southern Europe.

Sixty-nine undergraduate Chinese students in Anshan Normal University of

mainland China were recruited from Education classes (N = 69) by the class instructor.

All the mainland Chinese students were born in mainland China and never went abroad.

Eighty-six Chinese Canadians were either recruited from campus of York

university (N= 63) or through the social network of the experimenter (N = 6). Their

parents had to be from mainland China and now living in Canada and that they

themselves had to have been born in Canada or have moved to Canada before the age of

eight.

Sixty-five international Chinese students were either recruited from the Chinese

literature class in York university by class announcement (N= 55) or using snow-ball

sampling by the experimenter (N= 10). They were born in mainland China and started to

study in Canada when they were over 18 years old.

134
Procedure

The procedure was approved by the University Human Participants Review

Committee. All of the Chinese participants in mainland China and international students

received the materials in Mandarin. Materials were translated into Mandarin and then

back translated into English by two bilingual Chinese-English speakers, and then were

reviewed by the female experimenter. Chinese Canadian and European Canadian students

were given all the materials in English.

For those participants who completed the surveys on paper, the female

experimenter gave each participant an information sheet and consent form. Participants

were asked to read and sign the consent form after which they were given a package of

the questionnaires, which included a demographics form, and 18 scenarios (2 each from

the 9 categories of shame and guilt for a total of 8 scenarios describing guilt inducing

situations and 10 scenarios describing shame inducing situations), which were described

in Study 2, each of which was accompanied by the Self-Regulation of Shame and Guilt

Scale (SRSGS, see below). They also received two personality measures: the Self-

Construal Scale (SCS, Singelis, 1994) and a Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS, Snyder &

Gangestad, 1986). Participants either mailed the surveys back to the experimenter,

dropped off the completed package at the experimenter's university office, or participants

met with the experimenter in person to return them. All the students were given a thank

you letter and a debriefing letter, moreover, for the participants who were recruited

through the URPP received course credit for their participation. The other participants

who completed their surveys on paper in Canada received $5 from the experimenter

135
when they returned the package. Those who were recruited in mainland China received

the equivalent in Chinese Yuan.

Students completing the surveys on-line were directed to the survey web site.

Participants were asked to read a consent form and type "I agree" on the consent form

before proceeding. They then completed some demographic questions (age, gender,

cultural background, religion, education) and continued on to the survey. They completed

all materials in English. Once completed, participants pressed the "submit" button and

then received a written debriefing and a thank you letter.

Materials

1) Demographic information. Students were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their

year of birth, gender, year of study, university major, religion, the country of residence of

their parents, and where they themselves were born (see Appendix F). Chinese Canadian

and international students were also asked about the number of years they had been living

in Canada and the year they came to Canada.

2) Self-regulation of Shame and Guilt Scale (SRSGS). Because no scale existed to

reflect both Chinese and North American self-regulation strategies, we modified

previously existing scales to create a new measure of shame and guilt self-regulation

(Self Regulation of Shame and Guilt Scale, SRSGS). We identified and developed 23

items measuring responses to shame and guilt from the initial 17 items in a study by Qian,

Liu and Zhang (2003), a scale with an original Cronbach's a = .94, by separating

compound items into their individual components, and combining redundant items into

single items. This study had been conducted on Chinese university students using a

136
general concept of shame. We then supplemented these items with seven items from the

TOSCA, a highly reliable scale (Cronbach's a = .91) by Tangney and colleagues (e.g.,

Tangney et al., 1996), that were not present in the Qian et al. scale (2003) (see Appendix

G,).

Two raters read over the items and generated nine main categories of responses

from those 30 responses. There were: (A) Approach (ideas or actions intended to deal

with a problem or situation); (B) Avoidance (keeping away from or preventing from

happening); (C) Counterfactual thinking (thinking of something that is contrary to the

facts, how the past might have turned out differently to have achieved a better outcome);

(D) Facing reality (confronting the current problem and being realistic); (E) Self-soothing

(calming and relaxing the body and the mind); (F) Seeking social support (asking for help

in various ways); (G) Prayer (hoping it would happen as the person wished) (H)

regretting (A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one's wishes

could be different); and (I) Other coping strategies.

A pilot study conducted with 2 Chinese and 4 European Canadians was then used

to identify main themes in this set of items. Pilot study participants were provided with

the above nine categories for responses to shame and guilt, and were asked to sort the 30

items into these 9 categories. We chose to accept an item if more than 4 people (66.7%)

agreed on what it represented (see Appendix I for the exact percentage of sorting of each

item). Not all of the categories showed high agreement on the items.

Categories A (Approach), B (Avoidance), E (Self-soothing), and F (Seeking

Support) were well represented, whereas categories C (Counterfactual thinking), D

137
(Facing reality), G (Prayer), and H (Regretting own behavior) were not. This suggested

that our categories might not be appropriate. A more appropriate solution seemed to be

combining categories that participants were divided about and taking the items with the

most agreement. We therefore combined categories A (Approach) and D (Facing reality)

into Approach, and categories C (Counterfactual thinking) and H (Regretting) into

Counterfactual thinking. We omitted G, the prayer category, since only 1 item loaded

clearly on it. Items were then selected that were rated as best representing their respective

categories, with two to three items per category. The final scale had 12 items representing

5 categories (see Appendix G 2).

Participants were presented with two examples of each of the 4 types of guilt and 5

types of shame (for a total of 2 times 9, or 18 scenarios) and rated how they would

respond to each scenario using the 12 items of the SRSGS. Each item was accompanied

by a 7- point scale (-3 = never use this strategy, 0 = not sure, +3 = definitely use this

strategy). Participants were asked to rate each item using this scale.

2) The Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994). Participants' levels of independent and

interdependent self-construal were measured using the Singelis Self-Construal scale. The

scale consists of 24 items, with 12 items reflecting independence and 12 items reflecting

interdependence. Each item is rated on a 7-point scale, with answers ranging from 1

(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The mean scores of interdependent self-

construal can range from 1 to 7, with higher scores reflecting more interdependence. The

mean scores of independent self-construal can range from 1 to 7 with higher scores

reflecting more independence. Singelis reported coefficient alphas of .70 for the

138
Independence subscale and .74 for the Interdependence subscale. In this study, the

coefficient alpha for the Interdependence subscale was .75, and the coefficient alpha for

Independence subscale was .68.

3) Self-monitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). The 18- item self-monitoring

scale has demonstrated acceptable levels of validity and reliability (Snyder, 1979, 1987;

Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). This scale assesses (a) the level of social appropriateness, (b)

the degree of using social comparison information, (c) the degree to which individuals

control and modify their presentation of self to others, and (d) the extent to which

presentation of self is tailored to fit the social situation. In this study we used a 5-point

Likert scale (1 = "strongly disagree" to 5 = "strongly agree") (Day, Schleicher, Unckless,

& Hiller, 2002). A high score indicates a high degree of self-monitoring. The coefficient

alpha for the whole scale was .75.

Data analysis

We screened all the data before analysis. Missing values were replaced by the item

mean of the whole sample. Only the answers of those participants who had responded to

at least 80% of the items concerning each scale were included in the analyses. This kind

of mean substitution is a valid method, especially when the missing values are random

and few, as was the case in our sample (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Only 0.5 % of the

sample data that was replaced by mean values. Because there were two scenarios for each

type of guilt and shame, we took the mean of the two scenarios for each type of guilt and

shame situation resulting in 4 means for self-regulations in guilt scenarios (one for each

type) and 5 means for self-regulations to shame scenarios (again, one for each type). The

139
means of the guilt items were then averaged to create a mean guilt response, and the

means of the shame items were averaged to create a mean shame response.

Factor analysis using principle axis factoring (Affifi & Clark, 1990) as the method

of factor extraction was conducted separately for each of the 4 cultural groups (mainland

Chinese, Chinese Canadians, International Chinese, and European Canadians) on mean

responses to the 12 SRSGS items across all the shame scenarios, and the 12 mean SRSGS

responses across all guilt scenarios. Principal axis factoring was used rather than the more

common principal components analysis because the goal was to explore underlying

concepts or themes, rather than confirm the structure of a scale (Fabrigar, Wegener,

MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999). As the factors were expected to be moderately correlated,

direct oblique rotation (Stevens, 1996) was performed. To determine the number of

factors in the final solution, two criteria were considered: Catell's scree test (Catell, 1966)

and theoretical interpretability. The factor loadings are presented for each cultural group

in Appendix H. Although the factor analyses were not identical for each group, subsets of

similar items clustered together for each group across both types of emotion. We

therefore combined the four samples for the subsequent factor analyses.

For responses to guilt scenarios, the scree plot indicated four factors, which were

rotated using a direct oblimin rotation procedure. Items loading at least .40 on each factor

were retained. Table 5 lists the eigen values for guilt. Table 6 lists the eigen values for

shame. Items loading at .40 and higher on the first factor, "problem focus coping",

contained the items "Confront the problem directly", "Find a good method to solve the

problem" and "Apologize for my bad behavior". The factor "problem focused coping"

140
Table 7

Factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt

Items Problem Denial & Counterfactual Support Other(self-

focused Avoidance thinking seeking soothing)
coping
Item 1 .98 .00 -.12 .02 -.11

Item 2 .84 .01 .06 .01 .06

Item 3 .74 -.02 .10 -.06 .07

Item 4 -.08 .59 -.11 .13 -.18

Item 5 -.06 .72 -.06 -.03 .01

Item 6 .01 .46 .37 -.12 .07

Item 7 .12 -.08 .85 .02 .01

Item 8 .00 .28 .87 .02 -.08

Item 9 .03 -.08 .14 -.11 -.66

Item 10 -.03 .28 -.16 .03 -.59

Item 11 .03 -.05 -.07 -.93 -.06

Item 12 -.01 .04 -.02 -.88 -.02

Note: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done
it in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

141
Table 7

Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame

Items Problem Denial Avoidance Counterfactual Support

focused thinking seeking
coping
Item 1 -.91 .09 -.08 -.02 -.01

Item 2 -.86 .04 -.09 .12 -.86

Item 3 -.52 -.18 .42 -.01 -.15

Item 4 .06 .48 .22 .02 .06

Item 5 .13 -.06 .69 .13 -.04

Item 6 .01 .13 .08 .46 -.05

Item 7 -.27 -.19 .17 .61 -.06

Item 8 .01 -.14 -.04 .98 -.01

Item 9 -.11 .45 -.21 .35 -.14

Item 10 -.06 .69 -.04 -.11 -.11

Item 11 -.02 .01 .02 -.06 -.99

Item 12 .06 .02 .02 .07 -.85

Note: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done
it in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

142
accounted for 30.92% of the item variance. The second factor "denial and avoidance"

yielded two items "Not think about the event" (item 4: denial) and "Keep my distance

from the people who had seen what I had done" (item 5: avoidance), which accounted for

15.49 % of the item variance. The third factor "counterfactual thinking" had three items,

which were "Imagine a different outcome of this event", "Tell myself never do this

again", and "Wish that I had never done it or done it in another way". This variable

accounted for 9.81 % of the item variance. The fourth factor, "support seeking" was

comprised of two items "Tell this story to someone else to get some advice" and "Tell

others about my unhappy feelings", which accounted for 5.83 % of the item variance.

For responses to shame scenarios, the scree plot indicated five factors that

explained 64.38 % of the variance. The first factor contained two items "Imagine a

different outcome of this event" and "Wish that I had never done it or done it in another

way". This is clearly "counterfactual thinking". The "counterfactual thinking" factor

accounted for 31.88% of the item variance. The second factor contained the items

"Confront the problem directly", "Find a good method to solve the problem" and

"Apologize for my bad behaviour". This is clearly "problem focused coping". The

"problem focus coping" factor accounted for 10.96 % of the item variance. The third

factor contained two items "Tell this story to someone else to get some advice" and "Tell

others about my unhappy feelings". This was labeled "support seeking". The "support

seeking" factor accounted for 9.05% of the item variance. The fourth factor contained

one item "Not think about the event". This was labeled "denial" and accounted for

7.22 % of the item variance. The fifth factor contained one item "Keep my distance from

143
the people who had seen what I had done". This is clearly "avoidance". The "avoidance"

factor accounted for 5.27 % of the item variance.

The factor loadings obtained for shame were sufficiently similar to permit the use

of 5 identical factors in both shame and guilt by splitting the second factor of guilt

"denial and avoidance" into two factors, namely "denial" and "avoidance". Therefore, 5

types of responses were obtained through the factor analysis: problem focused coping

(PF); counterfactual thinking (CT); support seeking (SS); denial (DN); and avoidance of

others (AV). The alpha of this scale on all guilt items for MC was .67, for IC was .74, for

EC was .66, for CC was .66. The alpha of this scale on all shame items for MC was .69,

for IC was .76, for EC was .80, and for CC was .83.

144
 Results

Cultural differences in self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and

independent self-construal

We performed a series of Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) to look

at mean differences among the four different cultural group (MC: mainland Chinese; CC:

Chinese Canadians; EC: European- Canadians; IC: international Chinese) on self-

monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal. The means,

standard deviations and F values for self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal, and

independent self-construal are shown in Table 7. Significant effects were explored using

Bonferroni post-hoc pairwise comparisons with a .05 significance level. The Bonferroni

correction controls the overall Type I error rate for the set of tests, keeping the familywise

alpha value at .05. Given the large number of tests being conducted, this was deemed a

more prudent choice. A 4 (cultural group) by 2 (gender) MANOVA showed that

significant differences were found among the four groups on the dependent variables

interdependent self-construal, independent self-construal and self-monitoring, Wilks'

lambda = .90, F(12, 818) = 2.66,p < .01, Tl2 = .03. There was no significant overall main

effect of gender on the dependent variables, Wilks' Lambda = .99, F (3, 309) = .23, ns, r t
2
= .00. There was also no significant overall interaction of cultural group by gender on

the dependent variables, Wilks' Lambda = .98, F (9, 752) = .58, ns, ¥ = .01.

Analyses of variance (ANOVA) on each dependent variable showed that the

cultural groups differed significantly on interdependent self-construal, F (4, 311) = 3.64,

p <.05, 'I 2 = .05. Bonferroni post-hoc tests revealed that mainland Chinese (M =5.36)

145
Table 7

Means and standard deviations of self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal, and

independent self-construal by culture

Mainland International Chinese European

Chinese Chinese Canadians Canadians

3.24ac 291ab
Self- monitoring M 3.29bc 3.08c

SD .68 .97 .87 1.11

Interdependence M 5.36ab 4.97b 5.17° 4.8 l a c

SD 1.01 1.01 1.07 1.14

Independence M 5.37 5.21 5.11 5.17

SD 1.39 1.20 1.05 1.18

Note: means with the same superscript are significantly different at the . 05 level.

146
were higher than European Canadians (M = 4.81) and International Chinese (M = 4.98)

on interdependent self-construal. Chinese Canadians (M =5.17) were higher than

European Canadians on interdependent self-construal. There was no a significant effect

of cultural group on independent self-construal F (4, 311) = 1.04, ns. The cultural groups

also differed on self-monitoring, F(4, 311) = 3.55,/? < .01, 'I 2 = .01. Mainland Chinese

(M = 3.24) were higher than European Canadians (M = 2.91) on self-monitoring.

International Chinese (M = 3.29) were higher than European Canadians and marginally

higher than Chinese Canadians (M = 3.08) on self-monitoring. European Canadians and

Chinese Canadians did not differ.

There was no significant main effect of gender on interdependent self-construal, F

(1,311) = .48, ns, n2 = .00, independent self-construal, F (1, 311) = .04, ns, r l 2 = .00, or

self-monitoring, F ( l , 311) = .23, ns, *12 = .00.

There was no culture by gender interaction on interdependent self-construal F (3,

311) = .68, ns, *]2 = .01, independent self-construal, F (3, 311) = .05, p < .05, ¥ = .00,

or self-monitoring. F (3, 311) = .94, ns, r l 2 = .01.

Effects of culture on responses to guilt scenarios

According to our first and second hypothesis, responses to shame among four

groups should differ from each other, but responses to guilt would be similar among four

cultural groups. We performed a two-way Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA)

to look at mean differences among the four different cultural groups (MC: mainland

Chinese; IC: international Chinese; CC: Canadian Chinese immigrants; EC: European-

Canadians) by gender for the five types of responses to guilt scenarios (problem-focused

147
coping, avoidance, counterfactual thinking, denial, and support seeking) and then ran a

second MANOVA to look at the effects of culture and gender on the five types of

responses to shame scenarios. The overall means, standard deviations and F values for

the MANOVAs for the responses to guilt scenarios are shown in Table 8, and overall

means, standard deviations and F values for the MANOVAs for the responses to shame

scenarios are shown in Table 9. Significant effects were also explored using Bonferroni

post-hoc pairwise comparisons with a .05 significance level.

The results of the overall main effect of cultural group on the responses to guilt

showed a significant effect of culture across the five types of responses to guilt scenarios,

Wilks' lambda = .87, F (15, 847) = 2.11, p < .01, »12 = .04. The main effect of gender was

also significant, Wilks' lambda = .91, F (5, 307) = 6.36, p < .01, r ) 2 = .09. There was no

interaction between cultural group and gender, Wilks' lambda = .94, F (15, 847) = 1.34,

ns, »)2 = .02.

The ANOVA for problem focused coping in guilt scenarios was significant (see

Table 7), F (3, 311) = 6.13, p < .01, l ) 2 = .06. Post hoc analyses showed that mainland

Chinese (M= 1.76) and international Chinese (M= 1.49) did not differ from each other,

but mainland Chinese reported higher problem focused coping than European Canadians

(M= 1.11) and Chinese Canadians (M= 1.39). International Chinese reported higher

problem focused coping than European Canadians. The effect of culture on denial in guilt

situations was significant, F (3, 311) = 2.86,p < .05, *!2 = .03. Mainland Chinese (M= -

1.32) and international Chinese (M= -.99) differed marginally from each other, but

148
Table 8

Means and standard deviations of self-regulation to guilt scenarios by culture

Mainland International Chinese European

Chinese Chinese Canadians Canadians

Problem M 1.76ab 1.49° 1.38a l.llbc

focused
coping SD .12 .12 .10 .10

67abc
Support M .17° -,18a -,15b

seeking SD .16 .17 .15 .13

Denial M -1.32abc -,99a -,84b -.86°

SD .14 .14 .12 .11

Avoidance M -1.03ab -.91 -,59b -,67a

SD .15 .15 .13 .12

Counter- M 1.14 1.03 1.22 .89

Factual
Thinking SD .12 .12 .10 .10

Note: means with the same superscript are significantly different at the . 05 level.
mainland Chinese tended to report lower denial than European Canadians (M= -.86) and

Chinese Canadians (M= -.84).

The effect of culture on avoidance in guilt scenarios was marginally significant, F

(3, 311) = 2.20,p = .09, n 2 = .02. Mainland Chinese (M= -1.03) and international

Chinese (M= -.91) did not differ from each other, but mainland Chinese tended to report

lower avoidance than European Canadians (M= -.67) and Chinese Canadians (M= -.59).

Culture also affected support seeking in guilt situations, F(3, 311) = 6.50,p < .01, 'I 2

= .06, such that International Chinese (M= .18), Chinese Canadians (M= -.18) and

European Canadians (M= -.15) did not differ from each other, but mainland Chinese (M

= .67) reported higher support seeking than all others. There was no effect of culture on

counterfactual thinking in guilt scenarios, F(4, 310) = 1.64, ns. 'I 2 = .02.

