Narratives of situational antecedents of shame and guilt uin children and adolescents

The aim of this contribution is to investigate the situational antecedents of shame and guilt by asking children and adolescents for written narratives of autobiographical episodes. Studying emotional antecedents is, in fact, traditionally carried out using either stories and scenarios or structured tasks, instead of asking for narratives of personal events in which subjects felt guilty and ashamed. Participants were 300 subjects, 100 9-year olds children (M = 9,8; SD = 0,7), 100 14-year olds (M = 14,5; SD = 1,7), and 100 18-year olds adolescents (M = 18,7; SD = 1,8), with typical development, recruited in schools located in Milan, from middle class. Participants of the three age groups were equally divided by gender. On the basis of developmental literature, it was predicted to find differences as a function of age, type of emotion and gender. A content analysis was carried out and chi square test was performed. Comparing age groups, significant differences were found between children and adolescents, and between 14-year olds versus 18- years olds participants (p = .01). Differences were more relevant for guilt compared to shame. Gender differences were found as well (p = .01), but they were more relevant for shame as compared to guilt. The whole results show that, despite of age and gender differences, all participants were able to report coherent autobiographical episodes that vary on two major dimensions, namely ‘moral wrong’ for guilt and ‘threat of an unwished self or identity’ for shame.