European Journal of Developmental Psychology

ISSN: 1740-5629 (Print) 1740-5610 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pedp20

Understanding internal and external shame in

childhood: the role of theory of mind

Plousia Misailidi

To cite this article: Plousia Misailidi (2020) Understanding internal and external shame in
childhood: the role of theory of mind, European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17:1, 19-36,
DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2018.1514296

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2018.1514296

Published online: 08 Sep 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 654

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pedp20
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
2020, VOL. 17, NO. 1, 19–36
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2018.1514296

ARTICLE

Understanding internal and external shame in

childhood: the role of theory of mind
Plousia Misailidi
Department of Primary Education, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece

ABSTRACT
Shame can be either internal or external. The former type of shame is associated
with what one thinks and feels about one’s self, the latter is linked with what one
believes that others think about the self. This study aimed to (a) compare
children’s ability to understand these two types of shame and (b) test the
hypothesis that only external shame attribution is linked to children’s ability to
understand second-order beliefs. Four- to 6-year-old children (N = 93) were
presented with a task assessing their ability to attribute internal and external
shame to story protagonists. Children were also tested on a battery of first-order
and second-order theory of mind tasks. The results provide evidence for a parallel
age-related increase in children’s understanding of the two types of shame. In line
with our hypothesis, only external, but not internal, shame attribution was
associated with children’s ability to understand others’ second-order beliefs.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 23 March 2018; Accepted 15 August 2018; Published online 5 September
2018

KEYWORDS Children; external shame; internal shame; understanding; second-order belief; theory of mind

Shame is an unpleasant emotion arising when there is a discrepancy

between an individual’s actions and personal or social norms or when
the individual feels that others consider one’s self as flawed, inferior or in
adequate (Gilbert, 2004; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). For many years it was
assumed that children do not understand shame until middle childhood
(Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991; Levorato & Donati, 1999). However,
subsequent research has revealed that the onset of this ability takes
place much earlier, somewhere between the age of five and six years
(e.g., Berti, Garattoni, & Venturini, 2000; Olthof, Schouten, Kuiper, Stegge,
& Jennekens- Schinkel, 2000). Berti et al. (2000), for example, have
presented evidence indicating that children as young as five years
understand the situations eliciting shame reactions in story characters

CONTACT Plousia Misailidi pmisaili@uoi.gr Department of Primary Education, University of

Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
20 P. MISAILIDI

and the action tendencies (e.g., inaction, crying, desire to escape or hide)
associated with this self-conscious emotion.
Researchers investigating the cognitive underpinnings of children’s under-
standing of shame have put forward that its development involves several
abilities, including an awareness of the self as separate and distinct agent
(Lewis, Sullivan, Stanger, & Weiss, 1989) and the ability to represent and
internalize a set of personal and social or cultural rules and standards against
which the self and one’s behaviour are evaluated (Sloane, Baillargeon, &
Premack, 2012). Moreover, some researchers (e.g., Bennett & Matthews,
2000; Gilbert, 2003; Lagattuta & Thompson, 2007; Misailidi, 2018) have argued
that another cognitive ability associated with children’s understanding of
self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame, guilt) is theory of mind (ToM), the
capacity to ascribe mental states (e.g., belief, desire, intention) to oneself
and to other people. Most notably, it has been proposed that understanding
of self-conscious emotions – including shame – involves recursive reasoning
about mental states and specifically the ability to think about what an
individual believes that is the belief of another person about the self
(second-order belief; Bennett & Matthews, 2000).
However, there are reasons to assume that the ability to think about
others’ beliefs in a recursive – second-order – manner may not be a necessary
condition for understanding all types of shame. In his analysis of the concept
of shame, Gilbert (2003, 2004) distinguished between internal and external
shame. The former (internal) is the result of negative self evaluation; it is the
negative sense or feeling a person has about her or his attributes, personality
characteristics and behaviours. The latter type of shame (external), ‘arises
primarily from the process of shaming by others on the self’ (Gilbert, 2003,
p. 1213); it is consciousness that others view the self with negative affect, with
a desire to criticize, exclude or avoid (Gilbert & Procter, 2006).
Based on this distinction of shame types, Gilbert (2003, 2004) put
forward that second-order ToM is more important for the attribution of
external shame but not as important for ascribing internal shame. The
reason is that in internal shame the focus of attention is on how the self
judges and feels about the self. In other words, internal shame has to do
with cognitive processing that is ‘attuned inwardly, to our own emo-
tions, personal characteristics, and behaviour’ (Gilbert & Irons, 2009, p.
199). In contrast, in external shame the focus is on how the self ‘exists’ in
the minds of others; this type of shame is marked by what one thinks
that others think or believe about the self (Gilbert & Procter, 2006).
Hence, only external, according to Gilbert’s theoretical view (2003), but
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 21

not internal shame can be expected to be associated with ToM and

specifically with the ability to ascribe second-order beliefs to others.