The Effects of gender on responses to guilt scenarios

The effect of gender on guilt counterfactual thinking was significant, F (1, 311) =

24.66, p < .01, I 2 = .07. Women (M= 1.33) reported more counterfactual thinking than

men (M= .81). The effect of gender on support seeking was marginally significant, F (1,

311) = 3.46,p = .06, T)2 = .01. Women (M= .27) reported more support seeking than men

(M= -,02).There was no significant difference of the effect of gender on problem focused

coping, F ( l , 311)= 1.20, ns. l l 2 = .00 or on denial, F (1, 311) = 2.69, ns. ¥ = .01 or on

avoidance, F ( l , 311) = 1.97, ns. *!2 = .01.

Effects of culture on responses to shame scenarios

The MANOVA for shame scenario responses showed that significant differences

were found among the four groups on the five types of responses to shame scenarios,

150
Wilks' lambda = .84, F(15, 839) = 3.60,p< .01, *12 = .06. The multivariate test of

overall differences between gender was also significant, Wilks' lambda = .90, F (5, 304)

= 7.04,/? < .01, 'I 2 = .10. Significant differences were also found for the interaction of

cultural group and gender on the five types of responses to shame scenarios, Wilks'

lambda = .90, F (15, 839) = 2.18,/? < .01, >12 = .03.

Analyses of variance (ANOVA) on each type of response showed that there was a

significant effect of culture on shame problem focused coping (see Table 9), F (3, 308) =

12.56,/? < .01, *)2 = .11. Chinese Canadians (M= .74) and European Canadians (M= .65)

did not differ from each other, but mainland Chinese (M = 1.44) reported higher problem

focused coping than Chinese Canadians, International Chinese and European Canadians.

International Chinese (M= 1.10) reported more problem focused coping than Canadian

Chinese and European Canadians. The effect of culture on counterfactual thinking in

shame situations was significant, F(3, 308) = 3.45,/? < .05, *12 = .03. Chinese Canadians

(M= 1.16), European Canadians (M= 1.10) and International Chinese (M= 1.31) did not

differ from each other. Mainland Chinese (M= 1.56) reported significantly more

counterfactual thinking than Chinese Canadians (p = .01) and European Canadians but

did not differed from International Chinese (see Table 9).

The effect of culture on support seeking in shame scenarios was significant, F (3,

308) = 7.17,/? < .01, r l 2 = .07. Chinese Canadians (M= .14) and European Canadians (M

= .10) did not differ from each other. Mainland Chinese (M= .99) reported higher

support seeking than Chinese Canadians and European Canadians and marginally more

than international Chinese (M= .57) (see Table 9). International Chinese reported higher

151
Table 8

Means and standard deviations of self-regulation to shame scenarios by culture

Mainland International Chinese European

Chinese Chinese Canadians Canadians

Problem M 1,44abc 1.10cd ,74ad ,65bd

focused
coping SD .11 .10 .10 .10
ggabc ,10b
Support M .57° ,14a

seeking SD .17 .17 .15 .15

Denial M -.45 -.21 -.12 -.48

SD .15 .15 .14 .13

Avoidance M -.56 -.59 -.28 -.47

SD .15 .15 .13 .13

Counter- M 1.57a 1.31 1.16a 1.10a

factual
thinking SD .12 .12 .11 .10

Note: means with the same superscript are significantly different at the . 05 level.
support seeking than Chinese Canadians and European Canadians, who did not differ.

Culture did not affect denial, F (3, 308) = 1.65, ns. >12 = .02, and did not affect avoidance,

F(3, 308) = 1.03, ns. *)2 = .01.

The effect of gender on responses to shame scenarios

The effect of gender on problem focused coping was marginally significant, F ( 1,

308) = 2.92,p = .09, T)2 = .01. Women (M= 1.07) reported more problem focused coping

than men (M= .90). The effect of gender on denial was significant, F (1, 308) = 4.20, p

= .04, 'I 2 = .01. Men (M= -.17) reported more denial than women (M= -.46). The effect

of gender on avoidance was significant, F ( l , 308) = 5.08,p< .05, ^l2 = .02. Women (M

= -.32) reported more avoidance than men ( M - -.63). The effect of gender on

counterfactual thinking was significant, F { \ , 308) = 22.49,p = .00, H2 = .07. Women (M

= 1.55) reported more counterfactual thinking than men (M= 1.02). The effect of gender

on support seeking was also significant, F ( l , 308) = 11.00,/? < .01, y\2 = .03. Women (M

= .71) reported more support seeking than men (M= .19).

The interaction of culture and gender

For shame scenarios, the interaction of culture and gender on denial was

significant, F (3, 308) = 3.24,/? < .05, Y12 = .03. All men reported more denial in shame

scenarios than did women, except in the Chinese Canadian group, where women and men

did not differ (see Figure 19).

The interaction of culture and gender on counterfactual thinking was marginally

significant, F (3, 308) = 2.48,/? = .06, rJ2 = .02. Mainland Chinese women reported equal

amounts of counterfactual thinking as men. However, European Canadian, Chinese

153
Figure 21

Interaction of gender by culture on denial in shame scenarios

• Male

• Female

r
I | •
MC CC EC IC

Note: F (3, 308) = 3.24, p < .05.

154
Canadian and International Chinese women reported more counterfactual thinking than

men (see Figure 20). There was no significant interaction of culture and gender on

problem focused coping, F(3, 308) = 1.97, ns. *12 = .02, avoidance, F(3, 308) = .27, ns.
l 2
) = .00, or support seeking, F(3, 308) = 1.71, ns. = .02.

Regression Analyses

There was no correlation between independent self-construal and types of

responses to overall guilt and shame (see Appendix J ), and we excluded independent

self-construal as a potential mediator in the regression analyses. To test how self-

monitoring and interdependent self-construal were related to the different responses to

shame and guilt scenarios, a series of regression analyses were performed. Linear

multiple regressions were conducted with responses to guilt or shame scenarios (problem

focused coping, avoidance, counterfactual thinking, denial, and support seeking

respectively) as the dependent variable, and culture, gender, self-monitoring, and

interdependent self-construal as the independent variables. Data were screened and no

outliers among the cases were found. All assumptions were met, and the data showed a

normal distribution.

We recoded culture into three dummy variables, one which compared Mainland

Chinese against the other three groups (MC); one which compared International Chinese

against the other three groups (IC); and one which compared Chinese Canadian against

the other three groups (CC). Dummy coded variables and gender were added in the first

step. The second step included self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal. The

third step included the two-way interactions between all variables.

155
Figure 20

Interaction of gender by culture on counterfactual thinking in shame scenarios

v
-1
MC CC EC IC

Note: F (3, 308) = 2.48, .05 < p < .10.

Responses to Guilt Scenarios

Guilt problem focused coping

For problem focused coping, the first step including the dummy coded cultural

variables and gender significantly predicted problem focused coping, R2ch= .05, Fch (4,

313) = 4.46, p < .01. The dummy variables isolating Mainland Chinese (fl = .26, p < .01)

and International Chinese (J3 = .15, p < .05) were significant. The variable isolating

Chinese Canadians (/? = .1 \,p = .08) was also marginally significant. The effect of

gender was not significant (fi = .06, ns). Thus, participants of Chinese descent generally

engaged in more problems focused coping than European Canadians, regardless of the

country they resided in.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was not significantly improved, R ch = .01, Fch (2, 311) = 2.27, ns. In

the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-monitoring,

and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the equation above

that of the equation with the main effects, R2ch = -03, Fch (6, 305) = 1.41, ns. The final

equation model (step 1) with just the main effects significantly predicted 4% of the

variance in guilt problem focused coping, R2adf= -04, F (4, 313) = 4.46, p < .01 (see

Appendix K).

These results suggest that mainland Chinese, and international Chinese

undergraduate students are more likely to use problem focused coping in a guilt scenario

than European Canadians, regardless of their cultural environment. Interdependent self-

construal increased guilt problem focused coping.

157
 There were not enough evidence to show interdependent self-construal and self-

monitoring mediated between culture and guilt problem focused coping, and no

significant interactions with these variables. Thus, interdependent self-construal and self-

monitoring did not moderate or mediate the effects of culture on guilt problem focused

coping.

Guilt avoidance

For avoidance, the first step including the dummy coded cultural variables and

gender was marginally significant, R2ch = -03, Fch (4, 313) = 2.15,/? = .08, with mainland

Chinese (J3 = -.1 \,p = .08) being marginally lower than the other groups on avoidance in

guilt situations. The effect of gender was not significant (/? = .08, ns). When self-

monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second step, this step did

not improve the fit of the equation above that of the equation with the main effects, R ch

= .00, Fch(2, 311) = .21, ns.

In the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-

monitoring, and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the

equation above that of the equation with the main effects, R ch = -02, Fch (6, 305) = 1.25,

ns. The final equation model (step 1), with only the main effects of culture and gender,

marginally predicted 1% of the variance in guilt avoidance, R2adj= .01, F (4, 313) = 2.15,

p = .08 (see Appendix K).

These results suggest that mainland Chinese undergraduate students were

marginally less likely to endorse avoidance than other three groups in guilt situations.

158
 There were no effects with self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal and

no evidence of mediation or moderation.

Guilt counterfactual thinking

For guilt counterfactual thinking, the first step including the dummy coded cultural

variables was significant, R2Ch = -09, Fch (4, 312) = 7.65, p < .01. The Chinese Canadians

(0= .15, p = .02) were significantly higher and mainland Chinese were marginally higher

(fi = .1 \,p = .09) than the other participants on counterfactual thinking. There was also a

significant effect of gender, (/? = .28,p < .01) such that women reported more

counterfactual thinking than did men.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, this step did not improve the fit of the equation above that of the equation with the

main effects, R2ch = -01, Fch (2, 310) = 1.75, ns. The third step with the interactions also

did not improve the equation, R2ch = -03, Fch(6, 304) = 1.57, ns. The final equation model

(step 1), which included the first step only, significantly predicted 8% of the variance in

guilt counterfactual thinking, R2adj= -08, F (4, 312) = 7.65,/? < .01 (see Appendix K).

These results suggest that women, regardless of their cultural group, Chinese

Canadian undergraduate students, and marginally mainland Chinese students, are more

likely to endorse counterfactual thinking in guilt situations than other cultural groups.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that the cultural differences are mediated or

moderated by interdependence or self-monitoring.

Guilt denial

159
 For denial, the first step including the dummy coded cultural variables significantly

predicted denial, R2ch = -03, FCh (4, 313) = 2.65,p < .05. The dummy mainland Chinese

variable (MC) was significant, with mainland Chinese (J3 = -.16, p < .01) significantly

lower on denial than the other groups. The effect of gender was not significant (fi = -.08,

ns). When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was not significantly improved, R2ch =.01, FCh (2, 311 ) = .95, ns.

In the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-

monitoring, and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the

equation above that of the equation with the main effects, R2ch = -01, Fch(6, 305) = .43, ns.

The final equation model (step 1) with only the main effects of culture and gender

entered significantly predicted only 2% of the variance in guilt denial, R2adj =

-02, F(4,

313) = 2.65, p < .05 (see Appendix K).

These results suggest that mainland Chinese undergraduate students were less

likely to endorse denial than other three groups in guilt situations. Self-monitoring and

interdependent self-construal had no effect on guilt denial and there was no evidence of

either mediation or moderation.

Guilt support seeking

For support seeking in response to guilt scenarios, the first step including the

dummy coded cultural variables significantly predicted support seeking, R2ch = .07, Fch (4,

312) = 5.64,p < .01. The dummy mainland Chinese (fi = 26, p < .01) was significantly

higher, and international Chinese (J3 = .11, p=.Q9) was marginally higher on support

160
seeking than other participants. The effect of gender was marginally significant (0 = .10,

p=. 07).

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was not significantly improved, R2ch= -00, Fch(2, 310) = .11, ns. In the

third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-monitoring, and

interdependent self-construal. This step also did not improve the fit of the equation above

that of the equation with the main effects, R2ch = .01, Fch (6, 304) = .46, ns. The final

equation model (step 1) significantly predicted 6% of the variance in guilt support

seeking, R2adJ= .06, F (4, 312) = 5.64, p < .01 (see Appendix K).

These results suggest that mainland Chinese, and international Chinese

(marginally), undergraduate students were more likely to endorse support seeking than

Canadian participants, suggesting that the country in which people were raised

distinguished between participants. Thus, participants of Chinese heritage who had been

raised in Canada resembled Canadians of European descent whereas international

Chinese students tended to resemble mainland Chinese, suggesting that this response

responds to acculturation pressures, but not so rapidly that international Chinese are

affected. When controlling for self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal, the

effects of culture did not change and there was no interaction, suggesting that self-

monitoring and interdependence neither mediated nor moderated the effects of culture.

Responses to Shame Scenarios

Shame problem focused coping

161
 For problem focused coping , the first step including the dummy coded cultural

variables was significant, R2ch = -11, Fch (4, 310) = 9.50,/? < .01. The dummy variables

isolating mainland Chinese (fi = .34,/? < .01) and international Chinese {fi - .19,/? < .05)

were significant. Mainland Chinese and international Chinese's problem focused coping

responses were significantly higher than that Canadian Chinese and European Canadians,

suggesting that the country in which people were raised distinguished between

participants. The effect of gender was also marginally significant (/? = .10,/? = .07),

suggesting that women were more likely to engage in problem focused coping than men.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was significantly improved, R c/,= -03, Fch (2, 308) = 5.86,/? < .01.

Interdependent self-construal was associated with increased problem focused coping in

shame scenarios (fi = .17,/? < .01). Self-monitoring did not significantly predict problem

focused coping (fi = .07, ns.). The Beta values of the two significant cultural variables

(MC: /? = .29,/? < .01; IC: /? = .17,/? < .01) decreased a very small amount but were still

significant. Gender effect was still marginally significant (fi = .09, /? =.08).

In the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-

monitoring, and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the

equation above that of the equation with the main effects, R2ch = -02, Fch (6, 302) = 1.27,

ns. The final equation model (step 2) including the second step significantly predicted
t y

13% of the variance in shame problem focused coping, R adj = • 13, F(6, 308) = 8.49,/?

< .01 (see Appendix L).

162
 For interdependent self-construal, the relationship between mainland Chinese and

shame problem focused coping was significant (fi = .34, p < .01). When controlling for

interdependent self-construal, the mainland Chinese dummy variable was still significant

but decreased (fi = .29,p < .00). We examined whether interdependent self-construal was

a partial mediator between the mainland Chinese dummy variable and shame problem

focused coping.

The relationship between mainland Chinese and interdependent self-construal was

significant ((3= .15, p < .05), as was the relationship between interdependent self-

construal and problem focused coping (fi= .21, p < .01). A Sobel test showed that the

drop in the predictive power of the mainland Chinese variable was significant, Z = 2.11, p

< .05. Thus, interdependent self-construal significantly partially mediated the effect of

culture on shame problem focused coping (see Figure 21).

For interdependent self-construal, the relationship between international Chinese

and problem focused coping was significant (fi = .19, p < .01). When controlling for

interdependent self-construal, the international Chinese variable was still significant but

decreased (fi = .11, p < .01). We examined whether interdependent self-construal was

partial mediator between the international Chinese dummy variable and shame problem

focused coping. However, the relationship between international Chinese and

interdependent self-construal was not significant (fi = -.04, ns). Thus, there is not enough

evidence to show that interdependent self-construal mediated between this cultural

variable and shame problem focused coping.

163
Figure 21

Mediation of Relationship between mainland Chinese and shame problem focused coping

by interdependent self-construal

Notes: All regression weights are presented as standardized coefficients. The number in
brackets is the standardized coefficient when controlling interdependent self-construal.

164
 These results suggest that mainland Chinese and international Chinese

undergraduate students, and those who have more interdependent self-construals, are

more likely to endorse shame problem focused coping. There is evidence to suggest that

the cultural differences of mainland Chinese can be partially mediated by

interdependence but there is no mediation for international Chinese participants. There is

no evidence of moderation by interdependence or self-monitoring.

Shame avoidance

For avoidance (see Appendix L), the first step including the dummy coded cultural

variables and gender were marginally significant, R2ch = .03, Fch (4, 311) = 2.26,p = .06.

The effect of gender was significant (fi = .13, p < .05). There were no significant

differences among the four cultural groups.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, this step did not improve the fit of the equation, R ch = .01, Fch(2, 309) = 1.56, ns. In

the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-monitoring,

and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the equation above

that of the first step, R2ch =

-03, Fct,(6, 303) = 1.54, ns. The final equation with just the

first step marginally predicted 2% of the variance in shame avoidance, R2adj = -02, F (4,

311) = 2.26,p = .06. Therefore, there was no evidence to show that there were significant

cultural differences on avoidance in shame situations or any effects of interdependence or

self-monitoring.

Shame counterfactual thinking

165
 For counterfactual thinking (see Appendix L), the first step including the dummy

coded cultural variables was significant, R2ch = -09, F(4, 311) = 7.80, p < .01. The

dummy variable isolating mainland Chinese (fi = .11, p < .01) was significant. Mainland

Chinese's counterfactual thinking was significantly higher than that of other the groups,

suggesting that the country in which people were living distinguished between

participants. The effects of gender was also significant (fi = .27, p < .01) such that women

reported more counterfactual thinking than men.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was significantly improved, R2ch = -03, FCh (2, 309) = 5.36,p < .05. A

total of 11% of the variance in counterfactual thinking was predicted by this equation, F

(2, 309) = 5.36,p < .05. Self-monitoring increased counterfactual thinking (fi = Al,p

< .01.). The beta values of mainland Chinese decreased slightly but remained significant

(fi = .13,/? < .05). The gender effect was still significant (fi = .27, p < .01).

In the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-

monitoring, and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the

equation above that of the equation with all of the main effects, R2Ch = .02, Fch (6, 303) =

1.04, ns. The final equation model including the second step significantly predicted 11%

of the variance in shame problem focused coping, R2adj= -11, F(2, 309) = 7.13,/? < .01.

The relationship between mainland Chinese and shame counterfactual thinking was

significant (fi = .11, p< .05). When controlling self-monitoring, the mainland Chinese

166
variable was still significant but decreased (/? = .13,/? < .05). We therefore examined

whether self-monitoring was a partial mediator between the variable isolating mainland

Chinese and shame counterfactual thinking.

The relationship between mainland Chinese and self-monitoring was marginally

significant ifi - .10, p = .08), and the relationship between self-monitoring and shame

counterfactual thinking was significant (fi = .17, p < .01). A Sobel test showed that the

drop in the predictive power of the mainland Chinese was not significant, Z = 1.49, ns.

Thus, self-monitoring was not partially mediated the effect of mainland Chinese on

shame counterfactual thinking.

These results suggest that mainland Chinese undergraduate students and those who

are higher on self-monitoring are more likely to endorse counterfactual thinking.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that the cultural differences are mediated or

moderated by interdependence or self-monitoring.

Shame denial

For denial (see Appendix L), the first step marginally improved the equation, R ch

= .03, Fch (4, 311) = 2.30, p = .06. The dummy Chinese Canadian variable (CC) was

significant, with Chinese Canadian's denial (/? = .14, p < .05) significantly higher than

other groups. The effect of gender was marginally significant different (J3 = -.10, p = .09),

with women tending to endorse less denial than men.

When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

=
step, the equation was significantly improved, R2ch -02, Fch (2, 309) = 3.57,p < .05. A

total of 3% of the variance in denial was predicted by this equation, F (2, 309) = 3.57, p

167
< .05. The effect of gender was not significant different (fi - -.09, ns). Self-monitoring

was found to be associated with increased denial (0= .15, p< .05). Interdependent self-

construal did not significantly predict denial (fi = -.03, ns.). The CC variable (fi = .13,p

< .05) still had the same Beta after controlling for the effects of the personality variables.

In the third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-

monitoring, and interdependent self-construal. This step did not improve the fit of the
=
equation above that of the second step, R2ch -02, Fch (6, 303) = 1.11, ns. The final

equation with the second step significantly predicted 3% of the variance in shame denial,

R2adj= .03, F(6, 309) = 2. 75, p < .05.

