Relationship Of Guilt Proneness And Shame Proneness Among African American Women

Abstract

Research conducted on depressive symptoms among the Black American female populations has been limited as far as addressing the associated emotions and behaviors related to depressive symptoms from a culturally relevant scope. This study looked at depressive symptoms among a sample of Black American females in relationship to self-reports of shame proneness and guilt proneness. It was hypothesized that self-reports of shame proneness would be related to self-reports of depressive symptoms and that self-reports of guilt proneness would be related to self-reports of depressive symptoms. These hypotheses were examined with a small sample of 52 Black women, who completed on-line surveys regarding depressive symptoms using the DASS-21, and levels of guilt proneness and shame proneness using the TOSCA-3. This study found that shame-proneness was positively and significantly related to reports of depressive symptoms. Guilt proneness and depressive symptoms were not significantly related to each other but did display a positive directional association. After extensive literature reviews, the current study is one of the only empirical investigations that has examined an association of shame proneness and guilt proneness to depressive symptoms in a sample of Black women.