2025/07/14 by Jochim Hansen, Anna Khvorost, Marijana Zimonjic +1 · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Emotions and Moral Behavior #Cultural Differences and Values #Psychology of Social Influence
paper · doi:10.1080/02699931.2025.2529527
openalex publication_date 2025/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Shame and guilt are social emotions that share several similarities. However, there are important differences between these two emotions: Shame relates to the whole self and involves more global appraisal tendencies, whereas guilt relates to a specific behaviour. Therefore, shame may be a more high-level emotion than guilt. Considering construal-level theory and the construal-matching hypothesis, we hypothesised that a high-level construal of one's transgression would more likely result in shame than guilt compared to a low-level construal. We investigated this hypothesis with two studies that experimentally manipulated the level at which transgressions were construed using different methods: the category-versus-exemplar task (Study 1) and focusing on the how or the why of diverse transgressions (Study 2). We tested whether these manipulations affected shame versus guilt. Study 1 provided only correlational support, whereas Study 2 provided causal support for our hypothesis. Study 2 additionally showed that construal level affected downstream consequences in particular: A high-level construal caused relatively more hide and escape tendencies than a low-level construal. Implications of these findings are discussed.