These results suggest that Chinese Canadian undergraduate students and those who

are higher on self-monitoring are more likely to endorse denial in shame scenarios than

are others. There was no evidence that either self-monitoring or interdependence

mediated or moderated the effects of culture.

Shame support seeking

For support seeking (see Appendix L), the first step including the dummy coded

cultural variables was significant, R2ch = .09, F (4, 311) = 7.92, p < .01. The dummy

mainland Chinese (fi = 21,p < .01) and dummy international Chinese (fi= A3,p< .05)

variables were significant, with mainland Chinese and international Chinese's support

seeking being significantly higher than that of European Canadians or Chinese Canadians.

Thus, being raised in China was associated with more support seeking in shame situations.

There was also a main effect of gender on shame support seeking (fi = .19,/? < .01) such

that women sought more support than did men in a shame situation.

168
 When self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal were added in the second

step, the equation was not significantly improved, R2ch = .01, Fch (2, 309) = .83, ns. In the

third step, we entered the interaction variables for culture, gender, self-monitoring, and

interdependent self-construal. This step also did not improve the fit of the equation above

that of the equation with the main effects, R2cf, = .02, Fch (6, 303) = 1.22, ns. The final

equation model including only step 1 significantly predicted 8% of the variance in shame

support seeking, R2adJ= .08, F(4, 311) = 7.92,p < .01.

Self-monitoring and interdependent self-construal had no effect and therefore self-

monitoring and interdependent self-construal were not mediating between culture and

support seeking. As the step with the interactions was also not significant, these variables

also did not moderate the effect of culture on responses to shame support seeking

scenarios.

169
 Discussion

Effects of cultures on responses to guilt and shame scenarios

In study 3, we examined the effect of culture and gender on responses in guilt and

shame scenarios among undergraduate Chinese students in China (MC) and three student

groups in Canada: international Chinese (IC), Chinese Canadian (CC) and European

Canadian students (EC). Five factors emerged within each culture; one could be thought

of as approach strategy (problem focus coping and seeking support) and two were

withdrawal strategies (denial and avoidance). Counterfactual thinking did not really fall

into either type of response.

Past research Bagozzi and his colleagues (2003) shed light on the cross-cultural

aspects of shame, but they only studied the relationship of salesmen and customers, they

did not study gender differences, and they did not actually measure self-construal, even

though they assumed that their findings were due to differences in self-representations.

This is the first study to explore the effects of culture and gender on self-regulation in

guilt and shame scenarios and whether cultural differences might be mediated or

moderated by two personality traits (self-monitoring and self-construal) associated with

the relationship of the self to others.

Our results showed that mainland Chinese endorsed more approach (problem

focused coping and support seeking) responses to the both guilt and shame scenarios than

Chinese Canadians and European Canadians and focused on solving the problems and

rebuilding relationships with others and seeking support. International Chinese tended to

170
respond in ways that resembled those of mainland Chinese, although the differences

between international Chinese and the Canadian participants were not always significant.

Mainland Chinese reported that they would engage in more support seeking in the

guilt and shame scenarios than European Canadians, Chinese and Canadian and

international Chinese. Although mainland Chinese hold the principle of saving face and

not exposing their shortcomings to others, once they violated a moral principle or social

norm and were in difficult conditions, they might be more motivated to find a way to

solve the problem and re-establish harmonious relationship, such as by getting advice

from others or sharing their emotions with others in order to get support. This result was

consistent with some previous studies. For instance, Mortenson (2006) reported that, like

American students, Chinese students are likely to perceive that seeking social support and

approach-oriented self-coping are effective means for dealing with distress due to

academic failure (which is one example of situations that elicit shame and guilt).

Receiving emotional support during times of crisis and stress is essential for emotional

and physical health across cultures (Burleson, 2003; Cunningham & Barbee, 2000) and

past research has found that social sharing of emotions has been related to cultural level

collectivism, which is associated with the development of an interdependent self-

construal (Fernandez, et al., 2000).

International Chinese also reported higher support seeking than European

Canadians and Chinese Canadians when they responded to shame situations.

International students, who have to face language barriers and many life changes in the

new country, might need a lot of social support during acculturation. It is better for them

171
to find the various services available in schools and universities where they are attending

classes in order to fulfill their goals in Canada. Helping international students establish

friendships in their host country has been a mainstay of acculturation interventions on

college campuses (Rajapaksa & Dundes, 2002/2003). Past research found that Chinese

sojourners (student visa holders) in Canada reported more problems related to work,

family and children, communication, homesickness, and loneliness than Canadian-born

Chinese and non-Chinese samples (Zheng & Berry, 1991).

Very interestingly, past research (Taylor, et al., 2007) found that Asians and Asian

Americans report that social support is not helpful to them. They resisted seeking it,

because support seekers may worry about burdening their friends and families and may

also fear a loss of face due to the revelation of embarrassing problems and feelings

(Barbee & Cunningham, 1995; Sarason, Sarason, & Pierce, 1990). In East Asian cultures

such as China and Japan, cultural norms discourage people from expressing emotional

distress to friends and family for fear of disturbing relational harmony (Lee, 1996;

Matsumoto, Kudoh, & Takeuchi, 1996; Taylor et al., 2004). The collectivist orientation

of Asian countries might favour the sharing of stressful problems; on the other hand,

efforts to maintain group harmony might discourage such efforts (Taylor et al., 2004).

The fact that there were few differences between international Chinese and

mainland Chinese participants is not surprising, given that most of these participants

arrived to Canada as adults, and most have spent only a few years in the Canadian

context. Acculturative stress is also experienced differently among immigrants of varying

migrant status (Berry et al., 1987) and generations (Lay & Nguyen, 1998; Sodowsky &

172
Lai, 1997). Research on acculturation suggests that people who migrate as adults are less

likely to acculturate and that the process of acculturation takes several years. Ying, Lee,

and Tsai (2000) found that American-born Chinese were less likely to perceive racial

discrimination but were more likely to take the assimilated or bicultural position, to be

monolingual English speakers, and to associate with American or mixed ethnic groups.

The results support our hypothesis that there would be cultural differences in how

participants respond to shame scenarios, and that these differences are associated with the

culture in which one was raised, rather than with one's immediate environment or

cultural heritage. Moreover, all cultural groups also responded differently to guilt

scenarios. This demonstrates that the findings are not merely due to general response

tendencies but are specific to the type of situation encountered.

Paired-sample t tests were conducted within each culture to evaluate whether

different groups endorsed approach strategies more (problem focused coping and support

seeking) or withdrawal strategies more (denial and avoidance). In every group, approach

strategies were endorsed more highly than avoidance strategies in both shame and guilt

situations (cf. Cho, 2010). Thus, while approach strategies may have been endorsed more

highly by participants from mainland China or international Chinese students, there was a

general preference for approach responses, regardless of the situation. It should be noted,

however, that we did not actually measure the extent to which participants experienced

shame and guilt and therefore cannot be certain that the effect is not due to differences in

what emotion was being experienced. Thus, people in each culture all endorsed more

problem focused coping and support seeking than withdrawal strategies but it could be

173
because they felt more guilt than shame. However, given the difficulty in measuring guilt

and shame emotions, and distinguishing between them (Silver & Sabini, 1997),

examining responses to situations associated with negative social emotions may be a

better way of exploring variations in responses.

Surprisingly, the results showed that there were no differences in shame denial and

shame avoidance between mainland Chinese and European Canadians. We had

hypothesized that European Canadians would report higher avoidance and denial than

mainland Chinese. Consistent with this prediction, mainland Chinese tended to report

lower denial and lower avoidance than European Canadians and Chinese Canadians, but

in guilt situations rather than shame situations. It is possible, however, that they were

responding to feelings of shame in these situations, since the situations were likely to

elicit feelings of both shame and guilt.

The results also showed that mainland Chinese reported higher shame

counterfactual thinking than the other three groups. Chinese participants in shame

situations tended to feel more regret about their wrongdoings and wished that they had

done it in another way than the other groups. This may because mainland China

emphasizes collectivism, in which people prefer improved social harmony with others.

Once they have done something wrong, they feel remorse and wish to modify it in order

to maintain good relationship with others. This is consistent with past research (Hur,

Roese, & Namkoong, 2009).

Effects of gender on responses to guilt and shame

174
 As we hypothesized, women endorsed more approach strategies in shame situations

than men (i.e., problem focused coping) and less withdrawal (i.e., denial). Women also

endorsed more counterfactual thinking and support seeking in shame situations than men.

Similarly, in guilt situations, women endorsed more problem focused coping and support

seeking than men. The hypotheses about gender in this study were therefore supported by

these findings except for one result, in which all women endorsed more avoidance in

shame situations than men across cultures. These gender differences can be explained by

gender roles and gender-stereotyped characteristics. In their life span, the role of most

women is as the primary caregiver. According to Nancy Chodorow (1987, 1989), women

are more likely to be socialized to the role of mother. As a result, women have become

more sensitive to emotions than men. Women are typically described as a caring

(Gilligan, 1982), more open minded (Buhrke & Fuqua, 1987), and empathetic (Buhrke &

Fuqua, 1987; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Even modern societies recognize and value

these characteristics in women (Tavris, 1992). It might therefore be common for women

to experience more shame and guilt than men. Consistent with this, for all four cultural

groups, women reported more support seeking, such that women tended to tell others

their unhappy feelings and get advice from others more than did men in both shame and

guilt situations.

For all four cultural groups in shame situations, women also reported more

counterfactual thinking than men. Johnson and Sherman (1990) found that counterfactual

thinking serves the largely beneficial function of behaviour regulation. It connects

directly to course correction, to goal cognition, and to behaviour regulation (Epstude &

175
Roesev, 2008). The gender difference we found might have occurred because women

typically report higher mental ruminations than men (Singh-Manoux, 2000). This is very

interesting, given that previous research has found that women reported having more

intense and more frequent experiences of emotions such as embarrassment, guilt, shame

and sadness than their male peers (Barrett, et al., 1998). They may therefore have a

stronger desire to undo the negative acts because may feel more distressed.

For all four cultural groups in shame situations, women reported more avoidance

than men did. Additionally, all men endorsed more denial in shame situations than did

women. This may be explained by the dominant role which men play in society. In the

global context, men are usually of dominant status in society. When they do terrible

things, they might be afraid of being negatively judged by others and losing this

dominance and want to keep their good image and start over. They may try not to think

about what they did and try to forget those negative and stressful feelings. They may need

to believe that they are still strong in front of others and in society. Women are

traditionally not of high status in the family and society, and they may tend to blame

themselves when they do wrong things.

The results showed that there was interaction of culture and gender on denial in

shame situations. All men in the other three cultures reported more shame denial than that

of women, except in the Chinese Canadian group, where women and men did not differ.

For the second generation of Chinese immigration in Canada, individuals are more likely

have bicultural identities, and have two sets of norms, particularly regarding issues of

close relationships (i.e., dating relationship) which can be associated to considerable

176
tensions (e.g., Hynie 1996; Tang & Dion, 1999). The women in this cultural group might

deny the wrong things they have done to keep their reputation in public.

Culture effects on self-monitoring, interdependence self-construal and independence

self-construal

As predicted, mainland Chinese were more interdependent than European

Canadians, which is consistent with past studies (Lee, Asker, & Gardner, 2000; Neff,

Pisitsungkagarn, & Hsieh, 2008; Singelis, Bond, Lai, & Sharkey, 1999; Singelis &

Sharkey, 1995; Singelis, 1994). Moreover, Chinese Canadians were more interdependent

than European Canadians. This might be because Chinese Canadians who were the

second generation might often share the feature of being bicultural (identifying with both

Western and Chinese cultures). Chinese Canadians may still be influenced by their

heritage culture, because interdependence promotes cultural transmission from parents to

children (Phalet & Schoenpflug, 2001; Schoenpflug, 2001). This result is consistent with

other research on first generation immigrant Asians, that finds that there are correlations

between the traditional beliefs of parents and their children (Hynie, Lalonde, & Lee,

2006). Thus, family norms, values, and beliefs are powerful forces in shaping an

individual's concept of self that continue even after a lifetime in a different cultural

environment (Triandis, 1989).

Also very interestingly, mainland Chinese were also more interdependent than

international Chinese. This may because those students who were willing to leave their

home country and families to study abroad may be those who are less interdependent to

begin with. It may also be that exposure to the West has influenced them relative to their

177
Chinese peers in China. Young adults are apt to assimilate Western cultures more readily

than older generations and so this may also reflect change in international students over

time (Segall et al., 1990). However, we did not find cultural differences in independent

self-construal but this is also consistent with research on immigrant families (Hynie et. al.,

2006).

Very interestingly, regression analyses showed that interdependent self-construal,

which emphasize external harmonious relationships and are associated with caring more

about others' evaluations, was associated with increased approach regulation of self-

conscious emotions, such as problem focused coping in both shame and guilt scenarios.

Moreover, regression analyses showed that interdependent self-construal significantly

partially mediated the effect of culture distinguishing mainland Chinese from other

participants on problem focused coping in the responses to shame scenarios. Mainland

Chinese with more interdependent self-construal endorsed more problem focused coping

in order to maintain the harmonious relationship with others, suggesting that a personality

trait like interdependent self-construal can shape some responses to the self-conscious

shame emotions.

The regression results showed that the responses to scenarios associated with shame

were also influenced by self-monitoring. For example, mainland Chinese undergraduate

students with higher self-monitoring are more likely to endorse counterfactual thinking in

shame scenarios. Moreover, Chinese Canadian undergraduate students with higher self-

monitoring endorsed more denial in shame scenarios than are others. These results were

consistent with some previous studies (Snyder, 1974; 1979). However, there were no

178
significant interactions or mediations with self-monitoring in predicting any responses to

either shame or guilt scenarios in the regression analyses.

Past research found that self-monitoring helps people to identify influential

thoughts and situations. People who are high self-monitors look for cues in the social

situation and alter their attitudes and behaviours to match the environment (Edelmann,

1985; Tardy & Hoseman, 1982). Those who are low in self-monitoring tend to display

their true attitudes in every situation; they were not affected by the presence of other

people. People who are highly individualist should have low self-monitoring, and those

from collectivistic cultures should have high self-monitoring. Members of individualistic

cultures focus on the self, and the expression of one's unique beliefs and attitudes, not on

others. People in collectivistic cultures value conformity to in-groups and group-

memberships, and focus on social context and status. Consistent with the previous

research, those from collectivist cultures should be more tuned into their social

environment (Edelmann, 1985; Tardy & Hoseman, 1982). In our study, we found that

mainland Chinese and international Chinese participants had higher self-monitoring than

European Canadians, and international Chinese were higher on self-monitoring than

Chinese Canadians. However, we did not find significant correlations between

interdependence/independence and self-monitoring in mainland Chinese group; we only

found a negative correlation between interdependence and independence in mainland

Chinese. Thus, while our research suggests that there are indeed cultural differences in

self-monitoring, these cannot be explained in terms of self-construals.

179
 General discussions and conclusion

In sum, in this cross-cultural research on shame and guilt we addressed the

discrepancies from past research and confirmed that culture influences the experience of

shame and guilt and self-regulation patterns. Interestingly, while we found consistent

cultural differences, these could not be completely explained by variables associated with

self-representations, particularly independent self-construal and self-monitoring, because

we only found interdependent self-construal partially mediated the difference between

mainland Chinese and other participants shame on problem focused coping, suggesting a

more important role for social norms than personality. Particularly, this research provided

a wider structure of experiencing shame and guilt emotions and responses to these

emotions cross culturally.

The purpose of the reported studies was to explore the nature of shame and guilt

more fully by examining it in a cross-cultural context. In this series of studies, we

compared Chinese and Canadian concepts of shame and guilt along three different

dimensions and higher order categories of themes, developed a set of representative

scenarios of different shame and guilt concepts, and measured cultural and gender

differences in responses to guilt and shame scenarios through the examination of

responses to guilt and shame on a new scale developed for this purpose. Importantly, we

also examined whether two personality factors associated with self-concepts mediated or

moderated cultural differences.

The comparison of the experience of shame and guilt among mainland Chinese and

European Canadian cultures showed similarities and differences on the higher order

180
categories of themes and the three dimensions. For example, European Canadians

reported more guilt examples than mainland Chinese in "other's improper actions"

situations. Within cultures, mainland Chinese and European Canadians both reported

more shame examples than guilt in "breaking own expectations", and both reported more

guilt examples than shame in "breaking other's expectations". However, mainland

Chinese also reported more shame examples than guilt in "other's improper actions" and

"displayed/ having a flawed self/character", and mainland Chinese also reported more

guilt examples than shame in "intentional harm to others", "unintentional harm to others",

and "intentional breaking social norms/rules." Moreover, European Canadian participants

also reported more guilt examples than shame in "intentional breaking social norms/

rules".

For the comparison of the three dimensions, mainland Chinese reported more

private guilt than European Canadians. Both blamed their actions more than themselves

but mainland Chinese shame scenarios included more self-blame than European

Canadian shame scenarios. Both groups focused more on repairing actions in guilt than

shame scenarios. European Canadian shame scenarios focused on more withdrawal than

mainland Chinese scenarios, and European Canadian guilt scenarios included more

repairing actions than mainland Chinese scenarios.

The third study on self-regulation yielded several findings that suggest that the

regulation of shame and guilt were influenced by both culture and gender. As predicted,

when responding to a scenario associated with Chinese concepts of shame, mainland

Chinese endorsed more approach focused responses (i.e., problem focused coping,

181
support seeking) than Chinese Canadians and European Canadians. These results are

consistent with some past research (Bagozzi, et al., 2003; Qian, et al., 2003). However,

mainland Chinese endorsed more approach responses (problem focus coping) and support

seeking than Chinese Canadians and European Canadians when responding to scenarios

associated with guilt. It is not clear, however, whether or not they were responding to

feelings of shame or guilt in these situations. As observed in Study 1, several situations

elicited both shame and guilt, and thus the differences we observed may still have been

due to responses to feelings of shame, even if they occurred in situations associated with

guilt.

These findings are consistent with past studies about the function of self-concepts

in cultural differences (Fung & Chen, 2002; Olwen, 2004). Mainland Chinese, whose

culture holds interdependent self-construal, respond to shame with different patterns of

self-regulation (i.e., using more problem focused coping). However, almost none of the

differences between cultures could be explained by interdependence, and in the one case

where there was evidence of mediation (shame problem focused coping), the mediation

was only partial. While problem-focused coping in shame situations is the situation we

would most expect to see as responding to differences in self-construal, this effect was

only found for the dummy variable distinguishing mainland Chinese from the others. It

did not explain differences observed in international Chinese students.

In terms of self-monitoring, we did find cultural differences, with mainland Chinese

and international Chinese students endorsing more self-monitoring than European

Canadians. Chinese people were therefore more sensitive to the cues in the social context
and others' evaluations in the situations and followed these cues to guide their actions

and more pleased to others, relative to European and Chinese Canadians. However, we

found no evidence that self-monitoring explained the cultural differences observed in

responses to shame and guilt situations, since there was no evidence of mediation or

moderation.

Interestingly, several studies indicate that people experiencing guilt have more

control over situations than people experiencing shame. Research in North America

suggests that people experiencing guilt are likely to control their anger and are less likely

than those experiencing shame to have aggressive or hostile feelings (Lutwak, Panish, &

Ferrari, 2003). Schmader and Lickel (2006) compared shame and guilt reactions

following self-caused and other-caused wrongdoings and found that when considering

their own wrongdoings, people reported more guilt than shame and a stronger approach

than avoidance motivation, because they felt a greater sense of control over their own

behaviour (an appraisal that elicits guilt) than over the actions of others. People were

motivated to distance themselves from the shame event for the other person's actions, and

people were more motivated to repair whatever harm the other person had done to the

degree they felt guilty. Thus, the reason that guilt may be more associated with repairing

behaviours than shame may be partially due to feelings of control and responsibility,

whereas the withdrawal associated with shame may be due to feelings of hopelessness

because the harm has been attributed to a flawed self.

