Revisiting the Old Distinction between Guilt and Shame Cultures

Since Ruth Benedict (1946) described Japan as a shame culture and the U.S. as a guilt culture, different and sometimes conflicting hypotheses have been formulated about cross-cultural differences in these emotions. Since much of the debate depends on how guilt and shame are conceptualized, an extensive cross-cultural study was set up to map the major emotion dimensions in the self-conscious emotion domain. Participants were asked to report the three last self-conscious emotion episodes and rate each episode on 103 features representing appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, and feelings typical for guilt and shame. 3693 participants from 20 countries collaborated (Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Lebanon, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, USA, Spain, Singapore English and Singapore Chinese, and the Philippines). Simultaneous component analysis revealed a well-interpretable three- and five-componential structure (representing guilt, embarrassment, and anger or guilt, embarrassment, anger, negative self-focus, and general distress respectively). In the three-componential structure, the distinction of Ruth Benedict was confirmed: Japanese participants reported more embarrassment and U.S. participants more guilt. In the five componential structure negative self-focus showed the most pronounced difference, with Japanese reporting much more negative self-focus than Americans. However, no evidence was found for a broad distinction between Eastern and Western cultures. Also some Western cultures were high in shame (e.g., Italy) or in negative self-esteem (e.g., Finland). These findings raise questions about the generalizability of the Japan-U.S. differences. The need for equivalence and isomorphism for mapping these cultural differences will be further discussed.