Shame and Guilt

1
Shame and Guilt

• Richard Parker
• Griffith University
• Brisbane, Australia

Supervisors Stephen Smallbone Richard Wortley
2
Overview

• What is Shame?
• What is Guilt?
• How are they similar?
• How are they different?
• Research results and implications

3
What is the Difference?

• Both are moral emotions connected with
  wrongdoing
• Shame involves a fairly global negative
  evaluation of the self
• Guilt involves a more articulated condemnation of
  a specific behaviour

Tangney Dearing (2002)
4
Shame v Guilt

• Global Self
• Generally more painful than Guilt
• Shrinking, feeling small, worthless, powerless

• Specific Behaviour
• Generally less painful than shame
• Tension, remorse, regret

5
Shame v Guilt

• Self impaired by global devaluation
• Concern with others evaluation of self
• Mentally undoing some aspect of the self
• Desire to hide, escape or strike back

• Self unimpaired by global devaluation
• Concern with ones effect on others
• Mentally undoing some aspect of behaviour
• Desire to confess, apologise or repair

6
Compass of Shame (Nathanson, 1992)
7
Shame Responses

• Anger (at you, at victim, system, etc.)
• Denial
• Hiding, avoiding (including substance abuse)
• Suicide, self-harm
• Depression, anxiety, eating disorder,
  sub-clinical sociopathy, low self-esteem

8
Avoidance Strategies(Shame Responses)

• are generally interpreted by others as
  indications that the young person is shameless or
  lacking in responsibility, empathy or compassion.
  He may then be regarded as in need of direction
  from others, usually in the form of
  confrontation, education and correction.
  (Jenkins, 2005)

9
Attachment Styles and Shame, Guilt Proneness
10
Decision In-the-moment

• None of the theories of sexual offending
  adequately explain what goes on in-the-moment -
  when the offender makes the decision to offend
  (or not) - although they do a good job of
  explaining how the offender comes to be facing
  that dilemma

11
Motivation favouring action or restraint at a
time when offence is possible
12
Action v. Restraint

• Action Motivations
• Sexual Attraction
• Attachment needs
• Crossover between sexual attraction, attachment
  nurturing systems
• etc.

• Restraint Motivations
• Detection/ Consequences (fear)
• Moral Emotions (Shame Guilt)

13
Restraining forces

• Guilt should restrain the most
• Shame should restrain less
• Detachment (lack of guilt or shame) is no
  restraint at all
• If shame replaces guilt, then recidivism risk
  should increase

14
Shame Guilt During Imprisonment
Hosser et al., 2008
15
Hosser et al. (2008)

• Controlling for other predictors, they found
• Shame positively related to recidivism
• Guilt negatively related to recidivism

16
Measuring Shame Guilt in Child Sexual Offenders

• TOSCA
• Measures the tendency to feel shame, guilt
  detachment in everyday situations
• Child Sexual Assault is very different from the
  scenarios in the TOSCA
• TOSCA cant be used for a specific situation

17
Measuring Shame Guilt in Child Sexual Offenders

• State Shame Guilt Scale (SSGS)
• Measures shame, guilt and pride in-the-moment
• Hasnt been used with behaviors as extreme as CSA
• We cant measure in-the-moment and hence modified
  the SSGS to ask about a specific point in the
  past

18
Measuring Shame Guilt in Child Sexual Offenders

• Failure to differentiate between shame and guilt
  using SSGS with CSO when asked about the period
  immediately after their first offence
• r 0.88 (p lt 0.01, N 58)
• While shame and guilt are usually correlated (r
  0.5), the current result is more like a
  reliability score!

19
Possible Ceiling Effect?
20
Measurement Problem?

• Does the SSGS separate Guilt Shame?
• Hopfensitz (personal communication) found that
  the Guilt and Shame scales were very highly
  correlated with students playing a social
  dilemma game

21
Shame and Guilt fused?

• Moreover, H.B. Lewis (1971) has noted that when
  both shame and guilt are evoked by the same
  event, the two states tend to fuse with each
  other, and are then typically labelled guilt.
  (Tangney Dearing, 2002)

22
What is SSGS Measuring?

• Guilt? Shame? Or something Else?
• SSGS Shame and Guilt scales for a hypothetical
  scenario are negatively correlated with denial
  when interviewed by police about their most
  recent offence (r -0.297, -0.303, p lt 0.05)

23
What is SSGS Measuring?

• SSGS Shame and Guilt scales for the most recent
  offence trend towards a negative correlation with
  denial of that offence when interviewed by police
  (r -0.244, -0.221, p lt 0.10)

24
What is SSGS Measuring?

• SSGS Shame for the most recent offence is
  positively correlated with an admission or
  partial admission at the police interview (r
  0.298, p lt 0.05) and Guilt trends in the same
  direction (r 0.226, p lt 0.10).

25
What is SSGS Measuring?

• Both the SSGS Shame and Guilt scales for the most
  recent offence correlated with the statement I
  felt guilty after that offence (r 0.361,
  0.424, p lt 0.01)

26
What is SSGS Measuring?

• However, neither the SSGS Shame nor the Guilt
  scale for the most recent offence correlated with
  a plea of guilty at court (r 0.064, 0.025, p gt
  0.10)
• Of course, there are many other factors affecting
  court pleas

27
What is SSGS Measuring?

• It would appear likely that both the SSGS Shame
  and Guilt scales are measuring guilt
• Where is shame hiding?