These cultural differences do not extend to first generation Chinese Canadians, who

have lived in North America for most of their lives. They do not differ from their

183
European Canadian peers. Moreover, international Chinese students, who are in Canada

briefly as foreign students, begin to shift how they respond to these emotions (i.e.,

differed from mainland Chinese on guilt support seeking and shame problem focused

coping). International students also differed from European Canadians on problem

focused coping in response to guilt scenarios. These findings further support the strong

influence of social norms on shame and guilt responses. Effects of gender on responses to

both shame and guilt were found. For the responses to shame, women endorsed more

problem focused coping, support seeking, counterfactual thinking, and less denial than

men. There was also an interaction of culture and gender in shame denial. Men in

mainland Chinese, European Canadians, and international Chinese groups endorsed more

denial than women but there were no gender differences in Canadian Canadians.

These findings provide more support and evidence for studying cross-cultural self-

conscious emotions. Cultural background plays an obvious and important role in the

psychology of shame and guilt, despite the fact that shame and guilt are deemed to be

universal emotions. Moreover, interdependent self-construal only marginally mediates

the effects of collectivistic country like mainland China on some responses to shame and

guilt suggesting that other explanations for the cultural differences need to be explored.

In sum, this series of studies makes an important contribution to cross-cultural

psychology by demonstrating the similarities and differences of experiencing shame and

guilt between a Western country, Canada, and an Eastern country, China, and how

culturally influenced personality variables and immediate social context might have an

impact.

184
 Limitations and Future directions

This study has several limitations that should be considered in future research.

First, most of the participants in this set of studies were undergraduate students and

consequently generalization beyond university students must be made cautiously. It may

be worthwhile in the future to investigate non-university educated individuals living in

other parts of the countries involved to determine the generalizability of the current

findings.

Second, for mainland Chinese participants, we only collected data from mainland

China, but we did not collect data from Hong Kong and Taiwan. In a future study, I

would like to collect data in multiple locations and see whether there are differences due

to origin. Moreover, many Chinese immigrants in Canada are from those two areas,

suggesting that Canadian Chinese may not share the same cultural heritage as mainland

Chinese. In Study3,1 did not specifically ask about origin (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan)

but rather asked "Which country were you born in?" Although most participants

answered "China", it is impossible to know which part of China they were from. Hong

Kong is associated with higher levels of Western influence so immigrants from the

different regions may be quite culturally distinct.

Third, we did not directly measure the acculturation of the international students

and Chinese Canadians. It would be interesting to measure this variable and see whether

it makes any differences to the responses to shame and guilt. It would be interesting to

see how acculturation relates to both the personality variables measured, and the

185
responses to shame and guilt situations, and to see the extent to which international

Chinese and Canadian Chinese differed on acculturation.

Fourth, we used self-report in both Studies 1 and 3. The use of self-report measures

could be biased since all participants may be subject to potential self-report bias but that

bias may function differently in different cultural groups. For that reason, within culture

comparisons are the most reliable. Respondents may give defensive or interpretative

answers due to self-esteem concerns or social desirability effects. The anonymity of the

questionnaires should reduce these potential biases but cannot eliminate them completely.

However, comparing shame and guilt responses within cultures is a way of controlling

for culture-specific responses biases, and differences in responses to shame and guilt

within cultures suggested that the emotions may be distinguished differently in the

different cultures. Nonetheless, different methodological approaches such as laboratory-

based induction of responses to shame and guilt should also be examined.

The biggest limitation in this study is that the extent of experiencing shame and

guilt was not measured in response to the scenarios and so we could not confirm whether

the cultural differences were due to differences in the relative amount of shame or guilt

experienced, or due to differences in how they respond to shame and guilt. Cho (2010)

found that people who reported that they were more likely to solve the problem following

a shame or guilt related situation, felt more shame. However, participants in her study

were less likely to avoid the problem and avoid others when experiencing more shame

with their friends or classmates.

186
 Given that the experience of shame and guilt and the self-regulation of shame and

guilt are culturally patterned, and that gender influences the strategic form of social

behaviour, there are numerous future directions for research into how people cope with

these self-conscious emotions. One important possibility that needs to be explored in

future investigations is the association with social anxiety, because people who violated

social norms and rules and are negatively evaluated by others are likely to experience

increased social anxiety. It would be interesting to examine how the different possible

responses to shame and guilt protect individuals from the negative consequences of these

emotions.

Another direction for research is the association between self-conscious emotions

with perfectionism. Tangney (2002) has shown that socially prescribed perfectionism is

associated with the experience of shame. Thus, it would be interesting to examine these

differences cross-culturally as well, to determine the limits of these associations.

Despite these limitations, the findings obtained in this study were similar to

previous studies (Tangney, 1990; 1991), and support the theoretical and

phenomenological literature (Lutwaka et al., 2003) but deepen our understanding of how

universal emotions like shame and guilt can be shaped by one's cultural environment.

187
 References

Aaker, J. L. (2000). Accessibility or diagnosticity? Disentangling the influence of culture

on persuasion processes and attitudes. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 340-357.

Affifi, A., & Clark, V. (1990). Computer-aided multivariate analysis (2nd ed.). New York:

Reinhold.

Alessandri, S. M., & Lewis, M. (1993). Parental evaluation and its relation to shame and

pride in young children. Sex Roles, 29, 335-343.

Alessandri, S. M., & Lewis, M. (1996). Differences in pride and shame in maltreated and

nonmaltreated preschoolers. Child Development, 67(A), 1857-1869.

Anolli, L., & Pascucci, P. (2005). Guilt and guilt-proneness, shame and shame-proneness

in Indian and Italian young adults. Personality and Individual Differences. 39, 763-

773.

Antill, J. K. (1987). Parents' beliefs and values about sex roles, sex differences, and

sexuality: Their sources and implications. In P. Shaver & C. Hendricks (Eds.), Sex

and gender: Review of personality and social psychology, Vol. 7 (pp. 294-328).

Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Athenstaedt, U., Haas, E., & Schwab, S. (2004). Gender role self-concept and gender-

typed communication behavior in mixed-sex and same-sex dyads. Sex Roles, 50(1-

2), 37-52.

Bagozzi, R. P., Verbeke, W., & Gavino, J. C. (2003). Culture moderates the self-

regulation of shame and its effects on performance: the case of salespersons in the

Netherlands and the Philippines. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 219-233.

Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the

relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 641—

672.

Barbee, A. P., & Cunningham, M. R. (1995). An experimental approach to social support

communications: Interactive coping in close relationships. In B. R. Burleson (Ed.),

Communication yearbook 18 (pp. 381-413). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Barrett L.F., Robin L., Pietromonaco P. R., & Eyssell K. M. (1998). Are women the

"more emotional" sex? Evidence from emotional experiences in social context.

Cognition and Emotion, 12(4), 555-578.

Baumeister, R., Stillwell, A., & Heatherton, T. (1994). Guilt: an interpersonal approach.

Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243-267.

Benetti-McQuoid, J. & Bursik, K. (2005). Individual differences in experiences of and

responses to guilt and shame: examining the lenses of gender and gender role. Sex

Roles, 53, 133-142.

Bedford, O. A. (1994). Guilt and shame in American and Chinese culture. Unpublished

doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.

Bedford, O. A. (2004). The Individual experience of guilt and shame in Chinese culture.

Culture and Psychology, 10(1), 29-52.

Bedford, O. A., & Hwang, K.K. (2003). Guilt and shame in Chinese culture: a cross-

cultural framework from the perspective of morality and identity. Journal for the

Theory of Social Behaviour, 33(2), 127-144.

Benedict, R. (1946). The chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of Japanese culture.

189
 New York: New American Library.

Benetti-McQuoid, J., & Bursik, K. (2005). Individual differences in experiences of and

responses to guilt and shame: Examining the lenses of gender and gender role. Sex

Roles,53, 133-142.

Berger, C. R., & Perkins, J. (1978). Studies in interpersonal epistemology I: Situational

attributes in observational context selection. In B. Ruben (Ed.), Communication

yearbook 2 (pp. 171-184). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Berry, J.W. (1979). Social and cultural change. In H.C. Triandis and R. Brislin (Eds.),

Handbook of cross-cultural psychology, 5, Social Psychology (pp. 211- 279).

Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Berry, J. W., Kim, U., Minde, T., & Mok, D. (1987). Comparative studies of

acculturative stress. International Migration Review, 21, 491-511.

Best, D. L., & Williams, J. E. (1993). A cross-cultural viewpoint. In A. E. Beall & R. J.

Sternberg (Eds.), The psychology of gender (pp. 215-248). New York: Guilford

Press.

Bono, J. E., & Vey, M. A. (2007). Personality and emotional performance: Extraversion,

neuroticism, and self-monitoring. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology,

72,177-192.

Brownell, S., & Wasserstrom, J. (2002). Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities:

A reader. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Buhrke, R. A., & Fuqua, R. R. (1987). Sex differences in same- and cross-sex supportive

relationships. Sex Roles, 17, 339-352.

Burleson, B. R. (2003). The experience and effects of emotional support: What the study

of cultural and gender differences can tell us about close relationships, emotion,

and interpersonal communication. Personal Relationships, 10, 1-23.

Buss, A. (2001). Psychological dimensions of the self. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bybee, J. (1998). The emergence of gender differences in guilt during adolescence. In J.

Bybee (Ed.), Guilt and children (pp. 113-125). San Diego: Academic Press.

Catell, R. B. (1966). The scree test for the number of factors. Mutivariate Behavioural

Research, 1, 141-161.

Chaplin, M.T., Hong, K., Bergquist, K., & Sinha, R. (2008). Gender differences in

response to emotional stress: an assessment across subjective, behavioral, and

physiological domains and relations to alcohol craving. Alcoholism: Clinical and

Experimental Research, 32(7): 1242-1250.

Chia, R. C., Allred, L. J., & Jerzak, P. A. (1997). Attitudes toward women in Taiwan and

China. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 137-150.

Cho, J. (2010). Honor thesis poster presentation. Department of Psychology of York

University, Canada.

Chodorow, N. (1987). Feminism and difference: gender, relation, and difference in

psychoanalytic perspective. The Psychology of Women, (pp.249-64). New Haven,

Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Chodorow, N. (1989). Feminism and the Psychoanalytic Theory. London, England: Yale

University Press.

191
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and

Psychological Measurement, 10, 37-46.

Connelly, R., & Zheng, Z. (2002). Determinants of school enrollment and completion of

10 to 18 year olds in China. Economics of Education Review, 22, 379-388.

Crawford, J. (1992). Emotion and gender: Constructing meaning and memory. London;

Newbury.

Cross, S. E., & Madson, L. (1997). Models of the self: Self-construals and gender.

Psychological Bulletin, 122, 5-37.

Crystal, D. S, Parrott, V. G., Okazaki, Y., &; Watanabe, H. (2001). Examining relations

between shame and personality among university students in the United States and

Japan: A developmental perspective. International Journal of Behavioral

Development, 25, 113-123.

Cunningham, M. R., & Barbee, A. P. (2000). Social support. In C. Hendrick & S. S.

(Hendrick Eds.), Close relationships: A sourcebook (pp. 272-285). Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dahl, D.W., Honea, H., & Manchanda, R.V. (2003). The nature of self-reported guilt in

consumptionc. Marketing Letters, 14 (October), 159-71.

Davis, E. (2005). Encyclopedia of contemporary Chinese culture. Oxford, England:

Routledge.

De Vos, G. (1974). The relation of guilt toward parents to achievement and arranged

marriage among Japanese. In T. Lebra & L. Lebra (Eds.), Japanese culture and

behaviour: Selected readings. Honolulu, HI: University Press of Honolulu.

192
Eckes, T., & Trautner, H. (Eds.). (2000). The developmental social psychology of gender.

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Edelmann, R.J. (1985), Individual differences in embarrassment: Self-consciousness,

self-monitoring and embarrassability. Personality and individual Differences, 6,

223-230.

Epstude, K. & Roese, N. J. (2008). The functional theory of counterfactual thinking.

Personality Social Psychology Review, 12(2): 168-192.

Etxebarria, I. (2000). Guilt: An emotion under suspicion. Psicothema, 12(1), 101-108.

Etxebarria, I., Isasi, x., & Perez, J. (2002). The interpersonal nature of guilt-producing

events. Age and gender differences. Psicothema, 14(4), 783-787.

Evans, R. G. (1984). Hostihty and sex guilt. Perceptions of self and others as a function

of gender and sex-role orientation. Sex Roles, 207-215.

Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating

the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological

methods, 4(3), 272-299.

Ferguson, T. J., & Crowley, S. L. (1997). Measure for measure: A multitrait-multimethod

analysis of guilt and shame. Journal of Personality Assessment, 69(2), 425-441.

Ferguson, T. J., Eyre, H. L., & Ashbaker, M. (2000). A key variable in shame-anger links

and gender differences in shame. Sex Roles,42(3-4), 133-135.

Ferguson, T. J., & Stegge, H. (1995). Emotional states and traits in children: The case of

guilt and shame. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions:

Shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 174-197). New York: Guilford.

193
Fernandez, I., Carrera, P., Sanchez, F., Paez, D., & Candia, L. (2000). Differences

between cultures in emotional verbal and non-verbal reactions. Psicothema, 12, 83-

92.

Fischer, K. W., & Tangney, J. P. (1995). Self-conscious emotions and the affect

revolution: framework and overview. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-

conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp.

3-22). New York: Guildford Press.

Frank, H., Harvey, O. J., & Verdun, K. (2000). American responses to five categories of

shame in Chinese culture: A preliminary cross-cultural construct validation.

Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 887-896.

Frijda, N. H. (1987). Emotion, cognitive structure, and action tendency. Cognition and

Emotion, 1, 115-143.

Fung, H. (1999). Becoming a moral child: The socialization of shame among young

Chinese children. Ethos, 27(2), 180-209.

Fung, H. & Chen, Q. H. (2002). Affect, culture and moral socialization, shame as an

example. Research of Culture and Psychology. Dec. 17-48.

Fung, H., Lieber, E., Leung, P.W. L., & Yeh, Y. H. (2003). How might shame be

possibly related to knowing right from wrong? Parental beliefs on moral

socialization in Taiwan, Hong Kong and U.S. Poster session presented at the

biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD),

Albuquerque, NM.

194
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Goethals, G. R., Sorensen, G. J., & Burns, J. M. (2004). The Buddha. Encyclopedia of

Leadership (Vol. 4). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. London, and New Delhi: Berkshire

Publishing Company, 1, 122-126.

Goffman, E. (1962). Interaction ritual. Garden City, NY: Anchor.

Gore, E. J., & Harvey, O. J. (1995). A factor analysis of a scale of shame and guilt:

Dimensions of conscience questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences,

79(5), 769-771.

Guastello, D.D., & Guastello, S.J. (2003). Androgyny, gender role behavior, and

emotional intelligence among college students and their parents. Sex roles, 49, 663-

673.

Gudykunst, W. B., Gao, G., Schmidt, K. L., Nishida,T., Bond, M. H., Leung, K., Wang,

G. & Barraclough, R. A. (1992). The Influence of individualism collectivism, self-

monitoring, and predicted-outcome value on communication in ingroup and

outgroup relationships. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 23, 196-213.

Gudykunst, W. B., Yang, S. M., & Nishida, T. (1985). A cross-cultural test of uncertainty

reduction theory: Comparisons of acquaintances, friends, and dating relationships

in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Human Communication Research, 11(3),

407-455.

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor.

Hannum, E. (2002). Educational Stratification by Ethnicity in China: Enrollment and

195
 Attainment in the Early Reform Years. Demography, 39( 1): 95-117.

Hannum, E. (2003). Poverty and basic education in rural China: villages, households, and

girls'and boys' enrollment. Comparative Education Review, 47(2): 141-159.

Harder, D. W. (1995). Shame and guilt assessment, and relationships of shame- and guilt-

proneness to psychopathology. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-

conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride

(pp. 368-392). New York: Guilford Press.

Harper, J. M., & Hoopes, M. H. (1990). Uncovering shame: An approach integrating

individuals and their family systems. New York: W. W. Norton.

Harvey, O. J., Gore, E. J., Frank, H., & Batres, A. R. (1997). Relationship of shame and

guilt to gender and parenting practices. Personality and Individual Differences,

23(1), 135-146.

Hattie, J. (2008). Processes of integrating, developing, and processing self information. In

H, W. Marsh, R. G. Craven, & D. M. Mclnerney. (Eds.). Self-processes, Learning,

and Enabling Human Potential: Dynamic New Approaches (pp. 51-87). New York:

Wiley.

Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal

need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766-795.

Heng, X. (1994). The changing role and status of women in China, http://

1990institute. org /files/public/1990/ipaper/WomenChina-ip8.pdf

196
Henkin, M. (2004). Shame and guilt: perceptions of American and Chinese college

students. Ohio LINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. Oxford, Ohio:

Miami University.

Ho, D.Y.F. (1994). Face dynamics: From conceptualization to measurement. In S. Ting-

Toomey (Eds.), The challenge of facework (pp. 269-286). New York: SUNY Press.

Ho, Y. F., Fu, W., & Ng. S.M. (2004). Guilt, shame and embarrassment: relations of face

and self. Culture and Psychology, 10(1), 64-84.

Hoffman, M. L. (1998). Varieties of empathy-based guilt. In J. Bybee (ed.), Guilt and

children (pp. 91-112). San Diego: Academic press.

Hong, Y. & Chiu, C. (1992). A study of the comparative structure of guilt and shame in a

Chinese society. Journal of Personality, 126, 171-179.

Hu, M. R. (2009). Gender Roles. From Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture.

http://www. bookrags. com/tandf/gender-roles-l-tf/

Hur, T., Roese, J. N., & Namkoong, J.E. (2009). Regrets in the East and West: Role of

intrapersonal versus interpersonal norms. Asian Journal of Social sychology,

12(2), 151-156.

Hwang, K.K. (2001). The deep structure of Confucianism: a social psychological

approach. Asian Philosophy, HQ), 179-204.

Hynie, M., Lalonde, R. N., & Lee, N. S. (2006). Parent-child value transmission among

Chinese immigrants to North America: The case of traditional mate preferences.

Cultural and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 12, 230-244.

Hynie, M., & MacDonald, T. K. (2001). The power of guilt: Attitudes, norms and guilt as

197
 predictors of condom use. Poster presented at the meeting of the Canadian

Psychological Association, Quebec, Canada.

Hynie, M., MacDonald, T. K., & Marques, S. (2006). Self-Conscious Emotions and Self-

Regulation in the Promotion of Condom Use. Personality and Social Psychology

Bulletin, 32,1072 - 1084.

Johnson, M. K., & Sherman, S. J. (1990). Constructing and reconstructing the past and

the future in the present. In: Higgins ET, Sorrentino RM, editors. Handbook of

motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior. Vol. 2. (pp. 482-526).

Guilford Press; New York.

Kashima, Y., Yamaguchi, S., Kim, U., Choi, S., Gelfand, M.J., & Yuki, M. (1995).

Culture,gender, and self: A perspective from individualism-collectivism research.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 925-937.

Keltner, D., & Harker, L. (1998). The forms and functions of the nonverbal signal of

shame. In P. Gilbert & B. Andrews (Eds.), Shame: Interpersonal behavior,

Psychopathology, and Culture (pp. 78-98). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Kluckhohn, C. (1960). The moral order in the expanding society. In C. Kraeling & R.

Adames (Eds). City invincible. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Kubany, E. S., & Watson, S. B. (2003). Guilt: Elaboration of a multidimensional model.