The present study

This study was set out to examine 4- to 6-year-old children’s under-
standing of internal and external shame. The aim was to investigate
whether children’s understanding of these two types of this self-
conscious emotion is differentially related to their ability to under-
stand others’ mental states and specifically to their ability to ascribe
second-order beliefs. Developmental studies on children’s understand-
ing of this self-conscious emotion have so far treated shame as a
unitary construct (e.g., Berti et al., 2000; Levorato & Donati, 1999;
Olthof et al., 2000). Hence, by testing young children’s understanding
of the two distinct aspects of shame (internal and external), the
current study represents a first step toward a more detailed examina-
tion of the development of this self-conscious emotion in childhood.
Moreover, to our knowledge, this is the first study examining the links
between children’s understanding of shame and ToM. Accordingly, its
results are expected to add input to the ongoing debate regarding
the cognitive factors involved in the development of a ‘mature’
understanding of self-conscious emotions (Bennett & Matthews,
2000; Sloane et al., 2012).
In the current study, a new task was designed to assess children’s
understanding of ‘internal shame’ and ‘external shame’. We also
employed ToM tasks that targeted both first-order and second-
order ToM skills. The second-order ToM tasks focused specifically
on children’s ability to understand second-order beliefs. Based on
the results of previous research (Berti et al., 2000), it was anticipated
that children would begin to demonstrate an understanding of
shame about the age of five years. However, as the existing litera-
ture does not distinguish between internal and external shame, no
hypothesis was formulated with respect to children’s appreciation of
these two types of shame. Moreover, drawing on Gilbert’s (2003)
theoretical proposal with regard to the differential relation between
ToM and understanding of internal and external shame, it was
hypothesized that children’s ability to attribute external shame
would be specifically related to their ability to understand second-
order beliefs but not to their ability to ascribe first-order mental
22 P. MISAILIDI

states. No association was anticipated between children’s ability to

attribute internal shame and their ability to think about others’ first-
order or second-order mental states.

Method
Participants

Participants were 93 children (45 boys and 48 girls) between the ages of 4 to
6.9 years (Μ = 5.3 years). They fell into three age-groups: 4-year-olds (n = 33,
M = 4.43 years, range = 4.0−5.0, 15 boys and 18 girls), 5-year-olds (n = 32,
Μ = 5.46 years, range = 5.08−5.92, 16 boys and 16 girls), and 6-year-olds
(n = 28, Μ = 6.40, range = 6.08−6.93, 14 boys and 14 girls). Children were all
Caucasian and were drawn from public preschool and primary schools
serving predominantly lower- and middle-class populations. The schools
were located in an urban city in northern Greece. Informed parental con-
sent was obtained for all children who participated in the study (a total of
108 letters were sent home from schools to parents of potential partici-
pants; consent rate = 86.1%).

Procedure and tasks

Each child was tested individually in a quiet room of their school in two
different 20-minute sessions, approximately a week apart. Testing was
done by a trained female research assistant. All ToM tasks were given in
one session in a counterbalanced order.

Shame task
Ten vignettes were constructed for use in the present study. Each
vignette was presented with two black-and-white line drawings (17 X
19 cm each). Μale and female versions of each vignette were prepared,
and the experimenter matched the gender of the protagonist to that of
the child. All vignettes described events that could cause shame in the
protagonist: five vignettes described events that were more likely to
result in internal shame (e.g., the protagonist wets oneself in bed at
night; the protagonist avoids to see oneself in the mirror because of her/
his pimples; the protagonist remembers that she/he broke a promise
made to her/himself) and five described situations that were more likely
to cause external shame in the protagonist (e.g., the protagonist takes
off her/his stinky shoes and other children run away to avoid the nasty
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 23