28
Why would shame hide?

• It can be shameful to admit shame
• Denial is a key shame response

29
Denial of Shame

• Difficulties in identifying ones own experience
  as shame have so often been observed that they
  suggest some intrinsic connection between shame
  and the mechanism of denial (H. Lewis, 1971)

30
Next Phase of Research

• Qualitative analysis of open interviews
• Reading between the lines for symptoms of shame
  (e.g. Compass of Shame) rather than overt
  admission of shame.

31
Case study Alan

• Childhood
• I actually thought that I was bad cause I
  thought there was like something wrong with me
  I thought it was evil. I must have been evil or
  something.

32
Case study Alan

• Childhood
• I just felt uncomfortable around other people
  As the years went on, it became more powerful and
  so, it actually got to the point where I felt
  uncomfortable if there was more than one or two
  people there

33
Case study Alan

• Prior to Offence
• I wasnt allowed to have anything to do with my
  brothers, or my sister or anything. And so
  basically then, I was pretty much cut off, told I
  wasnt allowed to go anywhere near them. And I, I
  wasnt handling that very well.

34
Case study Alan

• Immediately Prior to Offence
• I wanted to I felt like I needed, I needed to
  talk to somebody. I need to make somebody
  understand, just like, to have somebody

35
Case study Alan

• The Offence
• I started yknow like, I started out talking
  and obviously she was, she was terrified. She
  didnt know what was going on, she didnt know
  and I wasnt really paying much attention to her
  at all

36
Case study Alan

• The Offence
• And she became, um, upset and she, she become
  upset and so, started crying. Like, I didnt
  want to upset her so I tried to comfort her
  like I in the close proximity like when I,
  because I tried to hug her and that. And the
  close physical proximity I became aroused and I
  I raped her

37
Case study Alan

• Immediately after the Offence
• the girl got up to leave and then like all this
  anger came out, all this anger and like, she was
  leaving, like then I got up, I wanted to talk
  to her like explain that then she started to
  walk off and I felt all this anger and it was
  fury, rage that I had I couldnt explain it,
  but I had all these feelings I dont know but
  abandonment and

38
Case study Alan

• Immediately after the Offence
• At the time, the anger was towards my mother.
  And, at the time, I actually saw my mother. I
  know it sounds stupid. But, but, but at that
  point in time, I was sort of like, it was sort of
  like, sort of another space then I took her
  down the creek, then I drowned her.

39
Alan

• Background of chronic shame
• Rejection, increasing shame to a heightened level
• Misguided intimacy attempt leads to an offence.
• Offending raises shame to an extreme level
• Shame converts to rage
• Rage fuels murder

40
Over-responsibility?

• While shame looks like irresponsibility, inviting
  responses to make them responsible, it actually
  involves over-responsibility whereby the person
  believes they are irredeemable because of their
  actions

41
Reframing

• If we change our view of the offender from
  irresponsible to ashamed we are more likely
  to view the offender in a benevolent manner and
  act accordingly

42
The ACT Experience

• Accordingly I trained therapists in the concepts
  of shame and guilt
• Therapists were easily able to reframe their
  difficult clients and were able to understand
  where the offender was coming from and to react
  in a much more effective manner

43
The ACT Experience

• However, on their own initiative, therapists
  introduced the concept to offenders in group

44
The ACT Experience

• Offenders quickly grasped these differences and
  applied them to their own lives
• This understanding appeared to facilitate the
  move from shame to guilt in some offenders, as
  they identified which of their behaviours were
  shame based and which were guilt based

45
Strategies

• Be aware that some of the unhelpful behaviours
  adopted by offenders may be due to feelings of
  shame, rather than irresponsibility
• Pushing early for accountability, may aggravate
  the feelings of shame and lead to an escalation
  of the unhelpful behaviour
• If the unhelpful behaviour is shame based, the
  person may need support and validation before
  they can face up to what they have done in a
  productive manner.

46
System Responses

• Ensure all treatment staff are aware of the
  differences between shame guilt
• Ensure offenders understand the differences
  between shame and guilt
• Do not exclude deniers from treatment - this
  blames the offender for being shameful and denies
  them access to a way out of the shame

47
System Responses

• Moving from shame to guilt is a major goal of
  treatment, which may be necessary to achieve
  other goals
• This movement is therapeutic, not educational.
  While some education may assist, the
  transformation is from bad identity to good
  self
• Programs should ensure language reinforces the
  idea that it is the behaviour that is bad, not
  the person. E.g. the use of the term sex
  offender is person centred, not behaviour
  focussed.

48
Resources

• Hosser, D., Windzio, M., Greve, W. (2008). Guilt
  and Shame as Predictors of Recidivism A
  Longitudinal Study with Young Prisoners. Criminal
  Justice and Behavior, 35, 138-152.
• Jenkins, Alan (2005). Knocking on Shames Door
  Facing Shame Without Shaming Disadvantaged Young
  People Who Have Abused. In Calder, M.C. (Ed.).
  Children and Young People Who Sexually Abuse New
  theory, research and practice developments.
  Russell House Publishing
• Nathanson, D.L. (1992). Shame Pride Affect,
  Sex, and the birth of the self. London Norton
• Tangney Dearing (2002). Shame Guilt. New
  York Guilford