Shame, Guilt, and Depressive Symptoms: A Meta-Analytic Review

• Published in: Psychological bulletin Vol. 137; no. 1; pp. 68 - 96
• Main Authors: Kim, Sangmoon, Thibodeau, Ryan, Jorgensen, Randall S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01.01.2011
• Subjects: Age Differences; Anxiety; Asian Americans; Attribution Theory; Cognition; Correlation; Depression (Psychology); Depression - complications; Effect Size; Emotions; Female; Gender Differences; Guilt; Humans; Male; Meta Analysis; Psychological Patterns; Psychological Tests; Racial Differences; Sex Factors; Shame; Statistical Analysis; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Whites
• ISSN: 0033-2909; 1939-1455
• DOI: 10.1037/a0021466

Recent theoretical and empirical work has facilitated the drawing of sharp conceptual distinctions between shame and guilt. A clear view of these distinctions has permitted development of a research literature aimed at evaluating the differential associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. This study quantitatively summarized the magnitude of associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. Two hundred forty-two effect sizes were obtained from 108 studies employing 22,411 participants. Shame showed significantly stronger associations with depressive symptoms (r = 0.43) than guilt (r = 0.28). However, the association of shame and depressive symptoms was statistically indistinguishable from the associations of 2 maladaptive variants of guilt and depressive symptoms ("contextual-maladaptive" guilt, involving exaggerated responsibility for uncontrollable events, r = 0.39; generalized guilt, involving "free-floating" guilt divorced from specific contexts, r = 0.42). Other factors also moderated the effects. "External shame", which involves negative views of self as seen through the eyes of others, was associated with larger effect sizes (r = 0.56) than "internal shame" (r = 0.42), which involves negative views of self as seen through one's own eyes. Depressive symptom measures that invoked the term guilt yielded stronger associations between guilt and depressive symptoms (r = 0.33) than depressive symptom measures that did not (r = 0.21). Age, sex, and ethnicity (proportion of Whites to Asians) did not moderate the effects. Although these correlational data are ambiguous with respect to their causal interpretation, results suggest that shame should figure more prominently in understandings of the emotional underpinnings of depressive symptoms. (Contains 5 footnotes, 4 tables, and 3 figures.)