Mediating Role of Shame and Guilt in Conflict Resolution Strategies

Abstract

The factors of guilt-proneness and shame-proneness are found to influence the kind of coping strategies adopted by the individuals. The emotion of shame is more concerned with the global aspect of self-identity whereas the emotion of guilt revolves around a particular action committed. Therefore, shame is associated with a negative apprehension from others leading to greater anxiety whereas guilt is associated with a tendency to take responsibility for the actions. Consequently, it has been found that those individuals who are more prone to experiencing guilt adopt co-operative coping styles whereas those individuals experiencing shame adopt non-cooperative coping styles. The present study has tried to replicate these findings. 2 scales measuring, shame-proneness and guilt-proneness and their coping styles, respectively, were administered to a sample of 50 people and co-relations between the variables are computed. The tests used were ‘Conflict Resolution Questionnaire’ devised by Johnson in 1990 and ‘Guilt And Shame Proneness’ devised by Cohen et al in 2011. Findings and practical implications of the same are discussed. The results did not support the hypothesis. In fact there were strong correlations found for guilt and non cooperative strategies. This could be attributed to internal as well external factors associated with guilt which motivates a person to engage in non cooperative strategies.