Shame and Guilt in Preschool Children: their manifestations and relationship to parental tendency
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1989
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
This study examined the development and manifestation of shame and guilt in preschool children. This was investigated through four phases, l)child story response task in which stories were read to the children and they were instructed to provide to the investigators the endings including the feelings and actions of the characters, 2)a parent story response task in which the parents provided the endings of the stories to their children, 3)parent completion of the Self Conscious Affect and Attribution inventory (SCAAI, Tangney, 1987) a paper and pencil measure assessing the strength of tendencies toward shame and guilt, and 4)classroom observation of the preschool children to note frequencies of shame and guilt behaviors. The subjects were students at the Phebe Anna Thorne School, Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, 15 from the three year old class, 7 female and 8 male, and 17 from the four year old class, 10 female and 7 male and 22 parents. A series of Chi squares followed by Pearson correlations revealed two significant and moderately strong relationships; !)between parental story responses and child story responses, and 2)between the strength of shame and guilt responses on the SCAAI. This supported two of our hypotheses, l)that parental influence plays a role in the development of shame and guilt, at least initially through mimicry, and 2)that shame and guilt are two closely related yet distinct emotions. Contrary to our hypotheses, no relationships in terms of shamejguilt tendencies were found between l)child age and child response style, 2)child response style and observational data, 3)parent response style and observational data or 4)classroom observation and child age. Suggestions for further research are noted.