smell; the protagonist has gone to the beach and she/he has to undress
in front of others and reveal a birth mark on her/his leg; the protagonist
arrives at the park to discover that she/he is the only child with training
wheels on her/his bicycle). Sample internal and external shame vignettes
and their illustrations are given in the Appendix.
Following the presentation of each vignette, children were presented
with two questions: The first asked them to predict what the protagonist
would feel in the situation described in the vignette (‘How does [prota-
gonist’s name] feel?’) and the second asked them to justify their
responses (‘Why do you think [protagonist’s name] feels ashamed?’). In
both questions children had to ascribe shame from a third-person
perspective. When pilot-testing the shame task (N = 10), children were
asked about the story-protagonist’s shame both in the first- and in the
third-person perspective. There was no variability in responses: children
gave as frequently shame responses in both perspectives. Given that all
ToM tasks were formulated in the third-person perspective, it was con-
sidered important to use the same perspective in the shame task too in
order to keep the structure of the two tasks as similar as possible. That
said, it is important to acknowledge that a recent study has shown that
ascriptions of shame are intensified when children are asked to imagine
themselves in a situation than when they are asked to pass judgment on
a third person in the same situation (Menesini & Camodeca, 2008). We
will return to this issue in the Discussion.
A score of 1 was assigned when children responded to the first
question by saying that the character would feel ‘ashamed’1 and also
gave an appropriate justification. A score of 0 was given when children
gave incorrect answers to the emotion attribution question (e.g., ‘she
cannot sleep’) or did not justify appropriately their response.
Children’s justifications were marked as appropriate or inappropriate
using the following criteria: (1) appropriate justifications in the external
shame vignettes involved explicit or implicit reference to others’ beliefs
about the self (e.g., ‘The other children will laugh at her because of her
smelly feet.’; ‘Because other children will think that he does not know

1
A score of 1 was also given to two children who instead of the term ‘ashamed’ used the term ‘bad’ and to
three children who instead of ‘ashamed’ used the term ‘awful’ to describe the emotional state of the
protagonist (‘he feels awful’; ‘she feels bad’). In all five cases children justified their responses in a way
that indicated that they were considering the impact of the situation described in the vignette either on
the protagonist’s view of him/herself (e.g., ‘He feels awful.’; ‘He has many many pimples and he does
not like to see his face in the mirror.’) or on others’ beliefs and evaluations of the protagonist’s self (e.g.,
‘She feels bad because if the other children see the mark on her leg they will laugh at her.’). Similar
criteria have been used in previous work (Banerjee, 2002) investigating children’s understanding of
another closely related to shame self-conscious emotion, embarrassment.
24 P. MISAILIDI

how to ride a bike.’), whereas appropriate justifications in the internal

shame vignettes made reference to the negative self-image of the story
protagonist (e.g., ‘Because she doesn’t like to pee on herself now that
she is a big girl.’; ‘He does not like the mirror. He does not want to see
his ugly face.’); (2) inappropriate justifications were those that simply
referred to facts of the story without explaining the emotional state of
the protagonist and/or its causes (e.g., ‘Because she drank many glasses
of water.’; ‘He should not eat chocolates.’). Other responses, including
‘don’t know’ and nonsense justifications, were also scored as inappropri-
ate. The author coded all justifications. An independent rater, blind to
the age of the participants, also coded the justifications of 40 (43%)
randomly selected children and agreed with the primary coder on 93%
of them (Cohen’s κ = .80, p < .001). All disagreements were resolved
through discussion.
Scores in the internal shame stories were added separately from those
in the external shame stories, yielding two sub-score composites (InSHA
and ExSHA) ranging from 0 to 5 each.

ToM tasks
Children’s ToM was measured with a battery of five ToM tasks assessing
first-order and second-order mental state attribution.

Diverse desires task

This task (adapted from Wellman & Liu, 2004) assessed children’s ability
to understand that other people can have desires that differ from their
own. Children were shown pictures of two foods (chocolate, celery) and
then they were told to choose which one they liked to eat (own desire
question). They were next shown the picture of a same-gender child
(Alec/Mary) and were told that this child preferred the alternative food
instead. Then, children were asked: ‘Which food will Alec/Mary choose to
eat when it is snack time? Chocolate or celery?’ (other’s desire question).
Children who stated a desire (/food) that was different from their own
desire were scored with 1. All other responses were scored with 0.

Diverse beliefs task

This task (adapted from Wellman & Liu, 2004) tested children’s ability
to understand that other people can have beliefs that differ from their
own. Children were shown the picture of a same-gender child (Katja/
Steven) and two pictures depicting a bush and a garage. Children were
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 25

informed that the child was looking for her/his cat and were asked to
say where they themselves thought the cat was hiding (own belief).
Then, children were informed that the other child thought that the cat
is hiding in the alternative location and were asked the test question:
‘Where will Katja/Steven look for her/his cat?’ (others’ belief). Children
who correctly ascribed to the other child a belief (/location) that was
opposite to their own belief were scored with 1. All other responses
were scored with 0.

