COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Vicarious shame and guilt: Antecedents and Consequences

越来越多的研究已经确定了羞耻和内疚在调节人类社会行为中的重要作用。过去的研究发现，羞耻和内疚往往是由类似的情况引起的，但这些情绪是明显不同的。例如，虽然内疚似乎有助于更顺利的社会交往和心理调整，但羞耻感会引发自我意识和退出社会交往的愿望。尽管现有的关于羞耻和内疚的研究都集中在人们在自己做出了应该受到责备的行为后产生的这些情绪的体验上，但几乎没有研究探讨过预测人们何时会对其他人的行为感到羞耻或内疚的因素。拟议的研究将测试一个替代性羞耻和内疚的模型，该模型将当前对自我意识情感的理解与社会协会的理论观点相结合，以预测什么类型的协会使个人容易受到替代性羞耻的影响，而不是对他人行为的内疚。一个人的协会的本质性感知到一个不法行为者预计会加剧替代性的羞耻和疏远的反应，而一个人的人际相互依存的水平与不法行为者预计会加剧替代性的内疚和努力修复对受害者造成的任何损害的反应。一系列的14个实验将操纵参与者对一个犯了错误的人的联想类型，并检查这些操纵对参与者自我报告的情绪反应和认知评价的影响，以及他们对不法行为者和受害者的行为反应。由于羞耻感和内疚感会引起对事件的不同行为反应，因此，对替代性羞耻感和内疚感的研究有望为群体间和人际行为理论以及情绪理论提供重要的见解。

A growing body of research has identified the important role of shame and guilt in regulating human social behavior. Past research has discovered that shame and guilt are often evoked by similar circumstances, yet these emotions are clearly distinct. For example, whereas guilt appears to facilitate smoother social interactions and psychological adjustment, shame prompts feelings of self-consciousness and a desire to withdraw from social encounters. Although existing research on shame and guilt has focused on the experience of these emotions as it occurs after people have committed a blameworthy action themselves, almost no research has examined factors that predict when people experience shame or guilt for actions carried out by other individuals. The proposed research will test a model of vicarious shame and guilt that integrates current understandings of self-conscious emotion with theoretical perspectives on social associations to predict what types of associations make individuals susceptible to vicarious shame versus guilt for the actions of others. The perceived essentiality of one's association to a wrongdoer is predicted to intensify reactions of vicarious shame and distancing responses, whereas one's level of interpersonal interdependence with a wrongdoer is predicted to intensify reactions of vicarious guilt and efforts to repair any damage done to a victim. A series of 14 experiments will manipulate the type of association participants have to an individual who commits a wrongdoing and examine the effects of these manipulations on participants' self-reported emotional reactions and cognitive appraisals, as well as their behavioral responses to both the wrongdoer and the victim. Because shame and guilt evoke such different behavioral reactions to events, the proposed research on vicarious shame and guilt promises to yield insights important for theories of intergroup and interpersonal behavior, as well as for theories of emotion.