Introducing the GASP scale: A new measure of guilt and shame proneness.

Abstract

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.

A social-cognitive approach to understanding gender differences in negotiator ethics: The role of moral identity

“…One possibility for future work is to explore the role of moral emotions (relative to moral identity) in driving gender differences in negotiator ethics. Moral identity has been theorized to elevate guilt following transgressions (Cohen & Morse, 2014), and consistent with this notion, women report more chronic guilt than men (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011;Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Although we found mixed results for guilt on negotiator ethics (as reported in Footnote 4), one possibility is that moderators may be needed to predict whether and when guilt proneness leads to gender differences in ethical behavior.…”

Psikologi Moral dan Usaha Mencari Pemimpin Politik yang Demokratis

“…Keputusan ini disebut juga sebagai keputusan moral (Haidt, 2001). Dalam berbagai kajian psikologi moral ada dua aspek penting yang mendasari keputusan moral, yaitu nilai moral (Haidt, 2001; dan emosi moral (Cohen, Wolf, Panter & Insko, 2011). Nilai moral merujuk kepada seperangkat informasi yang digunakan manusia sebagai panduan pengambilan keputusan moral.…”

“…Nilai moral merujuk kepada seperangkat informasi yang digunakan manusia sebagai panduan pengambilan keputusan moral. Jika nilai moral merujuk kepada informasi yang berada pada tataran kognisi, maka emosi moral merujuk kepada keadaan psikologis manusia yang muncul karena adanya objek emosi yang hadir (Russell, 2003;Cohen et al, 2011). Emosi moral akan bekerja sebagai mekanisme penanda perilaku setelah individu melakukan sebuah aksi (Tangney & Salovey, 2010;Cohen et al, 2011).…”

Dispositional self-forgiveness, guilt- and shame-proneness, and the roles of motivational tendencies

“…We draw upon Tangney and colleagues' appraisal/motivational model of guilt-and shame-proneness (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011;Tangney & Dearing, 2002), which defines guilt-and shame-proneness as distinct negative response styles. In this framework, guiltproneness is characterized by tendency to appraise behaviors negatively, whereas shameproneness characterized by a tendency to appraise the self negatively in eliciting contexts 1 (Tangney & Dearing, 2002;Niedenthal, Tangney, & Gavanski, 1994;Tangney, Miller, Flicker, 1 The present framework (guilt as behavior focus, shame as self focus; Lewis, 1971) is currently the primary model of guilt-and shame-proneness in the personality literature (e.g., Cohen et al, 2011).…”

“…Participants in both samples also completed the Guilt-and Shame-Proneness scale (GASP; Cohen et al, 2011), which decomposes guilt-and shame-proneness each into appraisal and motivational components. Participants read 16 scenarios and rated the likelihood of different responses on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Very unlikely, 7 = Very likely).…”