Department of Psychology, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
Cogn Emot. 2012;26(3):407-30. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2012.675879.
In two studies, we examined how expressions of guilt and shame affected person perception. In the first study, participants read an autobiographical vignette in which the writer did something wrong and reported feeling either guilt, shame, or no emotion. The participants then rated the writer's motivations, beliefs, and traits, as well as their own feelings toward the writer. The person expressing feelings of guilt or shame was perceived more positively on a number of attributes, including moral motivation and social attunement, than the person who reported feeling no emotion. In the second study, the writer of the vignette reported experiencing (or not experiencing) cognitive and motivational aspects of guilt or shame. Expressing a desire to apologise (guilt) or feelings of worthlessness (private shame) resulted in more positive impressions than did reputational concerns (public shame) or a lack of any of these feelings. Our results indicate that verbal expressions of moral emotions such as guilt and shame influence perception of moral character as well as likeability.
在两项研究中，我们考察了内疚和羞耻感的表达如何影响对人的看法。在第一项研究中，参与者阅读了一篇自传体短文，其中作者做了错事，并报告自己感到内疚、羞耻或没有任何情绪。然后，参与者对作者的动机、信念和特征进行了评价，以及他们自己对作者的感受。在许多属性上，表达内疚或羞耻感的人比报告没有任何情绪的人更被正面感知，包括道德动机和社会共鸣。在第二项研究中，短文的作者报告了体验（或不体验）内疚或羞耻的认知和动机方面。表达道歉的愿望（内疚）或感到毫无价值（私人羞耻）的感觉比名誉问题（公共羞耻）或缺乏这些感觉产生更积极的印象。我们的结果表明，像内疚和羞耻这样的道德情感的言语表达会影响对道德品质和可爱程度的看法。