Unexpected contents task

In this task (adapted from Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985) children’s
understanding of first-order false beliefs was assessed. Children were
shown a clearly identifiable biscuit box and were asked: ‘What do you
think is inside this box?’ (own belief). Having given the anticipated
response (‘biscuits’), children were shown the true contents of the box
which were not biscuits but an eraser and were asked a control question:
‘What’s really in the box?’. Having returned the object in the box, the
experimenter presented a picture of a same-gender child (Lisa/Thomas)
and said that she/he had never seen inside the box before. They were
asked: ‘If we showed this box to Lisa/Thomas, what would she/he think is
inside the box?’ (other false belief) followed by a question: ‘Did Lisa/
Thomas see what is inside the box?’ (control question). Children were
scored as successful and received 1 point only if they answered correctly
the ‘other false belief’ and control questions. All other responses were
scored with 0.

Birthday puppy task

This task (adapted from Sullivan, Zaitchik, & Tager-Flusberg, 1994) tested
children’s second-order false belief understanding. The task included a
story that was administered with a series of four pictures (16 X 20 cm
each). The story was about a boy (Peter) whose mother wanted to
surprise him with a puppy for his birthday. Thus, she falsely informed
Peter that she had got him a toy instead. Peter’s mother had really
bought him a puppy, which she had hidden in the basement of their
house. Children were asked two questions, one about Peter’s false belief
(‘What did Peter think he was getting for his birthday?’) and one reality
control question (‘What was his mother giving him really?’). Next, chil-
dren were informed that the boy went to the basement to get his ball
and, unbeknownst to his mother, discovered the puppy. Meanwhile,
26 P. MISAILIDI

Peter’s mother received a phone from his grandma who asked her the
test-question: ‘What does Peter think you bought him for his birthday?’
(second-order false belief). Besides answering the test question, children
were also asked to justify their response (‘Why does she say that?’) and
to answer a control question: ‘Did mother see Peter go to the base-
ment?’. Children’s justifications were scored as ‘appropriate’ or ‘inap-
propriate’ using the criteria described by Sullivan et al. (1994).
Provided that they had answered the control questions correctly, chil-
dren who answered both the second-order false belief and the justifica-
tion questions appropriately received 1 point. All other responses
received 0 points.

Ice cream van task

Perner and Wimmer’s task (1985) was implemented to assess second-
order false belief attribution. Children were told a story, presented with
a series of four pictures (16 X 20 cm each), about two children, Mark and
Helen, who were playing in the park when an ice cream van arrived. Mark
wanted to buy an ice cream but did not have money. So he went home to
get his money. While Mark was gone, the ice cream man told Helen that
he decided to go to different location, the school, to sell ice cream. At this
point, a control question was asked: ‘What did the ice cream man say to
Helen)?’. On the way to school, the ice cream van man met Mark outside
his house and informed him about his intention to go and sell ice cream in
the school. At the end of the story, the girl goes to the boy’s house and she
is informed by his mother that he has gone to buy some ice cream. At this
point children were asked: ‘Where does Helen think that Mark has gone to
buy an ice cream?’, which assessed their ability to attribute a second-order
false belief to the story character and a justification question: ‘Why does
she think he has gone to the ___?’. In accordance with Perner and Wimmer
(1985), children who answered the control, the second-order false belief
and the justification questions correctly received 1 point. All other
responses were scored with 0.
Two coders (the author and an independent rater) coded 50% of chil-
dren’s justifications in the two second-order ToM tasks. In the Birthday
puppy task, the percentage of rater agreement was 96% (Cohen’s κ = .88,
p < .001), whereas in the Ice-cream van task it was 90% (Cohen’s κ = .79,
p < .001). Disagreements were resolved through discussion.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 27

Language ability
Children’s verbal ability was examined with the Word Finding Vocabulary
Test (Vogindroukas, Protopapas, & Sideridis, 2009). This test measures
expressive vocabulary of children aged 3- to 9-years. It contains 50 items,
all nouns (e.g., duck, binoculars, cup, parachute), which are all presented in
black and white line-drawings (15 cm X 15 cm each). Items are arranged in
order of difficulty. Children were presented with each drawing and were
then asked to name the item depicted. Testing was discontinued if the child
failed to respond correctly in five consecutive items. Correct responses were
scored with 1 and incorrect ones with 0. Scores on separate items were
summed to obtain a verbal ability score which could range from 0 to 50.

