Although scholars agree that moral emotions are critical for deterring unethical and antisocial behavior, there is disagreement about how two prototypical moral emotions-guilt and shameshould be defined, differentiated, and measured. We addressed these issues by developing a new assessment-the Guilt And Shame Proneness scale (GASP)-that measures individual differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame across a range of personal transgressions. The GASP contains two guilt subscales that assess negative behavior-evaluations (NBEs) and repair action tendencies following private transgressions and two shame subscales that assess negative self-evaluations (NSEs) and withdrawal action tendencies following publically-exposed transgressions. Both guilt subscales were highly correlated with one another and negatively correlated with unethical decision making. Although both shame subscales were associated with relatively poor psychological functioning (e.g., neuroticism, personal distress, low self-esteem), they were only weakly correlated with one another and their relationships with unethical decision making diverged. Whereas shame-NSE constrained unethical decision making, shame-withdraw did not. Our findings suggest that differentiating the tendency to make negative self-evaluations following publically-exposed transgressions from the tendency to hide or withdraw from public is critically important for understanding and measuring dispositional shame proneness. The GASP's ability to distinguish these two classes of responses represents an important advantage of the scale over existing assessments. Although further validation research is required, the present studies are promising in that they suggest the GASP has the potential to be an important measurement tool for detecting individuals susceptible to corruption and unethical behavior.
Two studies tested the schema-based distrust interpretation of the tendency of intergroup relations to be more noncooperative (or competitive) than interindividual relations. According to this interpretation, anticipated competitiveness rationally leads to noncooperativeness or defensive withdrawal. Thus, the postulated motivation is fear of the other group's competitive intent. Study 1 was a nonexperimental investigation in which discussion of distrust of another group was assessed and correlated with the number of cooperative choices. As predicted, the greater the within-group discussion of distrust for the other group, the less the number of cooperative choices. Study 2 was an experimental investigation that included as independent variables intergroup versus interindividual relations and PDG matrix versus PDG-Alt matrix (PDG matrix plus a third Alt or withdrawal, choice producing intermediate outcomes regardless of the opponent's choice). As predicted, there were more withdrawal choices on the PDG-Alt matrix for groups than for individuals. However, it was still found that on the PDG-Alt matrix (where a safe withdrawal choice is possible), groups competed more than individuals.
Carolina at Chapel Hill H. Tajfel's (1970) minimal group paradigm (MGP) research suggests that social categorization is a sufficient antecedent of ingroup-favoring discrimination. Two experiments examined whether discrimination in the MGP arises from categorization or processes of outcome dependence, that is, ingroup reciprocity and outgroup fear. Experiment 1 unconfounded categorization from outcome dependence. Categorized men discriminated only when dependent on others. Categorized women discriminated regardless of the structure of dependence. Experiment 2 examined dependence on the ingroup versus the outgroup as the locus of male-initiated discrimination. Consistently with an ingroup reciprocity effect, men di scriminated when dependent on ingroup, but not outgroup, members. Sex differences are discussed in regard to women's heightened ingroup dependence produced by biological or environmental constraints. Can die very act of social categorization, as far as it can be identified and isolated from other variables, lead-under certain conditions-to intergroup behavior which discriminates against the outgroup and favors the ingroup? (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971, p. 151) The initial minimal group paradigm (MGP) experiments (Billig & Tajfel, 1973; Tajfel & Billig, 1974; Tajfel et al., 1971) revealed the potency of social categorization as an antecedent of intergroup Discrimination. Participants assigned to relatively novel and mutually exclusive social categories (e.g., persons preferring the art of Klee versus the art of Kandinsky) allocated more money to anonymous ingroup than outgroup members. The nature of this discrimination was such that category members maximized the relative difference between the earnings of the ingroup and outgroup rather than maximizing the ingroup's absolute earning. The results of numerous such experiments have been interpreted as indicating that the mere perception of belonging to two distinct groups-that is, social categorization per se-is sufficient to trigger intergroup discrimination favoring the ingroup. In other words, the mere awareness Editor's Note. cle.-CAI
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