Assessment of self‐conscious emotions: A Swedish psychometric and structure evaluation of the Test of Self‐Conscious Affect (TOSCA)

Abstract

The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) is a well-established scenario-based questionnaire assessing self-conscious emotions, such as shame and guilt, which have been shown to be differentially associated with a variety of functional, motivational, behavioral and health outcomes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and internal structure of a Swedish version of TOSCA in a sample of 361 healthy adults. The psychometric properties and internal consistency of the Swedish version were at level with the original US TOSCA version for shame, guilt and detachment. The internal structure of the Swedish version was acceptable for shame, guilt and detachment but contained shortcomings in assessment of externalization.

Distress after a Single Violent Crime: How Shame-Proneness and Event-Related Shame Work Together as Risk Factors for Post-Victimization Symptoms

“…The known overlap in variance, but differential relationships to health outcomes, regarding the Test of Self-Conscious Affect shame and guilt scales has been discussed in previous studies (e.g., Strömsten, et al, 2009). to address this, guilt-free shame and shame-free guilt, excluding shared variance, were used in the statistical analyses in the present study.…”

“…The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA; Tangney, Wagner, & gramzow, 1989) has been used in previous studies to measure shameand guilt-proneness (Averill, et al, 2002;Strömsten, Henningsson, Holm, & Sundbom, 2009). using this scale, feiring and taska (2005) found that abuse-related shame was positively correlated with shame-proneness.…”

“…Shame and Guilt Specific to Sex of Participants (n = 35) Compared to Reference ValuesNote.-a Test of Self-Conscious Affect reference group(Strömsten, et al, 2009). b Independent samples t test for differences between crime victims and reference values.…”

Narcissism: Its function in modulating self-conscious emotions

“…Kohut (1972) focused on the narcissistic rage that follows the experience of painful shame caused by maternal rejection. This reaction is also endorsed by empirical studies (Strömsten, Henneingsson, Holm, & Sundbom, 2009;Tangney et al, 1992aTangney et al, , 1992bTangney et al, , 1996. Referring to Lewis (1971), Tangney and Dearing (2002b) wrote, a "shamed individual's hostility is initially directed inward, towards the self, the experience is so aversive that there is often an inclination to shift that hostility and blame outward" (p. 91).…”

“…In addition, there may be some overlap between the noninternal attributions, that is, externalization and detachment (Strömsten et al, 2009). We therefore hypothesized a covariance between their error variables (C3 in Figure 1).…”