Proneness to Shame and Guilt in Preschool Children: A Developmental Perspective

The purpose of this study is to develop a method for studying shame and guilt in preschool children. We are testing how shame and guilt develop and at what \ud age. The relationship among parent and child proneness to shame and guilt, and parent styles of inducing shame and guilt in their child. Our subjects were 32\ud preschool children and their parents. The children were given a story completion task and were observed in their classrooms as verbal and behavioral measures of \ud proneness. The parents participated with their child in the same story completion task a week before or after the child task to measure guilt and shame inducing styles of the parent. The parent also completed an adapted version of the Self Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory (SCAAI) (Tangney, 1987) to measure parent \ud proneness. Parent and child proneness was related as measured by the story tasks. Guilt and shame on the SCAAI were related, but distinct phenomena\ud replicating Tangney\ud (1987). The observations did not relate to the parent or child responses. There was a trend of story responses toward guilt for both parents and children. \ud Observations were split between shame and guilt. Age was not a factor in\ud the child behavior or verbal responses