Results
Performance on the shame task

Table 1 presents the mean scores on the shame task classified by age group
and type of shame. These data were analysed with a 3 (age groups: 4-years,
5-years, 6-years) X 2 (gender: boy, girl) X 2 (types of shame: InSHA, ExSHA)
mixed ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor. The ANOVA
revealed a significant main effect for age, F(2, 83) = 27.13, p < .001,
ηp2 = .395, but not for gender, F(1, 83) = .137, p = n.s. The ANOVA also
revealed that children’s performance in the InSHA and ΕxSHA vignettes did
not differ, F(1, 83) = 2.74, p = n.s. Neither, the interactions between age
group and type of shame vignette, F(2, 83) = 1.38, p = n.s. and between
gender and type of shame vignette were found significant, F(1, 83) = 0.18,
p = n.s. This means that boys and girls in all age groups understood internal
and external shame similarly.
To elucidate the effect of age on each type of shame (internal,
external), follow-up comparisons using one-way ANOVAs were con-
ducted. Their results revealed that age did have an effect on both the

Table 1. Mean scores and standard deviations on the shame and ToM tasks.
Age groups 4-years 5-years 6-years N
Shame Μ (SD) Μ (SD) Μ (SD) Μ (SD)
InSHA 1.48 (1.75) 3.58 (1.58) 3.80 (1.38) 2.87 (1.90)
ExSHA 1.39 (1.65) 3.83 (1.55) 4.24 (1.64) 3.09 (2.03)
ToM
1st-order ToM comp 1.96 (.76) 2.25 (.87) 2.25 (.79) 2.15 (.82)
2nd-order ToM comp .58 (.61) 1.09 (.68) 1.07 (.71) .90 (.71)
InSHA = Internal shame score (range = 0–5); ExSHA = External shame score (range = 0–5); 1st-order
ToM comp = first-order theory of mind composite (range = 0–3); 2nd-order ToM comp = second-
order theory of mind composite (range = 0–2).
28 P. MISAILIDI

internal shame, F(2, 90) = 19.03, p < .001, and the external shame scores,
F(2, 90) = 30.24, p < .001. Post hoc comparisons using the Student-
Newman-Keuls test revealed that in both types of shame, the 4-year-olds
had significantly lower scores than the 5-year-olds and the 6-year-olds
(p’s < .05). In contrast, the performance of the two older groups did not
differ significantly in the internal- and external-shame vignettes.

Performance on the ToM tasks

To provide a picture of children’s overall performance in the three first-
order and the two second-order ToM tasks respectively, two composite
scores were computed for each child. First, responses on the diverse-
desires, the diverse-beliefs and the unexpected-contents tasks were
added. The first-order ToM composite score ranged from 0 to 3, with a
mean of 2.15 (SD = .82). Second, responses on the birthday-puppy task
and the ice-cream-van task were added. The second-order ToM compo-
site score ranged from 0 to 2, with a mean of .90 (SD = .71) (see Table 1).
A 3 (age groups: 4-years, 5-years, 6-years) X 2 (gender: boy, girl) X 2 (types
of ToM task: 1st-order ToM comp, 2nd-order ToM comp) mixed ANOVA with
repeated measures on the last factor was performed. Prior to this analysis,
the two composite scores were divided by the number of tasks included in
each (first-order ToM: diverse desires + diverse beliefs + unexpected con-
tents/3; second-order ToM: birthday puppy task + ice cream van task/2),
thus making them comparable. The ANOVA revealed a significant main
effect for age group, F(2, 87) = 6.45, p < .005, ηp2 = .129, but not for gender, F
(1, 87) = 1.56, p = n.s. The ANOVA also revealed a significant main effect for
type of ToM task, F(1, 87) = 45.27, p < .001, ηp2 = .342, which was due to
children’s better performance in the first-order as compared to the second-
order ToM tasks. The interaction between age group and type of ToM task
was not found significant, F(2, 87) = 2.07, p = n.s., nor was the interaction
between gender and type of ToM task, F(1, 87) = .02, p = n.s.
The main effect of age group was followed up with two one-way
ANOVAs. These analyses revealed a significant age difference in children’s
second-order ToM task performance (F(2, 92) = 6.08, p < .005, ηp2 = .291),
but not in their first-order ToM task performance, F(2, 92) = 1.25, p = n.s.
Student-Newman-Keuls post hoc tests revealed that the 4-year-olds had
significantly lower composite scores in the second-order ToM tasks than
the 5- and the 6-year-olds (p’s < .05), who did not differ significantly from
each other (p = n.s.).
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 29

Table 2. Correlations between children’s performance on the internal shame and

external shame vignettes and on the first-order and second-order ToM tasks.
1 2 3 4
1. InSHA −
2. ExSHA .79*** −
3. 1st-order ToM comp .18 .17 −
4. 2nd-order ToM comp .23* .33*** .29** −
*p < .05.
**p < .005.
***p < .001.

