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Validation of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children

Article  in  Personality and Individual Differences · October 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.04.028

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 Personality and Individual Differences 85 (2015) 56–59

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Short Communication

Validation of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children q

Sheida Novin a,b,⇑, Carolien Rieffe c,d
a
Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
b
Psychology Department, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
c
Developmental Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
d
Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: While both shame and guilt are described as self-conscious emotions, they differ in many ways, including
Received 18 December 2014 their contextual antecedents and their associations with mental health. A measure that distinguishes
Received in revised form 26 March 2015 proneness to experience shame and guilt is crucial.
Accepted 13 April 2015
In the present study we present a brief questionnaire to measure shame- and guilt-proneness in chil-
Available online 15 May 2015
dren using short concrete items. Specifically, we presented our 12-item Brief Shame and Guilt
Questionnaire to Dutch (n = 219) 9–14 year-olds along with measures of internalizing problems (social
Keywords:
anxiety, worry) and externalizing problems (aggression and conduct behavior). In addition to self-reports,
Emotions
Psychopathology
teacher-reports on the externalizing problems were also collected. Results confirmed the two-factor
Adolescents structure, showed good psychometric properties of the two scales and a good concurrent validity.
Social anxiety Specifically, shame-proneness contributed to the prediction of more internalizing problems and guilt-
Worry proneness contributed to the prediction of fewer externalizing problems. As such, the Brief Shame and
Conduct problems Guilt Questionnaire for Children is a reliable and accessible instrument to administer in children.
! 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Validation of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for unwanted self by important others. Because the feelings of shame
Children are attributed to global, stable, unchangeable causes, the negative
feeling is related to feeling worthless and powerless (Tangney,
Shame and guilt are both called ‘‘self-conscious emotions’’ Wagner, & Gramzow, 1992), and stimulates withdrawal. Despite
(Tangney, 1990). Other than ‘‘basic emotions’’ such as anger and that shame can be considered an adaptive emotion by fostering
happiness, self-conscious emotions involve more cognitive com- conformity and social rules in a group (Ferguson, Stegge, &
plexity and are therefore experienced later in development (e.g., Damhuis, 1991), an excessive proneness to shame is associated
Kim, Thibodeau, & Jorgensen, 2011). To experience shame and guilt with internalizing problems (e.g., social anxiety, rumination,
one must be aware of oneself as different from others, of social depression) (e.g., Ferguson, Stegge, Miller, & Olsen, 1999;
standards and rules, and of one’s responsibility of meeting those Tangney et al., 1992). In contrast to shame, guilt is elicited by one’s
standards (e.g., Tracy, Robins, & Tangney, 2007). Failing to behave negative evaluation of one’s behavior or transgression. It involves
of what is considered socially appropriate can result in feelings of the realization that one’s action was wrong, often times in terms
shame and/or guilt. Despite sharing these core characteristics, of one’s own norms. Given that these feelings are attributed to a
scholars commonly agree that shame and guilt are distinct emo- specific behavior, guilt motivates to restore the harm done by con-
tions, with their own antecedents and relations to mental health fessing, apologizing, or repairing. A lack of guilt-proneness is asso-
indicators as detailed next. ciated with externalizing problems (e.g., conduct and aggressive
Shame is elicited by one’s negative evaluation of the self. It behavior) (e.g., Ferguson et al., 1999; Stuewig, Tangney, Heigel,
involves the realization that one is not what one wanted to be Harty, & McCloskey, 2010).
(‘‘unwanted identity’’; Olthof, Schouten, Kuiper, Stegge, & In order to better understand the differential roles of shame and
Jennekens-Schinkel, 2000) and fear for the evaluations of this guilt in children’s mental health, reliable and accessible instru-
ments that can distinguish shame- and guilt-proneness are crucial.
Ferguson and colleagues (Ferguson & Stegge, 1998; Ferguson,
q
This study was conducted at Leiden University.
⇑ Corresponding author at: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Stegge, Eyre, Vollmer, & Ashbaker, 2000) developed the Self-
P.O Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA. Conscious Emotions: Maladaptive and Adaptive Scales (SCEMAS)
E-mail address: sheidanovin@gmail.com (S. Novin). in which children are presented with 13 concrete scenarios, and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.04.028
0191-8869/! 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Novin, C. Rieffe / Personality and Individual Differences 85 (2015) 56–59 57

asked to rate shame- and guilt-related experiences of the protago- Table 1

nist. The authors show that children, especially from nine years Items of the shame and guilt questionnaire and PFA loadings.

