Differences in the Motivational Urges and Enacted Behaviors of Guilt and Shame: A Study on Individualism and Collectivism

Abstract

There has been limited research regarding the differences in motivational urges, action tendencies and enacted behaviors on a cross-cultural basis. To study this, we administered an online questionnaire, composed of two parts. The first part of this study aimed to validate the EMGEBS scale (Smith & Kirby 2010) for a variety of negative emotions. The second part of this study looked at the relation between emotional correlations and action tendencies for guilt and shame. Further analysis was done to understand the unique action tendencies for each emotion, and whether or not individualism or collectivism (our proxy for cross-cultural differences) was a moderating factor. The statistical validation of the negative EMGEBS scale was successful. While the second part of the study yielded a number of unique action tendencies for guilt and shame, only two moderating effects were found for individualism and collectivism’s effect on the enacted behaviors.