Relationship between shame understanding and ToM

The analyses next examined the relationship between shame understand-
ing and ToM. First, correlations were computed between children’s scores
on the internal shame and external shame vignettes and each of the two
ToM composite scores. Their results are presented in Table 2. As shown,
children’s performance on the internal shame and external shame vign-
ettes was highly correlated. Moreover, the correlations between the two
shame-understanding scores and the first-order and the second-order
ToM composite scores revealed: (i) one marginally significant association
between children’s performance on the internal-shame vignettes and the
second-order ToM composite score (r = .23, p < .05); and (ii) a more robust
correlation between children’s performance on the external-shame vign-
ettes and the second-order ToM composite score (r = .33, p < .001); (iii) no
association between the two shame-understanding scores and the first-
order ToM composite score (p = n.s.).
Next, in order to investigate more in detail the relationship between
the two types of shame understanding and children’s performance on
the first-order and second-order ToM tasks, two hierarchical regression
analyses were conducted, one with internal shame understanding as the
dependent variable and one with external shame understanding as the
dependent variable. In both regressions, age and verbal ability were
entered as control variables in the first block, followed by the first-
order ToM composite and second-order ToM composite in the second.
Children’s gender was not included as a variable in the regression
analyses, because the analyses presented earlier (ANOVAs) had indicated
that there was no main effect of gender on children’s shame- and ToM-
task performance, nor where there any significant interactions with
gender in any of the effects observed.
Table 3 presents the results of the regression analyses. More specifi-
cally: Internal shame: In Block 1, the control variables predicted 12% of the
30 P. MISAILIDI

Table 3. Hierarchical regressions predicting the effect of first-order ToM and second-
order ToM on internal shame and external shame understanding, controlling for age
and language ability.
Internal Shame External Shame
Variable B SE β t B SE β t
Block
1 Age .06 .02 .35 3.46*** .07 .02 .37 3.75***
Language ability .00 .02 −.01 −.02 .01 .03 .04 .44
2
Age .06 .02 .32 3.20** .07 .02 .33 3.39***
Language ability −.01 .02 −.04 −.38 −.01 .03 −.01 −.03
1st-order ToM comp .91 .70 .13 1.29 .65 .73 .09 .88
2nd-order ToM comp .70 .56 .13 1.26 1.35 .58 .24 2.33*
*p < .05.
**p < .005.
***p < .001.

variance in the internal shame scores, F(2, 90) = 6.23, p < .005. The addition
of the first-order and second-order ToM variables in Block 2 did not lead to
a statistically significant increase in the prediction of variance in children’s
understanding of internal shame, ΔR2 = .05, R2 = .17, F(2, 88) = 2.23, p = n.s.
External shame: In Block 1, the control variables predicted 15% of the
variance in the external-shame scores, F(2, 90) = 7.78, p < .001. The
addition of the composite scores in the first-order and second-order
ToM tasks resulted in a statistically significantly increase in the prediction
of variance in children’s understanding of the external shame vignettes
(ΔR2 = .07, R2 = .22, F(2, 88) = 3.96, p < .05), and performance on the
second-order ToM tasks was a unique predictor along with age.

Discussion
This study examined developmental changes in children’s ability to
understand two different types of shame, internal and external and
their relation with their ToM ability. The results showed that children
aged 5 and 6 years were significantly more successful at predicting this
self-conscious emotion in the story protagonists than the 4-year-olds.
These results closely replicate earlier research (e.g., Berti et al., 2000;
Olthof et al., 2000) indicating that children’s understanding of shame
improves significantly from the age of 5 years onwards.
Interestingly, there were no differences in the extent to which children
aged 5 to 6 years understood internal and external shame. It appears that
young children’s understanding of internal shame develops in parallel
with their mastery of external shame. This finding was not unexpected
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 31

since these two types of shame are, after all, dimensions of the same
emotion concept. Neither was there any basis to anticipate that one of
these two types of shame would be easier or more difficult to understand
than the other.
The main aim of this study was to examine possible associations
between children’s understanding of internal and external shame and
their ToM ability. Following Gilbert’s (2003, 2004) proposal, it was antici-
pated that children’s ability to understand external shame would be
specifically related to their ability to attribute second-order beliefs to
others. Instead, internal shame was not expected to be related to
children’s second-order false belief task performance. In accordance
with Gilbert’s (2003, 2004) view, children with higher scores in the
vignettes assessing understanding of external shame were more able
to ascribe second-order false beliefs to others than children with lower
scores in these vignettes. This association remained significant even
when the effects of chronological age and language ability were statis-
tically controlled in the regression analyses. In contrast, the examination
of the pattern of associations between internal shame and ToM revealed
that the relation in this case was different. The regression analyses
revealed that unlike external, internal shame was not correlated to
second-order false belief understanding or to the first-order ToM skills
examined.
How can these findings be interpreted? Why is second-order false
belief understanding specifically associated with external but not with
internal shame? One way to explain this association is to consider the
differences between the two types of shame. The central characteristic
that distinguishes external from internal shame is that the former
involves the self as a social object or, to put it differently, external
shame is more concerned with how the self exists in the minds of others
whereas internal shame focuses on how the self is considered and is
judged by the self. External shame thus arises exactly because one
becomes conscious that others see oneself as bad, weak, inadequate
or disgusting (Gilbert & Procter, 2006). Therefore, external shame may
mark the development of a new consciousness of the self.
This interpretation receives support from an early study by Banerjee
and Yuill (1999) which showed that children who have a greater under-
standing of self-presentational emotional display rules – i.e., demon-
strate a greater awareness of self-presentational processes – are also
more skilled at ascribing second-order beliefs to others. More recently,
32 P. MISAILIDI