old, are able to reliably rate levels of shame and guilt. Shame Guilt
The aim of the present study was to develop a brief, easy-to-use 2. You are walking in the middle of a busy shopping street. .64
questionnaire, partly based on the SCEMAS: the Brief Shame and You trip. All your books and pens fall out of your bag on
Guilt Questionnaire for Children (BSGQ-C). To do so (1) we devel- the street
oped short items rather than scenarios, which would also be com- 4. You get a very bad grade at school .35
6. You are going to school. You have cut your own hair. You .65
prehensible to children with language impairments, (2) half of the feel stupid
items are intended to elicit shame-proneness and half are intended 8. You fall from your bike onto the pavement. People stop to .85
to elicit guilt-proneness rather than asking for both emotions in watch. You leave quickly
each item, and (3) we explicitly asked children about their inten- 10. You are standing in front of the class. You have to give a .66
talk. Everyone is looking at you. You forget what you
sity of shame or guilty feelings rather than providing a description
wanted to say
of the emotions (e.g., ‘‘feel sorry’’ or ‘‘feel like a bad person’’). We 12. You are at your classmate’s house for the first time. You .51
examined the construct validity by testing the two-factor structure get a class with chocolate milk. You trip on the carpet.
and the internal consistencies of the adapted questionnaire. We The chocolate milk falls out of your hands
also examined the concurrent validity by examining the extent to 1. Your classmate is using the red pen the whole time. You .53
also need the pen. You snatch away the pen
which the shame-proneness and guilt-proneness scales were asso-
3. You are riding your bike on the pavement. You are going .62
ciated with and contributed to internalizing (i.e., social anxiety, really fast. Suddenly a little girl is standing there and you
worry/rumination) and externalizing problems (i.e., conduct prob- bump into her
lems and aggressive behavior). In line with prior work we expected 5. You want to go home quickly. The little girl from next .58
door drops her marbles. You don’t help her, because
that shame-proneness would be related to more internalizing
you’re in a hurry
problems and guilt-proneness would be related to fewer external- 7. Your classmate worked a long time on a painting. But you .61
izing problems. We used self-reports to measure internalizing don’t watch out. You knock over a glass of water on his
problems given that children are the best informants of their social drawing. Everything spills over the painting. The painting
anxiety and worry/rumination symptoms (e.g., Cantwell, is totally ruined
9. Your classmate hasn’t finished her essay on time. She asks .60
Lewinsohn, Rhode, & Seeley, 1996). Given that externalizing prob-
you for help. You don’t help her, because you don’t feel
lems are more observant, we used both self-reports and teacher- like it
ratings to measure conduct and aggressive behavior. 11. There is only one cookie left in the cookie jar. You quickly .59
put it in your mouth. Now your friend doesn’t have a
cookie
2. Method
Note. Results of principal axis factor analysis with promax rotation. Only factor
2.1. Participants and procedure loadings >.30 are presented.

