The role of the shame (isin) moral value in Javanese culture and its impact on personality traits, and shame and guilt emotions of the young Javanese generation

• Published in: Diversity in Unity: Perspectives from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences pp. 565 - 570
• Main Authors: Prayitno, G.S., Sukirna, H.S.S., Amelda, C.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: CRC Press 2018
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Guilt Based Culture; Shame Based Culture; Javanese Culture; FFI; Negative Relationship; Vice Versa; Universitas Indonesia; NBE; Describe Personality Traits; Personal Transgressions; IDR; Child’s EF; NSE; NEO-FFI; Backward Word Span; DCCS; Violate; Chronic; Javanese Students; RMSEA; Moral Emotions; Innovative Work Behavior; Shame Proneness; Guilt Emotions; Ora
• ISBN: 1138626651; 9781138626652
• DOI: 10.1201/9781315225302-71

Shame and guilt are moral emotions that motivate ethical social behaviour and encourage normal abiding behaviours. Considering the fundamental Javanese values involved in the concept of isin (shame), that the Javanese tend to have a high degree of the five traits that make up a personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This study aimed to explore the relationship between the personality trait, and shame and guilt emotions. The study’s participants were 165 university students whose parents were Javanese and who had been raised and lived in Yogyakarta and its surroundings, an area which is central to their culture. The NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was used to capture the personality profile, and the Guilt And Shame Proneness (GASP) Scale was used to measure the shame and guilt proneness action tendency. The result of this study showed that the conscientiousness trait merely correlated with the emotion of guilt, neuroticism only correlated with the emotion of shame, whereas agreeableness correlated with both shame and guilt emotions. Furthermore, the results also revealed that the response shown by the Javanese people when they felt guilt was mostly reparative behaviour. Only people with high agreeableness and extraversion traits showed withdrawal behaviour. Shame and guilt are moral emotions that motivate ethical social behaviour and encourage normal abiding behaviours. Considering the fundamental Javanese values involved in the concept of isin, that the Javanese tend to have a high degree of the five traits that make up a personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Most of all, a mature Javanese personality is reflected in one's understanding of isin. Shame and guilt emotions are also influenced by personality, and can be expressed as an individual's tendency to show a consistent pattern of thought, feeling, and action, which differentiate one individual from another. Descriptive statistics, frequency, mean, and median, were used to describe personality traits and the moral emotions of shame and guilt. This chapter presents a study which explores the relationship between the personality trait, and shame and guilt emotions. The results revealed that the response shown by the Javanese people when they felt guilt was mostly reparative behaviour.