Naito and Seki (2009) also reported that children’s understanding of self-
presentational behaviour was highly correlated with their performance
on a second-order false belief task.
It follows that children with a greater skill at understanding external
shame are those who pay more attention to social cues by scrutinizing
other people’s evaluations of the self. This continuous focus on an
evaluating – and probably disapproving – other is probably the reason
why these children are also more skilled at understanding others’ sec-
ond-order beliefs. External shame may thus be considered as an emo-
tional state that strengthens children’s ability to take the intentional
stance by motivating them to step outside of their own views and
concerns in order to appreciate other people’s mental states about the
self. Conversely, however, it may be argued that children who more
readily understand others’ higher-order beliefs are also more capable
of concern about how the self is represented in the minds of others and
thus more capable at appreciating external shame.
Only longitudinal studies could adequately address the direction of
the relation between children’s understanding of external shame and
appreciation of higher-order beliefs. Future research should also exam-
ine whether the results of the present study are specific to young
children or are also applicable to older children and adolescents. This
is an important question to ask, because with increasing age, public self
consciousness also increases as children become more attentive to and
concerned about their public self-presentation (Banerjee, Bennett, &
Luke, 2012). Also other evidence indicates that with increasing age
there is also an increase in children’s scepticism about what other
people say about themselves (Heyman, Fu, & Lee, 2007).
Τhere are limitations in this study. First, our task assessing under-
standing of shame asked children to predict other individuals’ shame
and not their own. This raises the possibility that children’s responses
would have been different if shame attribution had been made from a
first-person rather than a third-person perspective. In fact, a recent study
has shown that children ascribe shame more strongly when using vign-
ettes that are formulated from a first-person perspective (Menesini &
Camodeca, 2008). However, some other evidence indicates that chil-
dren’s self-attributed emotions do not differ from ratings made for
same-age story characters (Sayfan & Lagattuta, 2008). Moreover, studies
addressing ToM understanding indicate that children’s responses do not
differ when using the first- versus the third-person perspective (Wellman,
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 33

Cross, & Watson, 2001). Clearly, further research is needed to examine

whether the same results would emerge when the vignettes ask children
to attribute shame to themselves rather than to a third person.
Second, another related limitation has to do with the tasks measuring
children’s ToM abilities. In some of the ToM tasks used, specifically those
assessing second-order ToM skills, the gender of the story-protagonist was
not manipulated to match that of the child. Thus, it is possible that this
gender-inconsistency may have precluded some children’s opportunity to
simulate the situation described in the story and, as a result, affected their
performance on the specific tasks. However, our findings concerning chil-
dren’s second-order false belief understanding are in accord with those of
earlier research (Perner & Wimmer, 1985; see also Miller, 2009, 2012). This
gives support to the view that the present findings cannot be attributed to
task variations. Nevertheless, future studies using gender-adapted second-
order ToM tasks may be valuable to clarify the possible influence of such task
characteristics on the relationship between ToM and shame understanding.
In summary, the findings of the present study provide evidence that
even before children reach school age, they have already developed a
rudimentary understanding of two different types of shame, internal and
external. This study also points to an association between children’s ability
to understand external shame and their performance on measures asses-
sing their ability to understand others’ second-order beliefs. By showing
that preschoolers who are better at understanding second-order mental
states are also better at attributing external – but not internal – shame, the
present findings contribute to a growing body of evidence on the complex
associations between emotion understanding and ToM ability.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

References
Banerjee, R. (2002). Children’s understanding of self-presentational behavior: Links
with mental-state reasoning and the attribution of embarrassment. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 48(4), 378–404.
Banerjee, R., Bennett, M., & Luke, N. (2012). Children’s reasoning about self-presenta-
tion following rule violations: The role of self-focused attention. Child
Development, 83(5), 1805–1821.
34 P. MISAILIDI