A total of 219 Dutch children (Mage = 10.17 years, SD = 1.12; age

‘‘conduct problems’’ (5 items) was used in this study. Both children
range 8.04–14.24 years; 53% boys) were recruited through their
and their teachers rated each item on a 3-point scale (0 = Not true,
school in the middle part of the Netherlands. The study took place
1 = Somewhat true, 2 = Certainly true).
during regular school hours, took approximately 60 min, and was
The Instrument for Reactive and Proactive Aggression (IRPA; self-
part of a larger pilot study for the development and validation of
report: Pouw, Rieffe, Oosterveld, Huskens, & Stockmann, 2013; tea-
new instruments. Prior data collection parental consent was
cher-report: Polman, Orobio de Castro, Thomaes, & Van Aken,
obtained for all participants.
2009) consists of 7 items measuring the form and frequency of
2.2. Materials aggressive behavior, including physical (hitting, kicking, pushing),
verbal (name calling arguing), and covert aggression (doing sneaky
2.2.1. Self-report things, gossiping). Children were asked to rate whether they
The Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children was based on showed these behaviors in the past 4 weeks (0 = No, 1 = Yes,
the SCEMAS by Ferguson and Stegge (1998), Ferguson et al. (2000) because I was angry, being bullied, wanted to be mean, enjoyed it,
and consists of a shame scale (6 items) and a guilt scale (6 items), and/or wanted to be the boss). Teachers rated the frequency of these
see Table 1. The instruction read ‘Please read each of the sentences behaviors on a 5-point scale (0 = Never, 1 = Occasionally, 2 = Weekly,
below. How would you feel if you feel experience these situations?’ 3 = More than once a week, 4 = Daily).
Children are then asked to rate how much shame or guilt they
would feel on a 3-point scale (1 = Not at all, 2 = A little, 3 = A lot).
The Worry/Rumination Questionnaire for Children (Rieffe et al., Table 2
Descriptive information and internal consistencies of the materials.
2007) consists of 10 items measuring the tendency to dwell on
problems instead of adaptively dealing with them. Children are Informant # of participants a Mean (SD)
asked to rate the degree to which each item is true about them BSGQ
on a 3-point scale (1 = Not true, 2 = Sometimes true, 3 = Often true). Shame Child 219 .80 2.21 (0.51)
The Social Anxiety Scale for Children (SASC; La Greca, Dandes, Guilt Child 219 .76 2.25 (0.47)
Wick, Shaw, & Stone, 1988) consists of 18 items reflecting fear of Worry Scale Child 210 .76 1.75 (0.38)
SASC Child 209 .91 2.02 (0.66)
negative evaluation, social avoidance and distress in general, and
SDQ
social avoidance to new situations or unfamiliar peers. Children
Conduct problems Child 210 .39 1.42 (0.30)
are asked to rate how true each of the items is to them on a 5-point Teacher 184 .59 1.19 (0.33)
scale (1 = Not at all, 5 = All the time). IRPA Child 209 .78 0.22 (0.27)
Teacher 180 .79 0.20 (0.33)
2.2.2. Self-report and teacher-report Note. BSGQ = Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire; CDI = Children’s Depression
The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, Inventory; SASC = Social Anxiety Scale for Children; SDQ = Strength and Difficulties
1997) is a 25-item behavioral screening questionnaire. The scale Questionnaire; IRPA = Instrument for Reactive and Proactive Aggression.
58 S. Novin, C. Rieffe / Personality and Individual Differences 85 (2015) 56–59

Table 3
Correlations between shame- and guilt-proneness and social anxiety, depression, conduct problems and aggressive behavior.

Guilt Social anxiety Worry Conduct problems Aggression

(Child informant) (Teacher informant) (Child informant) (Teacher informant)
Correlations
Shame .50*** .22*** .25*** !.10 !.13 !.15* !.07
Guilt !.08 .13 !.15* !.27*** !.20** !.30***
Standardized regression coefficients
Shame .20* .20* !.02 .03 .08 .04
Guilt !.08 !.03 !.14 !.27** !.20* !.29***
Gender !.18* !.20** !.00 .09 .13 .11
Age !.10 !.08 !.11 .11 !.08 .08
Model F(4,204) = 5.23, F(4,205) = 6.00, F(4,205) = 1.88, F(4,183) = 4.76, F(4,206) = 3.16, F(4,175) = 5.19,
p = .001 p < .001 p = .115 p = .001 p = .015 p = .001
Explained variance 9.3% 10.8% 3.5% 9.6% 5.9% 10.6%
2
(R )

Note. Interactions with gender and age in the regression analyses were not significant and are not shown in the table.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.