The Psychological Record, 53, 51-90.

Lay, C., & Nguyen, T. (1998). The role of acculturation-related and acculturation non-

specific hassles: Vietnamese-Canadian students and psychological distress.

Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 30, 172-181.

198
Lay, C., & Verkuyten. M. (1999). Ethnic identity and its relation to personal self-esteem:

A comparison of Canadian-born and Foreign-born Chinese adolescents. Journal of

Social Psychology, 139, 288-299.

Lebra, L. (1988). Comprehensive justice and moral investment among Japanese, Chinese,

and Koreans. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 157, 278-291.

Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward

allocation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 793-804.

Lee, A. (2005). Male, Chinese, and Immigrant. Depression while adjusting to a new

country: Mental shame runs deep. Journal of BC 's Mental Health and Addictions,

2(5), 20.

Lee, A.Y., Aaker, W.L., & Gardner, W. (2000). The pleasure and pains of distinct self-

construals: the role of interdependence in regulatory focus. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 78, 1122-1134.

Lee, E. (1996). Asian American families: An overview. In M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano,

& J. K. Pearce (Eds.), Ethnicity andfamily therapy (2nd ed., pp. 227-248). New

York: Guilford.

Leith, K. P., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Empathy, shame, guilt and narratives of

interpersonal conflicts: Guilt-prone people are better at perspective taking. Journal

of Personality, 66(1), 1-37.

Lewis, H. B. (1971). Shame and guilt in neurosis. New York: Guilford Press.

Lewis, H. B. (1992). Shame: The exposed self. New York: Free Press.

Li, J., Wang, L. Q., & Fischer, K. W. (2004). The organization of Chinese shame

199
 concepts. Cognition and Emotion, 18(6), 767-797.

Lickel, B., Schmader, T., Curtis, M., Seamier, M., & Ames, D. R. (2005). Vicarious

shame and guilt. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 8, 145-157.

Lindsay-Hartz, J. (1984). Contrasting experiences of shame and guilt. American

Behavioural Scientist, 27, 689-704.

Locke, Don C. (1998). Increasing multicultural understanding: A comprehensive model.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Lutwak, N., & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Moral affect and cognitive processes: Differentiating

shame and guilt among men and women. Personality and Individual Differences.

21(6). 891-896.

Lutwak, N., Ferrari, J. R., & Cheek, J. M. (1998). Shame, guilt, and identity in men and

women: the role of identity orientation and processing style in moral affects.

Personality and Individual Differences, 25, 1027-1036.

Lutwak, N., Panish, J., & Ferrari, J. R. (2003). Shame and guilt: characterological vs.

behavioral self-blame and their relationship to fear of intimacy. Personality and

Individual Differences, 55(4), 909-916.

Lutz, C.A. (1996). Engendered emotion: Gender, power, and the rhetoric o f emotional

control in American discourse. In R . Harre & W.G. Parrott (Ed s.), The emotions

(pp.151-170). London: Sage.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition,

emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

200
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1994). A collective fear of the collective: Implications

for selves and theories of selves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5),

568-579.

Markus, H. R., & Oyserman, D. (1989). Gender and thought: The roie of the self-concept,

In M. Crawford & M. Hamilton (Eds.), Gender and thought (pp. 100-127). New

York: Springer-Verlag.

Matsumoto, D., Kudoh, T., & Takeuchi, S. (1996). Changing patterns of individualist and

collectivism in the Unites States and Japan. Culture and Psychology, 2, 77-107.

Mead, M. (1937). Cooperation and competition among primitive people. New York:

McGraw- Hill.

Michener, H. A., Delamater. J. D., & Schwartz, S. H. (1986). Social Psychology. New

York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Middelton-Moz, J. (1990). Shame and guilt: The masters of disguise. Deerfield Beach,

Florida: Health Communications (pp. 3-14).

Mizuta, I., Zahn-Waxier, C., Cole, P. M., & Hiruma, N. (1996). A cross-cultural study of

preschoolers' attachment: Security and sensitivity in Japanese and US dyads.

International Journal of Behavioral Development, 19, 141-159.

Morrison, A. (1996). The culture of shame. New York: Ballantine.

Mortenson, S. T. (2006). Cultural Differences and Similarities in Seeking Social Support

as a Response to Academic Failure: A Comparison of American and Chinese

College Students. Communication Education, 55(2), 1 2 7 - 146.

Neff, K. D., Pisitsungkagarn, K., & Hsieh, Y. (2008). Self-compassion and self-construal

201
 in the United States, Thailand, and Taiwan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

39, 267-285.

Niedenthal, P. M., Tangney, J. P., & Gavanski, I. (1994). "If only I weren't" versus "If

only I hadn't": Distinguishing shame and guilt in conterfactual thinking. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 585-595.

Olwen, A. B. (2004).The individual experience of guilt and shame in Chinese culture.

Culture and Psychology, 10(1), 29-52.

Ou, Y. (2002). On Mao Ze-dong's Criticism and Self-Criticism. Journal of ChenZhou

Teachers College (China), 23(6), 13-15.

Parker, S. T. (1998). A social selection model for the evolution and adaptive significance

of self-conscious emotions. In M. D. Ferrari & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Self-

awareness: Its nature and development (pp. 108-134). New York: Guilford.

Phalet, K., & Scho'npflug, U. (2001). Intergenerational transmission of collectivism and

achievement values in two acculturation contexts. Journal of Cross-Cultural

Psychology, 32,186-201.

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988) Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, Albany: SUNY

Press.

Purdie, N., Hattie, J., & Douglas, G. (1996). Student conceptions of learning and their use

of self-regulated learning strategies: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 55(1), 87-100.

202
Qian, M. Y., & Qi, J. L. ( 2002). Comparative study on the differences between shame

and guilt among Chinese college students. Acta Psychologica Sinica (China),

34(6), 626 -633.

Qian, M. Y., Liu, X. H., & Zhu, R. Ch. (2001). Phenomenological research of shame

among college students. Chinese Health Psychology (China), 15(2), 73-76.

Qian, M.Y., Liu J., & Zhang, Z.Y. (2003). The difference of shame proneness and coping

style towards shame stories. Acta Psychologica Sinica (China), 35(3), 387 - 392.

Rafferty, F. T. (1974). Cognition, language, and social behavior. Child Psychiatry and

Human Development, 4(4), 227-237.

Rajapaksa, S., & Dundes, L. (2002/2003). It's a long way home: International student

adjustment to living in the United States. College Student Retention, 4, 15-28.

Ratanasiripong, P. (1997). Effects of culture and religious belief on self-conscious

emotions and depression: acculturation, self-construal, belief in grace, shame, guilt,

and depression among Asian-American and European-American Protestants.

Dissertation Abstract International (Section B): The Science and Engineering,

57(11-B):7235.

Redfield, R., Linton, R., & Herskovits, M. J. (1936). Memorandum for the study of

acculturation. American Anthropologist, 38(1), 149-152.

Roseman, I. J., Wiest, C., & Swartz, T. S. (1994). Phenomenology, behaviors, and goals

differentiate discrete emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67,

206-221.

203
Sabini, J., & Silver, M. (1997). In Defense of Shame: Shame in the Context of Guilt and

Embarrassment. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 27(1), 1-15.

Sabini, J., & Silver, M. (2005). Why emotion names don't neatly pair. Psychological

Inquiry, 16, 1-10.

Sarason, B. R., Sarason, I. G., & Pierce, G. R. (1990). Traditional views of social support

and their impact on assessment. In B. R. Sarason, I. G. Sarason, & G. R. Pierce

(Eds.), Social support: An interactional view (pp. 9-25). New York: Wiley.

Schmader, T., & Lickel, B. (2006). The approach and avoidance function of personal and

vicarious shame and guilt. Motivation and Emotion, 30, 43-56.

Scho'npflug, U. (2001). Intergenerational transmission of values. Journal of Cross-

Cultural Psychology, 32,174-185.

Segall, M. H., Dasen, P. R., Berry, J. W., & Poortinga, Y. H. (1990). Human behavior in

global perspective: An introduction to cross-cultural psychology. Needham

Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Shweder, R.A., & Bourne, E.J. (1984). Does the concept of the person vary cross-

culturally? in Shweder, R.A., LeVine, R.A. (Eds),Culture Theory: Essays on

Mind, self and Emotion (pp. 158-199), Cambridge, England: University Press.

Singelis. M.T. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-

construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580-591.

Singelis,T. M., Bond, M. H., Lai, S. Y., & Sharkey, W. F. (1999). Unpackaging culture's

influence on self-esteem and embarrassability: The role of self-construals. Journal

of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 315-331.

204
Singelis. M.T., & Sharkey. F .W. (1995). Culture, self- construal, and embarrassability.

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 26(6): 622 - 644.

Singh-Manoux, A. (2000). Culture and gender issues in adolescence: evidence from

studies on emotion. Psicothema, 12, 93-100.

Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 30(A), 526-537.

Snyder, M. (1979). Self-monitoring processes. In Advances in Experimenral Sotrial

Psychology, 12 (Edited by Berkowitz L.). Academic Press, New York.

Snyder, M., & Gangestad, S. (1986). On the nature of self-monitoring: Matters of

assessment, matters of validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51,

125-139.

Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances/private realities: The Psychology of self-

monitoring. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Sodowsky, G. R., & Lai, E. W. M. (1997). Asian immigrant variables and structural

models of cross-cultural distress. In A. Booth, A. C. Crouter, & N. Landale (Eds.),

Immigration and the family: Research and policy on U.S. immigrants (pp. 211-234).

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stevens, J. (1996). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (3rd ed.).

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Stein, J. C., Newcomb, M. D., & Bentler, P. M. (1992). The effect of agency and

communality on self-esteem: Gender differences in longitudinal data. Sex Roles, 26,

465-483.

205
Szeto-Wong, C. (1997). Relation of race, gender, and acculturation to proness to guilt,

shame, and transferred shame among Asian and Caucasian Americans.

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.

Dissertation Abstract International (Section B): The Science and Engineering

5S(6-B), 3328.

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Computer-Assisted Research Design and

Analysis. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Tangney, J. P. (1991). Moral affect: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 598-607.

Tangney, J. P. (1992). Situational determinants of shame and guilt in young adulthood.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(2), 199-206.

Tangney, J. P. (1994). The mixed legacy of the superego: Adaptive and maladaptive

aspects of shame and guilt. In J. M. Masling & R. F. Bornstein (Eds.), Empirical

perspectives on object relation theory (pp. 2-28). Washington, DC: American

Psychological Association.

Tangney, J. P. (1995). Shame and guilt in interpersonal relations. In J. Tangney & K.

Ficher (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions (pp. 114-139). New York: Guilford

Press.

Tangney, J. P. (1998). How does guilt differ from shame? In J. Bybee (ed.), Guilt and

children (pp. 1-19). San Diego: Academic press.

Tangney, J. P. (1999). The self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment and

pride. In T. Daiglesh & M. J. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion

206
 (pp. 541-568). New York: John Wiley.

Tangney, J. P. (2002). Perfectionism and the self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt,

embarrassment and pride. In G. L. Hewitt & P. L. Flett (Ed.), Perfectionism:

Theory, research and treatment (pp. 199-215). Washington, DC: American

Psychological Association.

Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. New York: Guilford Press.

Tangney, J. P., & Fischer, K. W. (1995). Self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt,

embarrassment and pride. New York: Guilford Press.

Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996). Are shame, guilt, and

embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

70, 1256-1269.

Tangney, J., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. (2007). Moral emotions, moral cognitions, and

moral behavior. Annual Review, 58, 345-372.

Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P. E., & Gramzow, R. (1989). The test of self conscious affect.

Fairfax, VA: George Mason University.

Tang, T. N., & Dion. K. L. (1999). Gender and Acculturation in relation to

traditionalism: Perceptions of self and parents among Chinese students. Sex Roles,

41, 17-29.

Tardy, C. H., & Hoseman, L. A. (1982). Self-monitoring and self-disclosure flexibility: A

research note. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 46, 92-97.

Tavris, C. (1992). The mismeasure of women: Why women are not the better sex, the

inferior sex, or the opposite sex. New York: Simon and Schuster.

207
Taylor, G. (1985). Pride, shame and guilt: Emotions of self-assessment. Oxford:

Clarendon.

Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Kim, H. S., Jarcho, J., Takagi, K., & Dunagan, M. S.

(2004). Culture and social support: Who seeks it and why? Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 87, 354-362.

Taylor, S. E., Welch, W. T., Kim, H. S. & Sherman, D. K. (2007). Cultural differences in

the impact of social support on psychological and biological stress responses.

Psychological Science, 18(9), 831 -837.

Tinsley, C. H., & Weldon, E. (2003). Responses to a Normative Conflict among

American and Chinese Managers. International Journal of Cross Cultural

Management, 3(2), 183-194.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: A

theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 103-125.

Triandis, H. C. (1988). Collectivism v. individualism: A reconceptualization of a basic

concept in cross-cultural social psychology. In G. K. Verma & C. Bagley (eds.),

Cross-cultural studies of personality, attitudes and cognition (pp. 60-95). London:

Macmillan.

Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural context.

Psychological Review, 96(3), 506-520.

Triandis, H.C. (1990). Cross-cultural studies of individualism and collectivism in

Berman, J.J. (Eds), Nebraska symposium on motivation: Cross-cultural

perspective. Current theory and research in motivation, University of Nebraska

208
 Press, Lincoln, NE, 41-133.

Triandis, H. C. (1991). Cross-cultural differences in assertiveness/competition vs. Group

loyalty/cooperation. In R. A. Hinde & J. Groebel (Eds.), Cooperation and

prosocial behavior (pp. 78-88). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Triandis, H.C. (1994). Theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of

collectivism and individualism in Kim, U., Han'guk, S.H. (Eds), Individualism

and collectivism: Theory, method, and applications (pp. 41-51). Sage, Thousand

Oaks, CA.

Triandis, H.C. (1995), Individualism and Collectivism, Boulder Co, Westview.

Triandis, H. C., Bontempo, R., Villareal, M. J., Asai, M., & Lucca, N. (1988).

Individualism and collectivism: Cross-cultural perspectives on self-ingroup

relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 323-338.

Tsui, M., & Lynne, R. (2002). The only child and educational opportunity for girls in

urban China. Gender and Society 16 (1): 74-92.

Xie, B. (1998). The differences between shame and guilt among Chinese college students.

Peking University, Beijing, 1998.

Xie, B., & Qian, M. Y. (2000). Phenomenological differences between shame and guilt

among Chinese college students. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 32(1), 105-109.

Vess, D. (1998). Traditional views of women's roles.

http://www.faculty, de. gcsu. edu/~dvess/ gissues/tradch. htm

209
Walter, J. 1., & Burnaford, S. M. (2006). Developmental changes in adolescents' guilt and

shame: The role of family climate and gender. North American Journal of

Psychology, 8(2), 321-338.

Wang, L., & Fisher, K.W. (1994). The organization of shame in Chinese. Cognitive

development laboratory report, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Wang, Z. Y., Zhang, L. L., Gao, J., & Qian, M. Y. (2009). Similarities and differences of

shame experiences between Chinese and American college students. Chinese

Mental Health Journal, 23(2), 127-132.

Wellenkamp, J. C. (1995). Everyday conceptions of distress. In J. A. Russell, J. M.

Ferna'ndez-Dols, A. S. R. Manstead, & J. C. Wellenkamp (Eds.), Everyday

conceptions of emotion (pp. 267-280). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Wicker, F. W., Payne, G. C., & Morgan, R. D. (1983). Participant descriptions of guilt

and shame. Motivation and Emotion, 7, 25-39.

Wilson, R.W. (1973). Shame and behaviour in Chinese society. Asian Profde, 7(3), 431-

447.

Wilson, T. D., Meyers, J. & Gilbert, D. T. (2001). Lessons from the past: Do people learn

from experience that emotional reactions are short lived? Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1648-1661.

Wurmser, L. (1981). The mask of shame. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Yamaguchi, S. (1994). Collectivism among the Japanese: A perspective from the self. In

U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, C. Kagitcibasi, S. Choi, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism

and collectivism: Theory, method, and application (pp. 175-188). Newbury Park,

210
 CA: Sage.

Ying, Y., Lee, P.A., & Tsai, J.L. (2000). Cultural orientation and racial discrimination:

Predictors of coherence in Chinese American young adults. Journal of Community

Psychology, 28, 427-442.

Zheng, X., & Berry, J. W. (1991). Psychological adaptation of Chinese sojourners in

Canada. International Journal of Psychology, 26, 451- 470.

Zhu, W. (1992). Confucius and traditional Chinese education: An assessment. In R.

Hayhoe (Ed.), Education and modernization: The Chinese experience (pp. 3-22).

Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Zhu, R., Wang, T., & Qian, M. (1999). Correlation research of shame, mental health,

self-efficacy and self-esteem. Chinese Mental Health Journal(China), 13, 225-227.

211
 Footnotes
1
The Ba rong ba chi (Eight Honours and Eight Shames), officially the Core Value

System in current mainland China, is a set of moral concepts developed by current

Chairman Hu Jintao for the citizents of the People's Republic of China. It is being

promulgated as the moral code for all Chinese, especially Communist Party cadres. On

18, October of 2006, the Xinhua News Agency posted an English translation of Hu's list

on their website (http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/18/content_5220576.htm):

1. love the country; do it no harm. 2. Serve the people; never betray them. 3. Follow

science; discard ignorance. 4. Be diligent; not indolent. 5. Be united, help each other;

make no gains at others' expense. 6. Be honest and trustworthy; do not sacrifice ethics

for profit. 7. Be disciplined and law-abiding; not chaotic and lawless. 8. Live plainly,

work hard; do not wallow in luxuries and pleasures.

2
Chi- square analysis found no significant gender differences within cultures when

comparing shame and guilt or between cultures within the concepts of shame and guilt.
3
A11 the creations of three scenarios for each category of shame and guilt were based on

the original Study 1, which just had Chinese participants.

4
* item 24 to item 30 were from Tangney et al. (1996). The first 23 items were from

Qian et al. (2003).

212
Appendixes A

Study 1

The following questions ask you to recall a personal and potential distressing event.
Please answer them as honestly as possible. Note that your answers will be
completely anonymous, and you are free to not answer any question, or to
discontinue participation at any time. Please answer the following questions in
Mandarin.

1. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: guilt about harming
another person. In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as
possible.

2. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: guilt about trust
violation. In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as possible.

3. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: guilt (zui e gan) about
breaking moral. In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as
possible.

4. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: guilt (fan zui gan)
about breaking the law or rules. In the space below, please describe the situation in as
much detail as possible.

5. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: shame (xiu chi) about
very deep shame (Feeling of shame that occurs with perceived social failure; A stain on
the face). In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as possible.

6. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: shame (can kui) about
feeling of shame that occurs with failure to attain a personal ideal. In the space
below, please describe the situation in as much detail as possible.

7. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: shame (diu lian) about
loss of face (Feeling of shame that occurs with loss of reputation or standing in the eyes
of others). In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as possible.

8. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: shame (xiu kui) about
feeling of shame occasioned by perceived personal failure resulting in harm to
someone else. In the space below, please describe the situation in as much detail as
possible.

213
9. Imagine a time when you experienced the following emotion: shame (nan wei qing)
about embarrassment due to social impropriety. In the space below, please describe
the situation in as much detail as possible.

214
Appendixes B

Study 2 (part 1)

Read the following scenarios, please give the order (1, 2, 3) for each
following categories, 1 represents the best example, 3 represents the
weakest example. You can write the order in front of each category.

A. guilt about harming another person

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of Al, A2 and A3. (For example, if Al is the
best example, you just write number 1 in front of Al.)

