BACKGROUND It has been suggested that shame may be an important feature in suicidal behaviors. The disposition to react with shame, "shame-proneness", has previously not been investigated in groups of attempted suicide patients. We examined shame-proneness in two groups of attempted suicide patients, one group of non-suicidal patients and one group of healthy controls. We hypothesized that the ...

OBJECTIVES To determine if body image emotions (body-related shame and guilt, weight-related stress), perceptions (self-perceived overweight), or cognitions (trying to change weight) differ between adolescents characterized by smoking and physical activity (PA) behavior. METHODS Data for this cross-sectional analysis were collected in 2010-11 and were available for 1017 participants (mean (SD...

BACKGROUND Empirical studies of the relationships between shame, guilt, and drinking are sparse and sometimes appear contradictory. However, a more coherent picture emerges when researchers differentiate between measures of experienced of guilt and shame (i.e., questionnaires that ask how often people experience thoughts, feelings, and sensations associated with the emotion) versus proneness to...

Feelings of shame and guilt are factors associated with depression. However, studies simultaneously investigating shame and guilt suggest that only shame has a strong unique effect, although it is not yet clear which psychological processes cause shame and not shame-free guilt to be related to depression. The authors hypothesized that shame, in contrast to guilt, elicits rumination, which then ...

Shame has been described as a central emotion in narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). However, there is a dearth of empirical data on shame in NPD. Patients with NPD (N=28), non-clinical controls (N=34) and individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD, N=31) completed self-report measures of state shame, shame-proneness, and guilt-proneness. Furthermore, the Implicit Association Te...

The present study examined the specificity and extent of relationships between shame and symptoms of five personality disorders (PDs), as they are apparent to both the self and others. Borderline, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive PD symptoms were assessed in a sample of 367 undergraduates that evidenced a wide range of symptom levels (25.6% endorsed threshold or great...

Antidepressants and bioenhancement technologies raise special concerns both for those who use them and those who don't about who we are and how we should treat ourselves. In this dissertation, I confront these concerns by asking and answering two ethical questions about different forms of self-treatment. These are: 1. Is antidepressant use morally problematic insofar as it is self-objectifying?...

This study considers the potential relationship between maximal strength training and positive body image by exploring lived experiences of female powerlifters. Semistructured interviews were conducted with eight powerlifters from Australia, data analyzed thematically. The identified five themes related to participation in training: (a) appreciation functionality body, (b) embodiment, (c) rejec...

People vary in how easily they feel ashamed, that is, in their shame proneness. According to the information threat theory of shame, variation in shame proneness should, in part, be regulated by features of a person's social ecology. On this view, shame is an emotion program that evolved to mitigate the likelihood or costs of reputation-damaging information spreading to others. In social enviro...

The present study examined the effect of feminist ascription on perceptions of the physical attractiveness of women ranging in body mass index (BMI). One-hundred and twenty-nine women who self-identified as feminists and 132 who self-identified as non-feminists rated a series of 10 images of women that varied in BMI from emaciated to obese. Results showed no significant differences between femi...