Developmental Changes in Adolescents' Guilt and Shame: The Role of Family Climate and Gender

To explore the relationship between family closeness and self-conscious emotions (i.e., guilt, shame) across adolescence, eighth-grade, tenth-grade, and first-semester college students completed a demographics questionnaire, the Test of Self-Conscious Affect, and the Family Closeness Questionnaire. Results revealed that adolescents from divorced/separated families and those from intact families did not differ in their reported levels of shame or guilt. Guilt increased with age, but the developmental progression of shame varied by gender. Girls reported more guilt and shame than did boys. Examination of family closeness revealed that guilt was positively correlated with mother, father, and sibling closeness for boys and girls. Shame was unrelated to family closeness except girls' shame scores correlated with sibling-closeness and guilt-free shame was related to boys' father-closeness. These findings point to the importance of family closeness, and particularly of opposite-gender parent-child relationships as well as sibling relationships, in adolescents' guilt-proneness. Although there has been a great deal of focus on shame and guilt in clinical settings, little is known about its role in normative development in families with adolescents. Normative development in families refers to healthy development of personal and interpersonal relationships between family members and each member with him or herself. There are many family factors than affect normative development such as parenting styles, number of siblings, family structure (e.g., intact, divorced, separated), conflict, and closeness. Understanding the relationship of shame and guilt to these factors may lead to a clearer understanding of the development of individuals within the family. For instance, Scheff (1995) argues that family conflict typically arises from unresolved or latent feelings of shame. Shame, therefore, can indirectly cause family members to have more frequent conflict and decrease the closeness in family relationships. Scheff's theory places shame in the context of the overall emotional climate of the family. Other theorists have argued that self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame, guilt, pride) are influenced by parenting practices. For instance, there is evidence suggesting that inductive, or empathy-based, parental discipline results in healthy, moderate feelings of guilt in children (Baumeister, 1998; Hoffman, 1998). Some guilt, therefore, is a healthy outcome of family factors such as parenting styles. Likewise, children are more prone to experience moderate levels of guilt in families where parent-child relationships are secure and affectionate, and where the parent is responsive to the child's temperament (Hoffman, 1998). The present study was designed to investigate the impact of family factors, specifically closeness with mother, father, and siblings, on adolescents' normative experiences of guilt and shame. Research about the relationship between family factors, guilt, and shame is primarily limited to early and middle childhood. It is unclear if these relationships extend into adolescence. Research also suggests that age and gender are associated with the experience of shame and guilt. For instance, gender differences in guilt tend to be inconsistent during childhood, decrease at the onset of adolescence, and then increase in late adolescence (Bybee, 1998). However, in adolescence and adulthood, females generally have stronger feelings of guilt and shame than do males (Bybee, 1998). Additionally, research fails to address how family structure, such as parents' marital status, might affect the relationship between family factors and guilt and shame. Indeed, few researchers have examined the relationship between family climate and proneness to feelings of guilt and shame among adolescents. Researchers and theorists often use the terms guilt and shame interchangeably. However, a growing body of research has demonstrated their unique qualities (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). …