Al. You are at a party and talking with some friends about the classes you took last term.
You make a joke about how easy one class is, and how dumb a person would have to be
not to get an A in this class. One of your friends looks shocked and hurt and you
suddenly remember her telling you that she only got a D in the course last term and had
to take the course again. You realize that she must think you are talking about her.

A2. You are shopping with a friend, who tries something on in every store, but can't
decide whether she likes anything enough to buy it. You are hot and tired and starting to
feel irritated by her. She is trying on the fifth pair of jeans in yet another store and once
again can't decide if she likes them or not. She tells you that she likes them but is worried
that they make her look fat. You snap back that everything makes her look fat so she may
as well get the ones she likes. You mean this to be funny, but your friend is visibly
shaken and rushes back into the change room in tears.

A3. It is the first real snowfall of the year, and you and some friends are throwing
snowballs and laughing and chasing one another. Another friend shows up and calls your
name. You have a snowball in your hand so you playfully throw it at him. But you throw
it harder than you had intended, and it hits him in the face, breaking his glasses. He
shouts and covers his face as blood starts to run from a cut above his eye.

B. guilt about trust violation

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of Bl, B2 and B3.

Bl. Your friend works as a cashier in a small clothing store. You stop in to visit with her
and she asks you to watch the store while she goes to get something from the back room.
There are a couple of teenagers in the store who are looking at a pink shirt and giggling.
You watch them for a while but then get distracted and start flipping through a magazine
that your friend left on the counter. When you look up again, the teenagers, and the shirt,
are gone. You realize that they have stolen it, and that your friend is now going to get into
trouble with her boss.

215
B2. You are looking to buy a used computer and find a great laptop that is advertised for
about $100 more than you can afford. You ask a friend if you can borrow the $100 so that
you can buy the computer, and promise to pay him back after you get your next pay
check. Right after you get the computer, several major events happen in your life, and
you completely forget about the money and don't pay him back.

B3. A good friend confides in you about how much she is attracted to a man you both
know, even though he already has a girlfriend and is clearly not interested in your friend.
You promise that you won't tell anyone about this, but several weeks later this man's
name comes up at a party, and you tell the people you are talking to about your friend's
unrequited crush on this man.

C. fan zui gan—guilt—break the law and rules

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of CI, C2 and C3.

CI. You are in a store with some friends of yours and you see a pen with a funny picture
on it. You think it's cute, but don't think it's worth the $10 they are asking for it. You
look around and see that the store owner is talking to your friends and not paying any
attention. On an impulse, you grab the pen and slip it inside your coat. You then leave
with your friends, without ever paying for the pen.

C2. You have been up studying for days and are exhausted. You finally get into bed and
try to get a couple of hours of sleep before you have to get up to start studying again. Just
as you fall asleep, you are awakened by your roommate's cat, which is meowing and
meowing outside of your roommate's bedroom door. You lie awake, waiting for your
roommate to wake up and do something about the cat. After 15 minutes, furious with the
cat and with your roommate, you stomp out of your bedroom, grab your roommate's cat,
open your roommate's bedroom door and hurl the cat all the way across the room.

C3. As a joke, you unscrew the front wheel of a bike that belongs to one of your
neighbours, a woman you don't like very much. You think that the wheel will fall off as
soon as she unlocks her bike. However, later that day, you watch from the window of
your living room as she comes out of her house, unlocks and then gets on her bike and
cycles off. She is less than half a block away when the front wheel comes off and she
falls over the front of the bicycle onto her face. People rush to help her, because she is
obviously hurt.

D. zui e gan—guilt—break the moral

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of Dl, D2 and D3.

216
D1. One day at work your supervisor calls you into her office and asks you about how
you and a co-worker have been dividing your tasks. You have heard that your supervisor
is considering promoting your co-worker to a new position and realize that she is really
looking for information about your co-worker's skills and abilities. You and this co-
worker have recently had an argument and you are still annoyed, so you tell your
supervisor that you do all the tasks requiring responsibility and judgment and imply that
your co-worker is unreliable and does no work, even though these things are not true.

D2. Your friend has a plot in a community garden, and one day you go to visit her while
she works in little plot of land. You notice that one of the neighbouring plots of land has
many ripe strawberries growing in it. While your friend is out of sight, you go and eat all
of the neighbour's ripe strawberries, leaving hardly any berries on the plants.

D3. You know that you have a term paper that is due at the end of the month and that you
need to start working on it right away, but you keep postponing starting the paper, and
keep going to movies, watching television, and spending time with your friends instead
of working. You end up having to research and write the entire paper in less that a week
in order to get it done in time.

E. xiu chi—very deep shame—perceived social failure— or a stain on the face

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of El, E2 and E3.

El. Your class was assigned a reading and you didn't do it. Your instructor asks you and
two other students to lead the discussion of the reading for this class. You pretend to have
done the reading and hope that you can get away with it, but 10 minutes into the class the
instructor stops the discussion and explains to the class how the comments you have
made about the reading show that you have not having done the reading and that you
have lied to the class about it.

E2. You enter a classroom early and see an ipod lying on the floor under a chair. You
realize that it must have fallen from someone's coat or bag. No one is around, so you
decide to take the ipod for yourself because you've always wanted one. You quickly pick
it up and start stuffing it into your own bag. Just then, a group of 3 students shows up at
the door and one shouts "Hey, that's mine—you're stealing my ipod!"

E3. You are getting ready to leave a party at your friend's house but can't find your cell
phone. One of the people who already left the party was once arrested for shoplifting, and
you think that they must have taken your phone. You tell your friend about your missing
phone, and about your suspicions. Your friend gets very angry and says that the other
guest could not have taken the phone. You also get angry and you and your friend start
having a heated argument. Several other people come by and get involved in the
argument, most of them defending the departed guest. About 10 minutes into the
argument you remember that you actually left your phone at home, so you turn and stomp
out of the party without admitting that you are wrong.

217
F. can kui—-failure to attain a personal ideal

Give the order 1,2, and 3 to the examples of F1, F 2 and F 3.

FI. You study hard for an exam in a course that you really like on a topic you hope to
keep studying. When the exam results come back, you get a 70%, while all of your
friends in the class get marks over 80%.

F2. You have always hoped to be a medical doctor, ever since you were a child. But you
haven't really studied as hard as you know you should, and in your third year of
university, you realize that your grades are not good enough to get you into any of the
medical schools in North America, and you will never become a doctor.

F3. You have spent many years taking lessons on several musical instruments and music
is a central and important part of your life. Although you have played piano, guitar and
clarinet for as long as you can remember, though, you have never become more than just
adequate at any of them. You finally realize that you will never be more than a mediocre
musician.

G. diu lian—loss offace—loss of reputation or standing in the eyes of others

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples of G 1, G 2 and G 3.

G1. You are voted as the best speaker in your class in high school and are asked to give a
speech at the graduation ceremonies in front of all the graduating students and their
parents. You have memorized your speech but when you get up in front of the audience,
you are so nervous that you forget your speech and, when you try to read it from your
notes, you get all confused realize and mix up the pages.

G2. You are in a rush to get ready for class first thing in the morning and you get up and
get dressed in a hurry. You arrive in class late, and most of the seats are already taken.
You find a seat at the front and take off your coat and sit down and only then realize that
you have put your shirt on inside out.

G3. You and some friends join a basketball competition where students from different
colleges compete to see how many baskets they can shoot from the foul line. Before long
you realize that you are by far the worst person in the competition and that everyone else
is succeeding more than twice as often as you do.

H. xiu kui, perceived personal failure resulting in harm to someone else

Give the order 1, 2, and 3 to the examples ofH\,H2 and H 3.

HI. You start dating a person that who is very nice and who you know really likes you.
One night you are at a party and meet someone else who you know you couldn't really
have a relationship with but whom you find very attractive. Although you know that it

218
would break your partner's heart if they found out, by the end of the evening, you and
this sexy stranger are kissing in a dark corner of the living room.

H2. A friend of yours gets in an argument one night as you and your friend are leaving a
bar. The argument descends into pushing and shoving. You join your friend in this
argument and when the pushing starts, you shove the stranger as hard as you can. The
stranger falls over, hits their head on the car behind them, and are knocked unconscious.

H3. When you start university, you tell a few people that you know a famous music
producer who lives in your neighbourhood. A new friend of yours who is a musician
hears about this and asks if you could get this producer to listen to his demo tape. You
take the tape and then, rather than admitting that you lied about knowing the producer,
tell your friend that you gave the producer the music tape. Whenever your friend asks
about whether the producer has commented on the tape you say no, and your friend ends
up thinking that this producer hated his tape.

I. shame—nan wei qing - embarrassment due to social impropriety

Give the order 1,2, and 3 to the examples of H1, H 2 and H 3.

II. The professor in one of your classes asks people for answers to the homework
questions and you pride yourself on always having them right. This week you are quick
to offer an answer to the professor's first question, and the professor smiles at you
expectantly as you start answering. The smile turns to puzzlement and a frown as you are
speaking, though. The professor says that your answer is not correct and actually
completely misses the underlying concept. Several students laugh at you as the professor
turns to get the correct answer from someone else.

12. You are looking for a bathroom at a party, and walk into a dark bedroom by mistake.
You are surprised to stumble into a couple who are engaged in a passionate embrace on
the bed. You quickly back out mumbling apologies and hear them laughing as you close
the door.

13. Your friends all have more spending money than you do. Going out with them is
becoming difficult since you cannot afford to eat or drink at the same places that they do.
This time when they ask you out on a Friday night, you say that you cannot go out and
need to stay in to study. In front of all of your friends, one of the guys says that if money
is the issue, he'll just pay for you, thereby making you feel cheap as well as poor.

219
Appendix C

The mean of three scenarios for each category of shame and guilt in the first rating

Categories of shame and guilt Mean Mean Mean

(Scenario 1) (Scenario 2) (Scenario 3)
A. neijiu-1 —harming
another person 1.4 2.6 2
B. neijiu-2 —trust violation 2.6 1.6 1.8
C. fan zui gan (guilt)—break the
law and rules 1.2 2.8 2
D. zui e gan (guilt)—break the
moral 1.2 2.2 2.6
E. xiu chi—very deep shame—
perceived social failure 1.6 2.2 2.2
F. can kui—failure to attain a
personal ideal 2.4 1.2 2.4
G. diu lian—loss of face—loss of
reputation 1.4 2.4 2.2
H.xiu kui— perceived personal
failure resulting in harm to
someone else 1.8 1.8 2.4
I. nan wei qing— embarrassment 1.4 3 1.6

220
AppendixL:Regressionsofself-regulationofguilt

Study 2 (part 2)

Rating survey of three categories of shame

Please rate the order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for each following category, which one is the best
example? which one is the second good example ?
You can write the number you rate beside each example.
****category E (very deep shame—perceived social failure). Which example in the
following is good example for category E. please give the order, for example, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

El. Your class was assigned a reading and you didn't do it. Your instructor asks you and
two other students to lead the discussion of the reading for this class. You pretend to have
done the reading and hope that you can get away with it, but 10 minutes into the class the
instructor stops the discussion and explains to the class how the comments you have
made about the reading show that you have not having done the reading and that you
have lied to the class about it. (did badly in job)

E2. You enter a classroom early and see an ipod lying on the floor under a chair. You
realize that it must have fallen from someone's coat or bag. No one is around, so you
decide to take the ipodfor yourself because you've always wanted one. You quickly pick
it up and start stuffing it into your own bag. Just then, a group of 3 students shows up at
the door and one shouts "Hey, that's mine—you 're stealing my ipod!" (stealing)

E3. You are getting ready to leave a party at your friend's house but can't find your cell
phone. One of the people who already left the party was once arrested for shoplifting, and
you think that they must have taken your phone. You tell your friend about your missing
phone, and about your suspicions. Your friend gets very angry and says that the other
guest could not have taken the phone. You also get angry and you and your friend start
having a heated argument. Several other people come by and get involved in the
argument, most of them defending the departed guest. About 10 minutes into the
argument you remember that you actually left your phone at home, so you turn and stomp
out of the party without admitting that you are wrong, (persevering in an argument when
knowing you are wrong)

E4. As you are leaving the locker room of the gym one day, you notice that someone has
left the door to the other locker room open. You are surprised and stop and look in. As
you peer into the door, you come face to face with several people changing, many of
whom are naked. One of them sees you, points and shouts at you. You quickly pull your
head out of the doorway and turn to leave, but in doing so run into somebody coming in.
They look at you with a combination of laughter and pity. "Did you see everything you
wanted to see? " they say, as they push past you into the room, (caught doing wrong
things)

221
E5. You agree to participate in a research experiment but arrive early. The participant
sitting next is also waiting her turn, and she gets called in first. She leaves her knapsack
and coat on the chair beside you. While you wait, you are reading for your next class.
You find a really important point in your reading that you want to underline, but your pen
stops working. You can't find another pen, but then look over and see that there is a pen
in the front pocket of the knapsack beside you. You agonize about it for a few minutes
but finally decide to quickly borrow the pen and then put it back before the other student
returns. Just as you reach your hand into her knapsack to get the pen, the door opens and
the student and experimenter come out. They both stop, shocked at what they see. "What
are you doing?!" asks the student, (caught doing wrong things)

Please give the order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for each following category, which one
is the best example? which one is the second good example ?
You can write the number you rate beside each example.
Category F (failure to attain a personal ideal). Which example in the following is good
example for category F. please give the order. For example, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Fl. You study hard for an exam in a course that you really like on a topic you hope to
keep studying. When the exam results come back, you get a 70%, while all of your friends
in the class get marks over 80%. (failed at exam)

F2. You have always hoped to be a medical doctor, ever since you were a child. But you
haven't really studied as hard as you know you should, and in your third year of
university, you realize that your grades are not good enough to get you into any of the
medical schools in North America, and you will never become a doctor, (not achieving
academic/personal goals)

F3. You have spent many years taking lessons on several musical instruments and music
is a central and important part of your life. Although you have played piano, guitar and
clarinet for as long as you can remember, though, you have never become more than just
adequate at any of them. You finally realize that you will never be more than a mediocre
musician, (not accomplishing much)

F4. At school you were always known as "musical", and everyone in your family was
very proud of this. Your mother, in particular, always spoke about how talented you were,
perhaps because she had always wanted to study music herself and wanted you to have
the opportunity that she did not have. As you get older, however, you begin to realize that
you are not as talented as people said you were when you were younger, and when it
comes time to go to university, you decide to stop playing altogether, claiming to be to

222
busy. In reality, you would rather quit than admit to everyone that you are a mediocre
musician, (disappointing others' expectations)

F5. You like to think of yourself as a generous and caring person, and have always gone
out of your way to behave in ways consistent with this image. On a very cold winter day,
you are walking down the street with a friend, and she is telling you a very animated
story about a recent trip she took. You have your head down to avoid the wind, but out of
the corner of your eye you see a man hunched over an air vent on the sidewalk. You have
seen this man on the street before and had noticed him because he always seemed so
dignified and sad. He is wearing only a sweater and has a thin blanket wrapped over his
knees, with his back and head exposed to the cold and the wind. You are walking quickly
and your friend doesn 't notice him, so you go by him without saying or doing anything.
Later that day, you think about him and how you could have bought him a cheap hat and
mittens at the store across the street, given him money for coffee to get him out of the
cold, or even contacted a police officer to check that he was okay. You did none of these
things, and you question whether you really are a caring person, (no help others)
Please give the order (1, 2, 3) for each following category, which one is the
best example? which one is the second good example ?
You can write the number you rate beside each example.
Category G (loss of face or reputation). Which example in the following is good example
for category G. please give the order. For example, 1, 2, 3.

Gl. You are voted as the best speaker in your class in high school and are asked to give a
speech at the graduation ceremonies in front of all the graduating students and their
parents. You have memorized your speech but when you get up in front of the audience,
you are so nervous that you forget your speech and, when you try to read it from your
notes, you get all confused realize and mix up the pages.

G2. You are in a rush to get ready for class first thing in the morning and you get up and
get dressed in a hurry. You arrive in class late, and most of the seats are already taken.
You find a seat at the front and take off your coat and sit down and only then realize that
you have put your shirt on inside out.

G3. You and some friends join a basketball competition where students from different
colleges compete to see how many baskets they can shoot from the foul line. Before long
you realize that you are by far the worst person in the competition and that everyone else
is succeeding more than twice as often as you do.

223
Appendix L: Regressions ofself-regulationofguilt

1). The second ratings (percentage) for three categories of shame

Categories/scenarios of shame 1st. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. 5th.

and guilt order order order order order

xiu chi—very Scenario 1 0% 43% 14% 14% 0%

deep shame— Scenario 2
perceived 29% 29% 29% 43% 14%
social failure Scenario 3 29% 0% 14% 43% 14%
Scenario 4 29% 29% 14% 0% 29%
Scenario 5 14% 0% 29% 14% 43%
can kui— Scenario 1 14% 29% 29% 29% 0%
failure to attain Scenario 2 29% 0% 29% 29% 14%
a personal Scenario 3 14% 29% 14% 29% 14%
ideal Scenario4 0% 0% 29% 14% 57%
Scenario5 43% 43% 0% 0% 14%
diu lian—loss Scenario 1 57% 29% 14%
offace/ Scenario 2 43% 29% 29%
reputation Scenario 3 0% 43% 57%

224
2). The mean of the scenarios for three categories of shame ftom the second ratings

Categories Mean Mean

of shame Mean Mean
(Scenario 1) (Scenario 2) Mean
Yin r'L;
-AlU L^nl (Scenario 3) (Scenario 4">
3 2.43 (Scenario 5)
Can Kui 3.14 2.71 3.71
2.71 3
Diu Lian 3 4.29
1.57 1.86 2
2.57

225
AppendixL:Regressionsofself-regulationofguilt

Study 3

1). Demographics for European Canadian Participants

Please answer the following questions about yourself.

1. Gender: L! Female
n Male

2. Age

3. If you are a student, what is your year of study? o 1 st year

u 2 nd year
0 3 rd year
0 4 th year

4. If you are a student, program of study? 0 Undergraduate

D Graduate

5. If you are a student, what is your Major/Degree/Area of Study?

6. Please indicate which of the following cultural n Asian u Native American/First Nations
groups you belong to (Check all that apply) a African 0 South/Central American
D Black 0 South Asian (e.g., Chinese, Japanese)
0 Caribbean D White
a East Asian (e.g, D Other - Please Specify:
Indian, Pakistani)
0 European
0 Hispanic

7. In what country were you born?

If you were not born in Canada, what year did you move here?

8. What country was your mother b o m in?

9. What country was your father born in?

10. First language(s) spoken:

11. What language do you usually speak with your parents?

12. With which religious groups do you identify? O Buddhist Q Protestant

0 Catholic 0 None
0 Hindu 0 Other - Please Specify:
O Jewish
D Muslim
13. If English is not your first language, at what age did you leam
English?

226
Demographics for Chinese Participants

Please answer the following questions about yourself.

1. Gender: O Female
0 Male

2. Age

3. If you are a student, what is your year of study? • 1 st year

• 2 nd year
• 3 l d year
0 4 t h year

4. If you are a student, program of study? a Undergraduate

• Graduate

5. If you are a student, what is your Major/Degree/Area of

Study?

6. In what country were you born?

If you were not born in China, what year did you move here?

7. First language(s) spoken:

8. What language do you usually speak with your parents?

9. If Mandarin is not your first language, at what age did

you learn Mandarin? __

10. With which religious groups do you identify? • Buddhist • Protestant

• Catholic • None
• Hindu • Other - Please Specify:
O Jewish
• Muslim
 2). Self-regulation of shame and guilt

Please read the following scenarios carefully. Try to imagine yourself in each

scenario:

1. You are at a party and talking with some friends about the classes you took last term.
You make a joke about how easy one class is, and how dumb a person would have to be
not to get an A in this class. One of your friends looks shocked and hurt and you
suddenly remember her telling you that she only got a D in the course last term and had
to take the course again. You realize that she must think you are talking about her.

