Self-Conscious Emotions and Esteem Support: The Effectiveness of Esteem Support in Alleviating State Shame and Guilt

This experiment examines state shame and guilt responses to esteem support messages, testing predictions derived from the cognitive-emotional theory of esteem support messages (CETESM). Participants (N=852) chose one of eight hypothetical scenarios designed to induce shame and/or guilt. Next, participants were directed to a randomization of emotion-focused (EF) and problem-focused (PF) esteem support messages and were asked to rate how the message would affect their feelings of state shame and state guilt. EF messages were expected to alleviate feelings of shame more so than guilt, but results indicated that they did not consistently do so. However, as expected, PF messages were rated as more likely to alleviate feelings of guilt (in five of eight scenarios) than shame. When comparing the messages to each other, EF messages were rated as better at alleviating both shame and guilt compared to PF messages. Theoretical and pragmatic implications are discussed.