A Psychometric Evaluation of the Guilt and Shame Experience Scale (GSES) on a Representative Adolescent Sample: A Low Differentiation between Guilt and Shame

Abstract

The Guilt and Shame Experience Scale (GSES) is a new, brief self-report instrument for assessing experiences of guilt and shame. It includes two distinct scales: feelings of shame and feelings of guilt. The present report focuses on results from a final validation study using a nationally representative sample of 7899 adolescents (M age = 14.5 ± 1.1 years, 50.7% boys) who participated in the 2014 Health Behavior in School-aged Children study. For factor analysis, the dataset was divided into two groups. One group (n = 3950) was used for the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and the second (n = 3949) for the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The EFA results in a one-factor model of the GSES scale, while the CFA suggests a two-factor solution mirroring two scales, feelings of shame and feelings of guilt. Both models have a good fit to the data, and the scale also showed high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89). A nonparametric comparison of different sociodemographic groups showed a higher disposition for experiencing guilt and shame among girls, students of the ninth grade, and religious respondents. A comparison of the results to previously published results obtained from adults indicates that adolescence is a developmental period involving low differentiation between moral emotions like guilt and shame compared with adulthood. Moreover, positive association with religious attendance shows a need of addressing these issues in a pastoral care setting.

Special Issue on Mental Health and Well-Being in Adolescence: Environment and Behavior

“…This idea may have relevant implications when establishing interventions with both children and adolescents suffering from and exerting bullying. Somehow related to this study, Malinakova et al [11] revealed in a study that adolescence is a developmental period involving low differentiation between moral emotions like guilt and shame compared with adulthood. This is relevant in order to understand the different behaviors, attitudes, and profiles related to bullying [12].…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Persian version of Adolescent Shame‐Proneness Scale

“…This correlation is consistent with the original paper of ASPS (Simonds et al, 2016), showing that all three components of ASPS measure domains related to adolescent shame. To explain these correlations, several studies have confirmed that shame and guilt differ despite the overlap (dos Santos et al, 2020; Malinakova et al, 2020), as shame is associated with a negative self‐evaluation in general attributions, whereas guilt is characterized by a particular behavior (Szentágotai‐Tătar et al, 2015). The difference between shame and guilt in the present study was not as considerable as in the original article by ASPS (Simonds et al, 2016).…”

“…TOSCA scales using fixed scenarios, asking the respondent about everyday situations associated with feelings of guilt or shame (J. Tangney et al, 2000). Scenario‐based scales are time‐consuming (Malinakova et al, 2020), and several studies agree that shame‐provoking situations are not universal and fixed. Also, apart from everyday situations considered in the TOSCA scales, shame may arise from appearance, personality traits, or the mistreatment of others (Simonds et al, 2016; J. P. Tangney & Dearing, 2011), and it is highly culture‐dependent (Gottzén, 2016; Mayer & Vanderheiden, 2019; Mayer & Viviers, 2017; Schitter, 2018).…”

“…The present study aims to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of ASPS in Iranian adolescents. Given the results of previous research on shame and ASPS, the Guilt and Shame Experience Scale (GSES; Malinakova et al, 2020), Self‐Compassion Scale‐Youth version (SCS‐Y; Neff et al, 2020), and Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1989) were used to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the Persian version in Iranian adolescents. We hypothesized that ASPS would positively correlate with negative self‐esteem and shame and guilt subscales of GSES and negatively correlate with SCS‐Y and positive self‐esteem.…”

“…Tangney et al, 2000). Scenario-based scales are time-consuming (Malinakova et al, 2020), and several studies agree that shameprovoking situations are not universal and fixed. Also, apart from everyday situations considered in the TOSCA scales, shame may arise from appearance, personality traits, or the mistreatment of others (Simonds et al, 2016;J.…”