Imagine that you were in this situation. How likely is it that you would do the

following?

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

Never use Definitely use

this strategy Unsure this strategy

I would:

1. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Confront the problem directly.

2. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Find a good method to solve the problem.
3. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Apologize for my bad behaviour.
4. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Not think about the event.
5. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Keep my distance from the people who had seen what I
had done.
6. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Imagine a different outcome of this event.
7. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Tell myself never do this again.
8. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Wish that I had never done it or done it in another way.
9. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them.
10. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Tell myself that these feelings are not so bad.
11. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Tell this story to someone else to get some advice.
12. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Tell others about my unhappy feelings.
13. -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Other - not included in above lists:
Explain:

(Each scenario has the same questions as above..)

2. It is the first real snowfall of the year, and you and some friends are throwing
snowballs and laughing and chasing one another. Another friend shows up and calls your
name. You have a snowball in your hand so you playfully throw it at him. But you throw

228
it harder than you had intended, and it hits him in the face, breaking his glasses. He
shouts and covers his face as blood starts to run from a cut above his eye.

3. You are looking to buy a used computer and find a great laptop that is advertised for
about $100 more than you can afford. You ask a friend if you can borrow the $100 so that
you can buy the computer, and promise to pay him back after you get your next pay
check. Right after you get the computer, several major events happen in your life, and
you completely forget about the money and don't pay him back.

4. A good friend confides in you about how much she is attracted to a man you both
know, even though he already has a girlfriend and is clearly not interested in your friend.
You promise that you won't tell anyone about this, but several weeks later this man's
name comes up at a party, and you tell the people you are talking to about your friend's
crush on this man.

5. You are in a store with some friends of yours and you see a pen with a funny picture
on it. You think it's cute, but don't think it's worth the $10 they are asking for it. You
look around and see that the store owner is talking to your friends and not paying
attention to you. On an impulse, you grab the pen and slip it inside your coat. You then
leave with your friends, without paying for the pen.

6. As a joke, you unscrew the front wheel of a bike that belongs to one of your
neighbours, a woman you don't like very much. You think that the wheel will fall off as
soon as she unlocks her bike. However, later that day, you watch from the window of
your living room as she comes out of her house, unlocks her bike, and then gets on and
cycles away. She is less than half a block away when the front wheel comes off and she
falls forward over the handlebars of the bicycle. People rush to help her, because she is
obviously hurt.

7. One day at work your supervisor calls you into her office and asks you about how you
and a co-worker have been dividing your tasks. You have heard that your supervisor is
considering promoting your co-worker to a new position and realize that she is really
looking for information about your co-worker's skills and abilities. You and this co-
worker have recently had an argument and you are still angry, so you tell your supervisor
that you do all the tasks requiring responsibility and judgment and imply that your co-
worker is unreliable and does no work, even though these things are not true.

8. Your friend has a garden plot in a community garden. One day you go to visit her
while she works in her little plot of land. You notice that one of the neighbouring plots
has many ripe strawberries growing in it. While your friend is not looking, you pick and
eat all of the neighbour's ripe strawberries, leaving hardly any berries on the plants.

9. You enter a classroom early and see an ipod lying on the floor under a chair. You
realize that it must have fallen from someone's coat or bag. No one is around, so you

229
decide to take the ipod for yourself because you've always wanted one. You quickly pick
it up and start stuffing it into your own bag. Just then, a group of 3 students shows up at
the door and one shouts "Hey, that's mine—you're stealing my ipod!"

10. As you are leaving the locker room of the gym one day, you notice that someone has
left the door to the other locker room open. You are surprised and stop and look in. You
come face to face with several people changing, many of whom are naked. One of them
sees you, points and shouts at you. You quickly pull your head out of the doorway and
turn to leave, but in doing so run into somebody coming in. They look at you with a
combination of laughter and pity. "Did you see everything you wanted to see?" they say,
as they push past you into the room.

11. You study hard for an exam in a course that you really like. It is on a topic you hope
to keep studying in the future. When the exam results come back, you get a 70%, while
all of your friends in the class get marks over 80%.

12. You like to think of yourself as a generous and caring person, and have always gone
out of your way to behave in ways consistent with this image. On a very cold winter day,
you are shopping and walking down the street with a friend. She is telling you a very
animated story about a recent trip she took. You have your head down to avoid the wind,
but out of the corner of your eye you see a man hunched over an air vent on the sidewalk.
He has no coat and has a thin blanket wrapped over his knees, with his back and head
exposed to the cold and the wind. You are walking quickly and your friend doesn't notice
him, so you go by him without saying or doing anything to help him, although you easily
could have given him food, money, or your spare mittens.

13. You are voted as the best speaker in your class in high school and are asked to give a
speech at the graduation ceremonies in front of all the graduating students and their
parents. You have memorized your speech but when you get up in front of the audience,
you are so nervous that you forget your speech. You try to read it from your notes, but
you get all confused and realize that you have mixed up the pages.

14. You are in a rush to get ready for class first thing in the morning. You get up and get
dressed in a hurry. You arrive in class late, and most of the seats are already taken. You
find a seat at the front, take off your coat and sit down. Only then do you realize that you
have put your shirt on inside out.

15. You start dating a person who is very nice and who you know really likes you. One
night you are at a party and meet someone else who you know you couldn't really have a
relationship with but whom you find very attractive. Although you know that it would
break your partner's heart if they found out, by the end of the evening, you and this sexy
stranger are kissing in a dark corner of the living room.

230
16. As you and a friend are leaving a bar one night, your friend gets into an argument
with a stranger who bumped into your friend in the doorway. The argument descends into
pushing and shoving. You join your friend in this argument and when the pushing starts,
you shove the stranger as hard as you can. The stranger falls and hits their head, and
momentarily loses consciousness.

17. The professor in one of your classes always asks people for answers to the homework
questions. You pride yourself on always having them right. This week you are quick to
offer an answer to the professor's first question, and the professor smiles at you
expectantly as you start answering. The smile turns to puzzlement and a frown as you are
speaking, though. The professor says that your answer is not correct and actually
completely misses the underlying concept. Several students laugh at you as the professor
turns to get the correct answer from someone else.

18. Your friends all have more spending money than you do. Going out with them is
becoming difficult since you cannot afford to eat or drink at the same places that they do.
This time when they ask you out on a Friday night, you say that you cannot go out and
need to stay in to study. In front of all of your friends, one of them says that if money is
the issue, she'll just pay for you, thereby making you feel cheap as well as poor.

231
The Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994)

Please rate each of the following statements using the following rating scale:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly
Strongly
disagree agree

Write the corresponding number after each sentence. For example, if you are fairly
certain that apples and oranges are similar, you use the scale in the following way.

6 I believe that apples are similar to oranges.

1. I have respect for the authority figures with whom I interact.

2. It is important for me to maintain harmony within my group.
3. My happiness depends on the happiness of those around me.
4. I would offer my seat in a bus to my professor.
5. I respect people who are modest about themselves.
6. I will sacrifice my self-interest for the benefit of the group I am in.
7. I often have the feeling that my relationships with others are more important
than my own accomplishments.
8. I should take into consideration my parents' advice when making
education/career plans.
9. It is important to me to respect decisions made by the group.
10 . I will stay in a group if they need me, even when I'm not happy with the
group.
11 . If my brother or sister fails, I feel responsible.
12 . Even when I strongly disagree with group members, I avoid an argument.
13 . I'd rather say "No" directly, than risk being misunderstood.
14 . Speaking up during a class is not a problem for me.
15 . Having a lively imagination is important to me.
16 . I am comfortable with being singled out for praise or rewards.
17 . I am the same person at home that I am at school.
18 . Being able to take care of myself is a primary concern for me.
19 . I act the same way no matter who I am with.
20 . I feel comfortable using someone's first name soon after I meet them, even
when
they are much older than I am.
21 . I prefer to be direct and forthright when dealing with people I've just met.
22 . I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects.
23 . My personal identity independent of others, is very important to me.
24 . I value being in good health above everything.

232
Self-monitoring Scale (SMS, Snyder & Gangestad,1986)

DIRECTIONS: The statements below concern your personal reactions to a number of

different situations. No two statements are exactly alike, so consider each statement
carefully before answering. Please use the following scale to indicate how much you
agree with the following statements. Circle your response.

1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree

2 3 4 5 1.1 find it hard to imitate the behavior of other people.

2 3 4 5 2. At parties and social gatherings, I do not attempt to do or
say things that others will like.
2 3 4 5 3.1 can only argue for ideas which I already believe.
2 3 4 5 4.1 can make impromptu speeches even on topics about which
I have almost no information.
2 3 4 5 5.1 guess I put on a show to impress or entertain people.
2 3 4 5 6.1 would probably make a good actor.
2 3 4 5 7. In groups of people, I am rarely the center of attention.
2 3 4 5 8. In different situations and with different people, I often act
like very different persons.
2 3 4 5 9.1 am not particularly good at making other people like me.
2 3 4 5 10. I'm not always the person I appear to be.
2 3 4 5 11.1 would not change my opinions (or the way I do things) in
order to please someone else or win their favor.
2 3 4 5 12.1 have considered being an entertainer.
2 3 4 5 13.1 have never been good at games like charades or
improvisational acting.
2 3 4 5 14.1 have trouble changing my behavior to suit different
people and different situations.
2 3 4 5 15. At a party, I let others keep the jokes and stories going.
2 3 4 5 16.1 feel a bit awkward in company and do not show up quite
as well as I should.
2 3 4 5 17.1 can look anyone in the eye and tell a lie with a straight
face (if for a right end).
2 3 4 5 18.1 may deceive people by being friendly when I really
dislike them.

233
AppendixL:Regressionsofself-regulationofguilt

1). Survey for reducing items

Please categorize the 30 items to fit the following 9 categories:

A: approach method; B: avoidance methods; C: Counterfactual methods; D: Face the reality;
E: Self-soothing methods; F: Seeking support methods; G: pray; H: Regret this behaviour and
like to do better; I: belong to other category

You can write down the A,B,C,D, E, F, G, H, and I categories before the following each
number.

1. Confront the problem directly, (item 1 of SRSGS)

2. Find a good method to solve the problem, (item 2 of SRSGS)
3. Avoid talking about and discussing the event which has just happened.
4. Tell this story to someone else to get some advice, (item 11 of SRSGS)
5. Not think about the event, (item 4 of SRSGS)
6. Do other things to distract myself.
7. Imagine that I had already adopted some solutions
8. Imagine a different outcome of this event, (item 6 of SRSGS)
9. Let myself see the positive side of this event.
10. Realize that this has already happened, and it can not be undone.
11. Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them, (item 9 of SRSGS)
12. Realize that it does not matter.
13. Release negative feelings by eating, sleeping or doing intense exercises.
14. Hide my own feelings
15. Pretend it did not happen.
16. Write down what happened and my feelings about it.
17. Tell others about my unhappy feelings, (item 12 of SRSGS)
18. Pray to be forgiven
19. Pray to let the negative feelings disappear.
20. Tell myself that these feelings are not so bad. (item 10 of SRSGS)
21. Try to explain the event away by laughing or making a joke with others to reduce the
embarrassment.
22. Let time erase everything.
23. Tell myself that everyone will forget.
24.* Feel that I have violated moral norms 4.
25.* Tell myself never do this again, (item 7 of SRSGS)
26.* Adopt a different strategy to remedy the situation.
27.* Wish that I had never done it or done it in another way. (item 8 of SRSGS)
28.* Apologize for my bad behaviour, (item 3 of SRSGS)
29.* Apologize in order to maintain my relationship.
30.* Keep my distance from the people who saw what I had done (item 5 of SRSGS)

234
2). Final 12 items for responses to shame and guilt:

1. Confront the problem directly.

2. Find a good method to solve the problem.
3. Apologize for my bad behaviour.
4. Not think about the event.
5. Keep my distance from the people who had seen what I had done.

6. Imagine a different outcome of this event.

7. Tell myself never do this again.
8. Wish that I had never done it or done it in another way.
9. Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them.
10. Tell myself that these feelings are not so bad.
11. Tell this story to someone else to get some advice.
12. Tell others about my unhappy feelings.
13. Other - not included in above lists:
Explain:

235
Appendix H

la). Factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt in mainland Chinese

Items Problem Denial & Counterfactual Support Other(self-

focused Avoidance thinking seeking soothing)
coping
Item 1 .84 .02 -.00 -.03 .12

Item 2 .81 -.06 .06 -.05 .02

Item 3 .69 -.08 -.06 -.03 -.27

Item 4 -.12 .64 .00 .08 .18

Item 5 -.17 .73 .09 -.08 -.13

Item 6 .06 .53 -.11 .03 -.24

Item 7 .24 .01 -.52 -.03 -.56

Item 8 .00 -.04 -.90 .03 -.08

Item 9 -.08 .13 -.44 -.15 .18

Item 10 .08 .61 -.09 -.07 .31

Item 11 .25 .03 .08 -.75 -.14

Item 12 -.10 -.04 -.08 -.96 .07

Notel: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distancefromthe people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done
it in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

Note2: Factors could not be extracted by using Factor Axis Factroing in international Chinese
group when split file.

236
lb). Factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt in Chinese Canadian

Items Problem Denial & Counterfactual Support Other(self-

focused Avoidance thinking seeking soothing)
coping
Item 1 .98 -.04 .16 .04 .06

Item 2 .76 .01 -.11 -.06 -.04

Item 3 .85 -.00 -.06 .01 -.03

Item 4 -.03 .72 .09 -.15 .14

Item 5 -.08 .77 .02 .08 -.12

Item 6 .04 .37 -.36 .22 .06

Item 7 -.06 -.11 -.92 -.08 -.04

Item 8 .14 .02 -.77 .06 .03

Item 9 .07 -.09 -.05 -.00 .77

Item 10 -.12 .15 .07 .05 .67

Item 11 -.02 -.12 -.02 .87 .10

Item 12 .02 .07 .05 .98 -.06

Note: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done
it in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

237
lc). Factor loadings for self-regulation of guilt in European Canadian

Items Problem Denial & Counterfactual Support Other(self-

focused Avoidance thinking seeking soothing)
coping
Item 1 1.00 -.02 -.15 .00 .05

Item 2 .89 -.04 .06 -.01 -.03

Item 3 .87 .06 -.18 -.02 -.01

Item 4 -.18 .57 .13 .05 .15

Item 5 -.01 .75 .35 .06 .07

Item 6 .00 .43 -.10 -.19 -.19

Item 7 .11 -.08 .91 .04 .06

Item 8 .00 -.08 .99 .05 .01

Item 9 .01 -.09 .11 -.22 .63

Item 10 .01 .19 -.05 .05 .97

Item 11 .04 -.06 -.08 -.89 .10

Item 12 .01 .02 -.02 -.87 .01

Note: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done
it in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappyfeelings.

238
2a). Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame in international Chinese

Items Problem Denial Avoidance Counterfactual Support

focused thinking seeking
coping
Item 1 .94 .01 .10 .03 .01

Item 2 .94 -.04 .06 -.04 -.01

Item 3 .56 .07 -.51 -.02 -.28

Item 4 -.01 .73 -.06 -.22 .04

Item 5 -.15 .00 -.89 .03 .09

Item 6 -.11 .08 .12 -.96 .08

Item 7 .38 -.16 -.37 .15 -.01

Item 8 .32 -.18 -.22 -.51 .01

Item 9 .43 .05 .27 -.26 .47

Item 10 .03 .81 .02 .16 .21

Item 11 .01 .01 -.11 -.06 .93

Item 12 -.06 -.03 -.03 .01 .97

Notel: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 7: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done it
in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

Note2: Factors could not be extracted by using Factor Axis Factroing in mainland Chinese and
Chinese Canadians when split file.

239
2b). Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame in European Canadian

Items Problem Denial/ Counterfactual Support Other(self-

focused Avoidance thinking seeking soothing)
coping
Item 1 .67 -.29 .04 -.09 .18

Item 2 .72 -.28 .22 .07 .17

Item 3 .83 .22 -.15 -.21 -.08

Item 4 -.15 .43 -.02 .08 .14

Item 5 -.01 .79 .14 .01 -.09

Item 6 -.15 .09 .75 -.14 -.05

Item 7 .45 .04 .50 -.10 .10

Item 8 .11 .03 .85 .01 .07

Item 9 .04 -.10 .19 .02 .72

Item 10 .06 .15 -.17 -.18 .88

Item 11 .06 -.07 -.07 -.89 .15

Item 12 -.01 -.04 .21 -.82 -.01

Note: Item 1: Confront the problem directly. Item 2: Find a good method to solve the problem.
Item 3: Apologize for my bad behaviour. Item 4: Not think about the event. Item 5: Keep my
distance from the people who had seen what I had done. Item 6: Imagine a different outcome of
this event. Item 1: Tell myself never do this again. Item 8: Wish that I had never done it or done it
in another way. Item 9: Realize that everyone has similar things happen to them. Item 10: Tell
myself that these feelings are not so bad. Item 11: Tell this story to someone else to get some
advice. Item 12: Tell others about my unhappy feelings.

240
Appendix I

Percentage of sorting nine categories based on 30 items

30 1. AP 2. AV 3. CF 4. FR 5. ST 6. SS 7. PR 8. RB 9. OT
items
1 16.7% 0% 0% 83.3% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
2 50% 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 16.7% 0% 16.7% 0%
3 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
4 0% 16.8% 0% 0% 0% 83.3% 0% 0% 0%
5 0% 83.3% 16.7% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 0%
6 0% 50% 0% 0% 33.3% 0% 0% 0% 0%
7 0% 0% 50% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 33.3% 0%
8 0% 0% 66.7% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 16.7% 0%
9 33.3% 0% 0% 0% 66.7% 0% 0% 0% 0%
10 0% 0% 0% 66.7% 16.7% 0% 0% 33.3% 0%
11 0% 0% 0% 16.7% 83.3% 0% 0% 0% 0%
12 0% 16.7% 16.7% 0% 50% 0% 0% 16.7% 0%
13 0% 33.3% 0% 0% 50% 0% 0% 0% 16.7%
14 0% 83.3% 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 0%
15 0% 50% 16.8% 0% 33.3% 0% 0% 0% 0%
16 50% 0% 0% 50% 33.3% 0% 0% 0% 0%
17 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 0% 0% 0%
18 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 16.7% 50% 16.7% 0%
19 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 16.7% 83.3% 0% 0%
20 0% 0% 0% 0% 83.3% 16.7% 0% 0% 0%
21 0% 16.7% 33.3% 0% 33.3% 16.7% 0% 0% 0%
22 16.7% 66.7% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
23 0% 33.3% 0% 0% 66.7% 0% 0% 0% 0%
24 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 0% 33.3% 0%
25 16.7% 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 66.7% 0%
26 50% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 50% 0%
27 0% 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 50% 0%
28 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
29 66.7% 0% 0% 16.7% 0% 0% 0% 16.7% 0%
30 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Note: AP: approach; A V: avoidance; CF: counterfactual thinking; FR: face the reality;
ST: self-soothing; SS: seeking social support; PR: prayer; RB: regretting
behaviour; OT: other strategy.

