RELATION OF GUILT, SHAME, BEHAVIORAL AND CHARACTEROLOGICAL SELF-BLAME TO DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN ADOLESCENTS OVER TIME

Overview

Journal J Soc Clin Psychol

Specialty Psychology

Date 2014 Nov 25

PMID 25419043

Citations 32

Authors

Carlos Tilghman-Osborne

David A Cole

Julia W Felton

Jeffrey A Ciesla

Affiliations

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Abstract

In a two-wave, longitudinal study, 221 nonreferred adolescents completed measures of guilt, shame, Behavioral self-blame (BSB), Characterological self-blame (CSB), depressive symptoms measures, and attributional style. Goals were to examine similarities between Tangney's (1996) conceptualization of guilt and shame and Janoff-Bulman's (1979) conceptualization of BSB and CSB in adolescents. Specific aims were (1) to examine the relation of depressive symptoms and depressive cognitions to shame, guilt, CSB, and BSB, (2) to estimate the longitudinal relations between depressive symptoms and measures of guilt, shame, BSB, and CSB, and (3) to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of shame/CSB measures and guilt/BSB measures. Results suggest that shame and CSB converge into a common construct, significantly related to depressive symptoms and cognitions. Convergence of guilt and BSB, however, was limited to particular pairs of measures.

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