Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 30, Issue 7, August 2005, Pages 1392-1404
Addictive Behaviors

On the importance of distinguishing shame from guilt: Relations to problematic alcohol and drug use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.02.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that shame-proneness (the tendency to feel bad about the self) relates to a variety of life problems, whereas guilt-proneness (the tendency to feel bad about a specific behavior) is more likely to be adaptive. The current analyses sought to clarify the relations of shame-proneness and guilt-proneness to substance use problems in three samples with differing levels of alcohol and drug problem severity: college undergraduates (Study 1 N = 235, Study 2 N = 249) and jail inmates (Study 3 N = 332). Across samples, shame-proneness was generally positively correlated with substance use problems, whereas guilt-proneness was inversely related (or unrelated) to substance use problems. Results suggest that shame and guilt should be considered separately in the prevention and treatment of substance misuse.

Section snippets

Participants

Study participants were 235 college undergraduates at a large east coast public university who received course credit towards a research requirement in exchange for their participation. The students were on average 20.18 years old (SD = 5.14), about three-quarters were women (75.3%), and the sample was quite diverse in terms of racial/ethnic composition: 48.5% Caucasian, 11.1% African American, 18.7% Asian, 6.4% Latino, 5.5% Middle Eastern, and 9.8% “Other” or missing.

Alcohol and drug problems

The Alcohol Dependence

Participants

Study participants were 249 college undergraduates at a large east coast public university who received course credit towards a research requirement in exchange for their participation. The students were on average 20.11 years old (SD = 4.30), and 81.9% were women. The racial/ethnic composition of the sample was: 57.0% Caucasian, 10.8% African American, 12.4% Asian, 6.4% Latino, 3.6% Middle Eastern, and 9.6% “Other” or missing.

Alcohol and drug problems

The Alcohol Dependence (Scale B; 15 items) and Drug Dependence (Scale

Participants

Study participants were 332 pre- and post-trial inmates in a metropolitan area jail. The targeted sample was inmates who would serve at least 4 months in jail, approximated by selecting inmates who had been charged with at least one felony, and for whom bail was at least $7000. Inmate participants in Study 3 were on average 31.4 years old (SD = 9.6), mostly men (90%), and diverse in terms of racial/ethnic composition: 34.0% Caucasian, 45.9% African American, 3.3% Asian, 9.6% Latino, .7% Middle

Discussion

Results of the current studies provide evidence for a positive link between shame-proneness and problematic alcohol and drug use in two very different groups of people—undergraduates and jail inmates. In contrast, proneness to “shame-free” guilt was generally inversely related to problems with alcohol and drugs (particularly marijuana). This investigation attempted to circumvent some of the methodological difficulties of other studies by using within-group comparisons and assessment measures

Acknowledgement

This research was supported in part by a training grant (5 T32 AA07583) from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and in part by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (5 R01 DA14694) to the third author. A subset of these results was previously presented as a poster at the 25th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism, June 28–July 3, 2002, San Francisco, CA. The authors would like to thank Deb Sinek for her assistance with data analysis, and

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