Banerjee, R., & Yuill, N. (1999). Children’s explanations for self-presentational behaviour.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 29(1), 105–111. AID-EJSP910%3E3.0.CO;2-K.
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory
of mind”? Cognition, 21(1), 37–46.
Bennett, M., & Matthews, L. (2000). The role of second-order belief understanding
and social context in children’s self-attribution of social emotions. Social
Development, 9(1), 126–130.
Berti, A. E., Garattoni, C., & Venturini, B. (2000). The understanding of sadness, guilt,
and shame in 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children. Genetic, Social, and General
Psychology Monographs, 126(3), 293–318.
Ferguson, T. J., Stegge, H., & Damhuis, I. (1991). Children’s understanding of guilt and
shame. Child Development, 62(4), 827–839.
Gilbert, P. (2003). Evolution, social roles, and the differences in shame and guilt. Social
Research, 70(4), 1205–1230. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971967
Gilbert, P. (2004). Evolution, attractiveness and the emergence of shame and guilt in
a self-aware mind: A reflection on Tracy and Robins. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 132–
135. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20447216
Gilbert, P., & Irons, C. (2009). Shame, self-criticism and self-compassion in adolescence. In
N. B. Allen & L. B. Sheeber (Eds.), Adolescent emotional development and the emergence
of depressive disorders (pp. 195–214). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gilbert, P., & Procter, S. (2006). Compassionate mind training for people with high
shame and self criticism: Overview and pilot study of a group therapy approach.
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 13(6), 353–379.
Heyman, G. D., Fu, G., & Lee, K. (2007). Evaluating claims people make about
themselves: The development of skepticism. Child Development, 78(2), 367–375.
Lagattuta, K. H., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). The development of self-conscious
emotions: Cognitive processes and social influences. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins,
& J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self- conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 91–
113). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Levorato, M. C., & Donati, V. (1999). Conceptual and lexical knowledge of shame in
Italian children and adolescents. International Journal of Behavioural Development,
23(4), 873–897.
Lewis, M., Sullivan, M. W., Stanger, C., & Weiss, M. (1989). Self development and self-
conscious emotions. Child Development, 60(1), 146–156. Retrieved from http://
www.jstor.org/stable/1131080
Menesini, E., & Camodeca, M. (2008). Shame and guilt as behaviour regulators:
Relationships with bullying, victimization and prosocial behaviour. British Journal
of Developmental Psychology, 26(2), 183–196.
Miller, S. A. (2009). Children’s understanding of second-order mental states.
Psychological Bulletin, 135(5), 749–773.
Miller, S. A. (2012). Theory of mind: Beyond the preschool years. New York, NY:
Psychology Press.
Misailidi, P. (2018). Individual differences in children’s understanding of guilt: Links
with theory of mind. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 179(4), 219–229.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 35

Naito, M., & Seki, Y. (2009). The relationship between second-order false belief and
display rules reasoning: The integration of cognitive and affective social under-
standing. Developmental Science, 12(1), 150–164.
Olthof, T., Schouten, A., Kuiper, H., Stegge, H., & Jennekens- Schinkel, A. (2000).
Shame and guilt in children: Differential situational antecedents and experiential
correlates. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18(1), 51–64.
Perner, J., & Wimmer, H. (1985). “John thinks that Mary thinks that. . .” attribution of
second-order beliefs by 5-to 10-year-old children. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 39(3), 437–471.
Sayfan, L., & Lagattuta, K. H. (2008). Grownups are not afraid of scary stuff, but kids
are: Young children’s and adults’ reasoning about children’s, infants’, and adults’
fears. Child Development, 79(4), 821–835.
Sloane, S., Baillargeon, R., & Premack, D. (2012). Do infants have a sense of fairness?
Psychological Science, 23, 196–204.
Sullivan, K., Zaitchik, D., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1994). Preschoolers can attribute
second-order beliefs. Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 395–402.
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Vogindroukas, I., Protopapas, A., & Sideridis, G. (2009). Expressive vocabulary test
(Greek version of Renfrew Word Finding Vocabulary Test). Crete: Glafki.
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta analysis of theory of mind
development: The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72(3), 655–684.
Wellman, H. M., & Liu, D. (2004). Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. Child Development,
75(2), 523–541.
36 P. MISAILIDI

Appendix. Sample internal and external shame stories and

illustrations
1. Sample External Shame Story

This is Mary. This is Mary’s first time at camp. Mary shares a room with some other
kids. It’s night time and all children are getting ready for bed. Mary takes off her
shoes and a nasty smell fills the room. The other children try to get away from the
smell.

2. Sample Internal Shame Story

This is Margaret. Margaret was very thirsty last night and she drank five glasses of
water before going to bed. This morning Margaret wakes up to find that she has
wetted her bed. This hasn’t happened to Margaret since she was a baby.