All 30 items are below: 1. Confront the problem directly. 2. Find a good method to solve the
problem. 3. Avoid talking about and discussing the event which has just happened. 4. Tell this story to
someone else to get some advice. 5. Not think about the event. 6. Do other things to distract myself. 7.
Imagine that I had already adopted some solutions. 8. Imagine a different

241
outcome of this event. 9. Let myself see the positive side of this event. 10. Realize that this has
already happened, and it can not be undone. 11. Realize that everyone has similar things happen
to them. 12. Realize that it does not matter. 13. Release negative feelings by eating, sleeping or
doing intense exercises. 14. Hide my own feelings. 15. Pretend it did not happen. 16. Write down
what happened and my feelings about it. 17. Tell others about my unhappy feelings. 18. Pray to
be forgiven. 19. Pray to let the negative feelings disappear. 20. Tell myself that these feelings are
not so bad. 21. Try to explain the event away by laughing or making a joke with others to reduce
the embarrassment. 22. Let time erase everything. 23. Tell myself that everyone will forget. 24.
Feel that I have violated moral norms. 25. Tell myselfnever do this again. 26. Adopt a different
strategy to remedy the situation. 27. Wish that I had never done it or done it in another way. 28.
Apologize for my bad behaviour. 29. Apologize in order to maintain my relationship. 30. Keep my
distance from the people who saw what I had done.

242
Appendix J

Factor loadings for self-regulation of shame and guilt

Item Oblique factor loading

Problem focus coping
of shame
1 .Confront the problem -.91
directly.
2.Find a good method to -.86
solve the problem.
3 .Apologize for my bad -.52
behaviour.
Denial of shame
4. Not think about the .48
event.
Avoidance of shame
5 .Keep my distance from .69
the people who had seen
what I had done.
Counterfactual
thinking of shame
6.1magine a different .56
outcome of this event.
7.Tell myself never do this .61
again.
8.Wish that I had never .98
done it or done it in another
way.
Support seeking of
shame
11 .Tell this story to -1.00
someone else to get some
advice.
12.Tell others about my -.85
unhappy feelings.
Problem focus coping
of guilt
1 .Confront the problem .98
directly.
2.Find a good method to .84
solve the problem.
3 .Apologize for my bad .74
behaviour.

243
Denial and avoidance of
guilt
4. Not think about the .59
event.
5.Keep my distance from .72
the people who had seen
what I had done.
Counterfactual
thinking of guilt
6.1magine a different .37
outcome of this event.
7.Tell myself never do this .85
again.
8.Wish that I had never .87
done it or done it in another
way.
Support seeking of guilt
11.Tell this story to -.93
someone else to get some
advice.
12.Tell others about my -.88
unhappy feelings.

244
Appendix K: Correlational Tables

1). Overall correlations between self-regulations of shame/guilt and self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal

Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame
coping denial avoidance counterfactual support coping denial avoidance counterfactual support

Self- -.15** .09 .02 .02 .00 -.12* .08 .11 .02 .04
monitoring
Interdependent .21** -.04 .06 .09 .05 .15** -.07 .02 .01 .06
self-construal
Independent .08 -.01 .03 .10 .03 .03 -.02 .03 .01 .02
self-construal
alpha .90 .73 .80 .83 .91 .89 .80 .81 .87 .93

*p < .05. **p< .01.

245
2). Correlations between self-regulations of shame/guilt and self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal of
mainland Chinese

Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame
coping denial avoidance counterfactual support coping denial avoidance counterfactual support

Self- .06 22f .02 .14 -.10 .12 .28* .02 .01 -.05
monitoring
Interdependent -.10 -.09 .23 -.13 -.14 .14 -.11 .25* -.07 -.15
self-construal
Independent .00 .02 .02 -.04 -.01 -.03 .01 -.05 -.03 -.08
self-construal
alpha .88 .73 .83 .82 .89 .84 .81 .81 .87 .91

*p< .05. f • 05< p < .10.

246
3). Correlations between self-regulations of shame/guilt and self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal of Chinese
Canadians

Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Shame Shame Shame Guilt Shame
coping denial avoidance counterfactual support coping denial avoidance counterfactual support

Self- -.08 -.12 .07 .11 .22* -.04 -.05 -.07 .08 .12
monitoring
Interdependent .05 .06 -.03 .02 .01 .00 .08 -.01 .11 -.04
self-construal
Independent -.08 .10 .21* -.00 .07 .03 .11 .09 .03 .15
self-construal
alpha .88 .75 .76 .83 .92 .83 .79 .80 .87 .94

* p < .05.

247
4). Correlations between self-regulations of shame/guilt and self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal of
European Canadians

Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame
coping denial avoidance counterfactual support coping denial avoidance counterfactual support

Self- -.15 .11 .10 -.19 .00 -.23* .20 f .03 -.02 -.04
monitoring
Interdependent .24* -.04 .02 .14 .12 32* * * -.03 .15 .11 .22*
self-construal
Independent -.03 -.02 .03 .07 -.01 .08 -.09 .07 .18 -.01
self-construal
alpha .92 .78 .81 .85 .91 .90 .73 .80 .89 .93

f.05<p<A0. *p < .05. ***p< .001.

5). Correlations between self-regulations of shame/guilt and self-monitoring, interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal of
international Chinese

Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame
coping denial avoidance counterfactual support coping denial avoidance counterfactual support

Self- -.02 -.01 .15 .18 .07 -.05 -.17 .04 .16 .23
monitoring
Interdependent .19 -.19 -.11 -.16 .08 .16 -.17 -.17 .12 -.04
self-construal
Independent .21 -.15 -.10 -.00 -.04 .17 -.03 .04 .17 -.01
self-construal
alpha .90 .61 .76 .79 .92 .91 .79 .86 .87 .94

Note: no significant correlations among the variables

249
Appendix L: Regressions of self-regulation of guilt

1). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guilt problem focused coping

Predictor J3

Dummy mainland Chinese .26***

Dummy Chinese Canadian •111
Dummy international Chinese .15*
Gender .06

Dummy mainland Chinese 24***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .09
Dummy international Chinese .14*
Gender .05
cSelf-monitoring -.003
clnterdependent self-construal .12*

Dummy mainland Chinese 25***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .09
Dummy international Chinese .13*
Gender .06
cSelf-monitoring -.08
clnterdependent self-construal .25**
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.15*
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.11
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.03
cSelf-monitoring* MCdummy .07
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -.002
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy .10

* p< .05, ** p <.01, *** p <.001, f . 05 < p<.\0

250
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor fi

Dummy mainland Chinese -.11 f

Dummy Chinese Canadian .04
Dummy international Chinese -.07
Gender .09

Dummy mainland Chinese -A2f

Dummy Chinese Canadian .04
Dummy international Chinese -.06
Gender .08
cSelf-monitoring -.02
clnterdependent self-construal .03

Dummy mainland Chinese -.16*

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese -.07
Gender .08
cSelf-monitoring .10
clnterdependent self-construal .03
clnterdependent self-construal * MCdummy .11
clnterdependent self-construal * C Cdummy -.03
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.05
cSelf-monitoring* MCdummy -.06
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -.06
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy -.12

*p < .05. f.05<p< .10

251
3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guilt counterfactual thinking

Predictor fi

Dummy mainland Chinese .11

Dummy Chinese Canadian .15*
Dummy international Chinese .06
Gender

Dummy mainland Chinese .09

Dummy Chinese Canadian .14*
Dummy international Chinese .04
Gender 28***
cSelf-monitoring .10
clnterdependent self-construal -.01

Dummy mainland Chinese .07

Dummy Chinese Canadian .10
Dummy international Chinese .01
Gender 28***
cSelf-monitoring .26*
clnterdependent self-construal A6f
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.13 f
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.10
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.13
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy -.06
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -•13 f
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy -.12

*p <05. ***p < .001. f .05 < p < .10

252
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor 0

Dummy mainland Chinese -.16*

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese -.03
Gender -.08

Dummy mainland Chinese -.16*

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese -.04
Gender -.08
cSelf-monitoring .06
clnterdependent self-construal -.05

Dummy mainland Chinese -.16*

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese -.05
Gender -.09
cSelf-monitoring .05
clnterdependent self-construal -.03
clnterdependent self-construal * MCdummy -.04
clnterdependent self-construal * CCdummy .05
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.06
cSelf-monitoring* MCdummy -.001
cSelf-monitoring * CCdummy .01
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy .02

*p < .05

253
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor P

Dummy mainland Chinese .26***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese A\f
Gender .10 f

Dummy mainland Chinese .26* * *

Dummy Chinese Canadian .01
Dummy international Chinese . 11
Gender Alf
cSelf-monitoring -.004
clnterdependent self-construal .03

Dummy mainland Chinese 23***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .01
Dummy international Chinese .10
Gender
cSelf-monitoring -.02
clnterdependent self-construal .10
clnterdependent self-construal * MCdummy -.11
clnterdependent self-construal * CCdummy -.06
clnterdependent self-construal * ICdummy -.01
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy -.01
cSelf-monitoring * CCdummy .02
cSelf-monitoring * ICdummy .02

***/?<.001, f . 0 5 < p < A 0

254
Appendix L: Regressions of self-regulation of guilt

1). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on shame problem focused coping

Predictor P

Dummy mainland Chinese .34***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .03
Dummy international Chinese .19**
Gender AOf

Dummy mainland Chinese .29* * *

Dummy Chinese Canadian .00
Dummy international Chinese .17**
Gender .09
cSelf-monitoring .07
clnterdependent self-construal . 17* * *

Dummy mainland Chinese 28***

Dummy Chinese Canadian -.01
Dummy international Chinese .15*
Gender .11*
cSelf-monitoring .07
clnterdependent self-construal 34***
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.09
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.19*
clnterdependent self-construal * ICdummy -.07
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy -.001
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -.03
cSelf-monitoring * ICdummy .03

*p < .05. **p < .01. * * * p < .001., f .05 <p< .10.

255
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal onguiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor 3

Dummy mainland Chinese -.01

Dummy Chinese Canadian .09
Dummy international Chinese -.02
Gender .13*

Dummy mainland Chinese -.04

Dummy Chinese Canadian .07
Dummy international Chinese -.04
Gender .13*
cSelf-monitoring .08
clnterdependent self-construal .06

Dummy mainland Chinese -.07

Dummy Chinese Canadian .07
Dummy international Chinese -.06
Gender .13*
cSelf-monitoring .08
clnterdependent self-construal .14
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy .07
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.09
clnterdependent self-construal * ICdummy -,14:
cSelf-monitoring* MCdummy -.01
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -.04
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy -.01

*p< .05.

256
3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal on guilt counterfactual thinking

Predictor 3

Dummy mainland Chinese .17**

Dummy Chinese Canadian .01
Dummy international Chinese .08
Gender .27

Dummy mainland Chinese .13*

Dummy Chinese Canadian -.02
Dummy international Chinese .04
Gender .27
cSelf-monitoring .17**
clnterdependent self-construal .07

Dummy mainland Chinese .26*

Dummy Chinese Canadian -.04
Dummy international Chinese .03
Gender .26***
cSelf-monitoring 34***
clnterdependent self-construal .16f
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.11
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.05
clnterdependent self-construal * ICdummy -.02
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy -.11
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy -.11
cSelf-monitoring * ICdummy -.14

*p < .05. **p<.01.***p<.001,f.05 <p< .10

257
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal onguiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor ft

Dummy mainland Chinese -.01

Dummy Chinese Canadian .14*
Dummy international Chinese .08
Gender -.10

Dummy mainland Chinese -.03

Dummy Chinese Canadian .13 f
Dummy international Chinese .05
Gender -.09
cSelf-monitoring .15**
clnterdependent self-construal -.03

Dummy mainland Chinese -.01

Dummy Chinese Canadian .13 f
Dummy international Chinese .04
Gender -.09
cSelf-monitoring .06
clnterdependent self-construal .01
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.08
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy .05
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.09
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy .02
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy .06
cSelf-monitoring * ICdummy .11

*p< .05. **p < .01. f .05 <p < .10

258
 3). Hierarchical regression analysis for the significant main effects of self-monitoring
and interdependent self-construal onguiltcounterfactualthinking

Predictor fi

Dummy mainland Chinese 27***

Dummy Chinese Canadian .02
Dummy international Chinese .13*
Gender .19***

Dummy mainland Chinese .25 * * *

Dummy Chinese Canadian .01
Dummy international Chinese A2f
Gender .19***
cSelf-monitoring .07
clnterdependent self-construal .02

Dummy mainland Chinese .25 * * *

Dummy Chinese Canadian -.002
Dummy international Chinese . 10
Gender .20***
cSelf-monitoring .10
clnterdependent self-construal .21 *
clnterdependent self-construal*MCdummy -.15*
clnterdependent self-construal*CCdummy -.14*
clnterdependent self-construal*ICdummy -.11
cSelf-monitoring*MCdummy - .01
cSelf-monitoring *CCdummy .01
cSelf-monitoring *ICdummy -.04

*p< .05. ***p < .001. f .05 <p < .10

259
AppendixL:Regressionsofself-regulationofguilt

Consent Form (Study 1)

Shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions. When we violate our moral beliefs, or other
people's expectations of us, we feel shame and guilt. This study is part of a research program
aimed at developing a scale to measure shame and guilt that can eventually be used with
undergraduate students in China and Canada. This study is being conducted by Ms. Chang Su and
Dr. Michaela Hynie of the Department Psychology at York University.

In this survey, you will be asked to recall, in Mandarin, your own experience of seven terms of
shame and guilt. At the beginning of the study, we will also ask you to provide some general
background information about yourself such as your age and gender. This questionnaire will take
about 30 minutes to complete.

You may feel some discomfort in talking about these emotions because they are very personal.
However, you may also find it a relief to be able to confide, anonymously, about these feelings.
Please note that this study is completely anonymous and that you can withdraw at any time.
Moreover, you can choose not to answer any question if you prefer not to.

Please try to answer the questions as honestly as possible. There are no right or wrong answers to
any of these questions; we are simply interested in your experiences..

Please read the following before signing your consent to participate in this study:

All of the information that I report will be completely confidential and anonymous. I will not be
asked to provide my name, or any other identifying information, anywhere on the questionnaire. I
understand that as with any psychological study, I am free to withdraw at any time and free to
skip any question that is asked. In the best interest of research, however, it is to the researchers'
advantage that I answer all of the questions that are asked.

I understand that my participation in the study will be taken as a sign that I agree to participate in
this study, and that I will allow the researchers to use my responses in the data analyses.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study please contact York University's Human
Participants Review (Ethics) Sub-committee at 416-736-5055 or e-mail the director of graduate
studies in Psychology, Dr. Regina Schuller, at schuller@yorku.ca

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Your participation is valuable to us
and greatly appreciated.

NAME SIGNATURE DATE

260
 Debriefing Sheet (Studyl)

Developing a Cross-cultural Shame & Guilt Scale

Shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions. When we violate our moral beliefs, or other
people's expectations of us, we feel shame and guilt as a result of a negative evaluation
of ourselves (Fischer & Tangney, 1995; Tangney, 1994). Although shame and guilt are
painful, they can lead a person to introspect after making a mistake, and improve him or
herself by approaching their ideals. These emotions may therefore play a crucial role in
motivating moral and social behaviour. Society cannot be maintained very well without
them.

The purpose of the present study was to develop some typical shame and guilt scenarios
for a later study on the various dimensions of shame and guilt conducted with Chinese
and Canadian undergraduate students. Although shame and guilt have been studied quite
extensively,there is only limited cross-cultural shame and guilt research. Because the
experience of shame and guilt should be influenced by culturally-determined moral
styles, we would expect that people from different cultural backgrounds may not only
experience shame and guilt more intensely or more often, the actual nature of the shame
and guilt experienced may differ. For example, it has been found that there are nine
different terms that denote shame and guilt in Mandarin, but only three in English. This
may reflect differences in how people who speak Mandarin and people who speak
English experience these emotions. However, it may just be a difference in terminology,
with the underlying constructs being the same in both cultures (Frank, Harvey& Verdun,
2000).

This study is part of a larger research project in which Chinese and European Canadian
experiences of shame and guilt will be compared in terms of their strength, frequency and
characteristics as well as people's behavioural responses to experiencing these emotions.
The experiences you have described will be used for the development of scenarios that
will be used to ask participants from these two cultures how they would feel and how
they would react under the presented circumstances.

Thank you again for taking the time to complete this study. Your participation is greatly
appreciated!!

261
 Consent Form (Study 3)

Shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions. When we violate our moral beliefs, or other
people's expectations of us, we feel shame and guilt. The goal of this study is to examine the
effect of cultural background on the self-regulation of shame and guilt among undergraduate
students in China, and students of Chinese and European descent in Canada. This study is being
conducted by Ms. Chang Su and Dr. Michaela Hynie in the Department of Psychology, York
University.

In this survey, you will be asked to read 18 scenarios and to rate how you think you would
respond in each situation. The situations described are somewhat awkward or socially difficult
and you may feel some mild discomfort imagining yourself in them. However, you may also gain
some insight into your own feelings and behaviours.

This questionnaire will take about 40 minutes to complete. Please note that you are free to
discontinue the study at any time or to not answer any questions if you feel uncomfortable. At the
beginning of the study, we will also ask you to provide some general background information
about yourself such as your age and gender. This information will not be used to identify you in
any way, and your responses will be kept completely confidential. Your name or student number
will not be attached to your responses on either paper or computer versions of this questionnaire.
All paper responses will be kept locked in a university laboratory, and only the researchers will
have access to them.

Please try to answer the questions as honestly as possible. There are no right or wrong answers to
any of these questions; we are simply interested in what you think and feel about these issues.

Please read the following before signing your consent to participate in this study:

All of the information that I report will be kept confidential and anonymous, to the fullest extent
possible. I will not be asked to provide my name, or any other identifying information, anywhere
on the questionnaire. I understand that as with any psychological study, I am free to withdraw at
any time and free to skip any question that is asked. In the best interest of research, however, it is
to the researchers' advantage that I answer all of the questions that are asked.

I understand that my signature on this form will be taken as a sign that I agree to participate in
this study, and that I will allow the researchers to use my responses in the data analyses.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study please contact York University's Human
Participants Review (Ethics) Sub-committee at 416-736-5055, or by E-mail at: acollins@vorku.ca
to contact with Ms. Alison Collins-Mrakas.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Your participation is
valuable to us and greatly appreciated.

NAME SIGNATURE DATE

262
 Debriefing Sheet (Study 3)

Shame & Guilt Self-regulation

Shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions. When w e violate our moral beliefs, or other
people's expectations o f us, w e feel shame and guilt as a result o f a negative evaluation of
ourselves (Fischer & Tangney, 1995; Tangney, 1994). Although shame and guilt are painful, they
can lead a person to introspect after making a mistake, and improve him or herself by
approaching their ideals. Society cannot be maintained very well without them. These emotions
may therefore play a crucial role in motivating moral and social behaviour. Understanding shame
and guilt is therefore very important.

The purpose o f this study was to examine the effect o f cultural background on the self-regulation
o f shame and guilt among undergraduate students in China, and students o f Chinese and
European descent in Canada. Although a small number o f studies of shame and guilt have been
explored cross-culturally (Bedford, 1994; Frank, Harvey, & Verdun, 2000; Lebral, 1988; Lewis,
1992), none have explicitly compared the experience o f shame and guilt in Chinese immigrants
from Mainland China, Chinese in Mainland China and European Canadian young adults in
Canada. The self-regulation strategies o f experiencing shame and guilt should be influenced by
culturally- determined moral styles. People from different cultural backgrounds may have
different self-regulation strategies after experiencing shame and guilt events.

Studying shame and guilt self-regulation o f Chinese immigrants from Mainland China in Canada
is very important, because cultural background will influence their self-regulation strategies.
Students of Chinese immigrants and Chinese in Mainland China will self-regulate their felt guilt
similarly but their felt shame differently and might take protective actions to preserve the self
when confronting these negative emotions, because their self is connected to others in collectivist
cultures. Thus, the significant difference o f self-regulation about guilt and shame will be expected
among a highly individualistic culture, European Canadians, Chinese immigrants in Canada and
those of people in one o f the larger collectivistic cultures, Mainland China.

Thank you again for taking the time to complete this study. Your participation is greatly
appreciated!!

263