Theory on Emotions: Shame and Guilt

       Envy is often accompanied by feelings of depression and shame.[1] Lewis (1993) appropriately gathers them under the heading of the self-conscious emotions. Izard (1991) characterizes shame as starting with a sudden intense awareness of self which thoroughly dominated consciousness.

            Standards, rules and goals are established, the success or failure of one’s action with respect to these standards, rules and goals is evaluated, and attributions are made about the self. Part of the attributions will of course be concerned with the self-conscious emotions. For example, guild would be seen as stemming from a self-evaluation of failure but on which has dwelt on specific aspects or actions of self that have led to the failure.[2] Since it is normally concerned with evaluation by others, it usually occurs in social situations, although it can occur when alone. He views shame as an adaptive function of sensitizing us to the opinions of others and as prompting the development of social skills. He again suggest that shame and guilt often occur together, a possible difference being that shame involves mainly the evaluation of others, and guilt involves mainly self-evaluation.[3]

            The ability to feel guilt is a sign of psychological development and is very much allied to conscience. Conscience enables us to choose between the right and wrong and to correct our course when we go off track. Guilt work in the way that we tell ourselves that our actions do not tally with our moral code. Shame related to the person we are, to our very identity. Guilt relates to our actions, behavior and thoughts. Shame tell that we are bad while guilt tell what we are doing is bad.[4] Guilt has been often called bitter and it can feel extremely piercing. In general, the worse we feel with guilt, the more we are trying to avoid the message. Instead of changing our actions or our moral code, we pile the agony onto ourselves. Guilt is designed as a corrector, not as a punishment. The writer classified guilt into three: 1) real guilt; 2) neurotic guilt, and; 3) existential guilt.[5]

            Tangney, J.P. & Dearing, R.L. (2002) explained shame and guilt are important for human at both individual and relationship levels. In the face of transgression and error, the self turns toward the self-evaluating and rendering judgement. Thus the experience of shame and guilt can guide our behavior and influence who we are in our own eyes.[6]

            In brief, shame is an extremely painful and ugly feeling that has a negative impact on interpersonal behavior. Shame-prone individuals appear relatively more likely to blame others (as well as themselves) for the negative events, more prone to seething, bitter, resentful kind of anger and hostility, and less able to emphasize with others in general. In other hand, guilt, guilt-prone individuals appear better able to emphasize with others and to accept responsibility for negative events. They are relatively less prone to anger than their shame-prone peers.[7]

            Lewis (1971)[8] provided the difference between shame and guilt centers on the role of the self in these experiences. 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.[9]Guilt involves a sense of tension, remorse and regret over the ‘bad thing’ done. People on the amidst of a guilt experience often report a nagging focus or preoccupation with the transgression– thinking of it over and over again, wishing they had behaved differently or could somehow undo the deed. It also highlights the guilt’s press toward confession, reparation and apology. In contrast, the feeling of shame are more likely to motive a desire to hide or to escape the shame-inducing situation. It involve an acute awareness of one’s flawed and unworthy self, a response that often seems out of proportion with the actual severity of the event.

            Guilty is believing anything that goes wrong is their fault. They live in a maze of apologies. We may burden ourselves with too much guilt, punish ourselves without real cause, of we possess tyrannical a conscience.[10] How our conscience formed determined the severity of our guilt. We learned what was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ from the parents, and observed the society’s regulations. Many a child blame himself, feels he is ‘bad’, to keep the love of his parents even though he may believe the parent wrong[11].

            Dr. Sally K. Severino, Dr. Edith R. McNutt and Dr. Samuel L. Feder in their paper entitled “Shame and the Development of Autonomy” (1985) offered the theory that the shame is connected to feelings ‘of inadequacies’ while guilt is the result of aggressive acts, wishes and thoughts. Shame is experienced only when a ‘defective sense of self of exposed’.

            A Muslim psychologist further explained that guilt is another form of wrong influence based from the concept of sin[12], in his book.[13] The concept of sin can be harmful if it lead to the feeling of guilt. Guilt is an attempt to alter our beliefs or behavior of force. If by guilt, we only meant experiencing the feeling of having done wrong then could be considered natural, but guilt so often includes the feeling that we are a bad person for having done the wrong. Believing ourselves bad because we have acted wrongly is an internal form of punishment.  Bad action is a stimulus and the thought is the negative stimulus. When a response is followed by a negative stimulus, it often reduces the likelihood of that response occurring against in the future. Guilt also come from self-reflective consciousness. A person will try to avoid behaving or doing in a way to avoid being bad. When the person in control believes to be wrong may not necessarily be wrong and, in fact, could even be right.

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[1] Ibid, pg. 129

[2] Strongman, K.T. The Psychology of Emotion: Theories of Emotion in Perspective (4^th Ed.).(England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 1996), pg. 122

[3] Ibid, pg. 165 & 166

[4] Ibid, pg. 166

[5] Ibid, pg. 168-172

[6] Tangney, J.P. & Dearing, R.L. Shame and Guilt. (London: The Guilford Press, 2002) pg. 2

[7] Ibid, pg. 3

[8] Helen Block Lewis’s (1971) Reconceptualization: Shame and Guilt Differ in Focus on Self versus Behaviour

[9] Tangney, J.P. & Dearing R.L. (2002); Lewis (1971)

[10] Freeman, L. & S. Strean, H,. Guilt: Letting Go. (USA, Johns Wiley & Sons, 1986)

[11] Ibid, pg. 9

[12] Method used by some people that make us believed God created us sinners. The guilt of being sinners is used by the religious authority to wield control over their followers by establishing religious rules and rituals to confess your sin in order to lessen our guilt.

[13] Prof. Muhammad Al-Mahdi Jenkins & Dr Abdul Aziz Bin Azimullah. Positive Islamic Psychology: A Transcendent Model to Achieve Peace, Happiness and Success in the 21^st Century (Malaysia: Excellent Ummah Development Association & Positive Islamic Psychology Centre, 2016)