The psychometric properties of all scales are sufficient and pre- 4. Discussion
sented in Table 2.
This study examined and confirmed the reliability, the con-
3. Results struct, and concurrent validity of the BSGQ. First, the construct
validity was good, showing the expected two-factor structure.
3.1. Construct validity of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire Second, the internal consistencies of the two scales were also good.
Third, the concurrent validity exactly reflected what could be
A principal axis factor analysis with promax rotation on all 12 expected from prior work: shame-proneness was related to more
items, with the factor count pre-set to the assumed two factors, internalizing problems (i.e., social anxiety and worry) and guilt-
revealed that all items loaded on their intended key factor, explain- proneness was related to fewer externalizing problems (i.e.,
ing 38.54% of the variance (Table 1). The eigenvalues of the two aggressive and conduct problems).
factors were 4.36 and 1.45. A subsequent confirmatory factor anal- Overall, these outcomes illustrate that a questionnaire for mea-
ysis indicated that the data moderately fit the two-factor model: suring shame- and guilt-proneness in children can be brief and in
v2(53) = 97.74, p < .001, RMSEA = .062, CFI = .93, TLI = .92. The sig- item-format, with the ability to distinguish between the two emo-
nificant correlation between the shame and guilt scales, r = .50, tions. The present instrument can therefore be suggested as a use-
p < .001, confirms that both emotions have aspects in common, ful tool for both research and clinical purposes. With respect to
given that they both are self-conscious emotions. The internal con- research, the questionnaire can for example be used to study
sistency of both scales was good (Table 2). developmental patterns of shame- and guilt-proneness over time,
or to study how the proneness of these self-conscious emotions
3.2. Concurrent validity: prediction of internalizing and externalizing relate to specific indices of children’s social and emotional devel-
problems by the BSGQ opment. Given the simple and short wording of the items we
expect that this questionnaire will also be a useful self-report
Shame-proneness correlated positively with social anxiety instrument for children with language difficulties, e.g., children
symptoms and worry and negatively with aggressive behavior with specific language impairments, autism spectrum disorder, or
(child informant). Guilt-proneness correlated negatively with con- hearing impairments, and for children with short attention spans,
duct problems (both child and teacher informant) and aggressive e.g., ADHD. This latter characteristic may be especially useful in a
behavior (both child and teacher informant). Next, we conducted clinical setting where professionals want to gain a better under-
hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Dependent variables standing on the level of emotional development in their clients.
were social anxiety, depression, conduct problems, and aggressive Although the current study shows positive reliability and con-
behavior. Independent variables in the first step were shame- and struct and concurrent validity results of the BSGQ, it is advisable
guilt-proneness, and gender (0 = girls, 1 = boys) and age to control for future studies to test the cross-cultural compatibility of the
for these demographics (Table 3) and in the second step the inter- results. Furthermore, future studies should also examine the con-
actions between shame- and guilt-proneness and age and gender. tribution of shame- and guilt-proneness to other indices of inter-
The first steps in the MRA’s confirmed that shame-proneness nalizing and externalizing problems. Lastly, relations between
contributed to the prediction of more social anxiety and worry self-reported shame- and guilt-proneness and actual shame and
symptoms and that guilt-proneness contributed to the prediction guilt behavior (e.g., in video games where one could withdraw or
of fewer conduct problems (teacher informant) and aggressive be proactive) will provide additional insight into the validity of
behaviors (both child and teacher informant). Additionally, the the scale.
main effects of gender in the analyses with social anxiety and
worry as dependent variables indicate that girls reported more Acknowledgments
social anxiety and worry/rumination symptoms than boys. The
second step of the analyses with the interactions did not signifi- This research was supported by the Executive Research Agency
cantly increase the explained variances, p’s ranged from .109 to for the European Union (Marie Curie IOF grant 302795 to SN) and
.736. the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (VIDI Grant
 S. Novin, C. Rieffe / Personality and Individual Differences 85 (2015) 56–59 59

Number 452-07-004 to CR). Many thanks to Hedy Stegge for her Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 17, 84–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/
s15374424jccp1701_11.
input and to Maartje Kouwenberg and Iris Mulder for their help
Olthof, T., Schouten, A., Kuiper, H., Stegge, H., & Jennekens-Schinkel, A. (2000).
in collecting the data, as well as the children, teachers, and schools Shame and guilt in children: Differential situational antecedents and
for participating in the study. experiential correlates. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 18, 51–64.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151000165562.
Polman, J. D. M., Orobio de Castro, B., Thomaes, S., & Van Aken, M. A. G. (2009). New
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