514 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
have long argued that feelings of shame lie at 
the core of numerous addictions, especially 
alcoholism (e.g., Dearing, Stuewig, & Tang -
ney, 2005). Alcohol consumption can pro -
vide a means of escaping painful feelings of 
shame by reducing self-  awareness, so alco -
holics may drink to avoid shame, then, in a 
vicious cycle, come to feel even more shame 
about their addiction. Supporting this ac -
count, in one longitudinal study, Randles 
and Tracy (2013) found that the degree to 
which recovering alcoholics display expres -
sions of shame while discussing their past 
drinking substantially predicts subsequent 
declines in their physical and mental health, 
as well as their likelihood of relapsing and 
the severity of that relapse, up to 4 months 
later.
Turning to guilt, less consensus exists re -
garding its implications for psychopathol -
ogy. Clinical theory and case studies make 
frequent reference to a maladaptive guilt 
characterized by chronic self-blame and ru -
mination (e.g., Zahn-  Waxler, Kochanska, 
Krupnick, & McKnew, 1990), but these 
views are inconsistent with the large body 
of work suggesting that guilt motivates pro -
social approach-  oriented behaviors. Tang -
ney and Dearing (2002) reconciled these 
accounts by arguing that studies demon -
strating negative outcomes generally fail 
to control for shared variance with shame, 
and it is the latter emotion that is the cause 
of psychological dysfunction. For example, 
in a meta-  analysis, Kim, Thibodeau, and 
Jorgensen (2011) found that shame is more 
strongly and consistently associated with 
depression than is guilt (mean weighted ef -
fect size r ’s = .43 and .28, respectively), and 
guilt controlling for shame (i.e., “shame-
free guilt”) was unrelated to depression ( r 
= –.03).
Only one study has examined correlations 
between dispositional tendencies toward the 
two facets of pride and psychopathology; re -
sults suggest a generally healthy portrait for 
those prone to authentic pride, and a much 
less healthy one for those prone to hubristic 
pride. Most notably, authentic pride is nega -
tively, and hubristic pride is positively, asso -
ciated with narcissistic personality disorder, 
dissociative tendencies, social phobia, and 
trait anxiety (Tracy, Cheng, et al., 2009). 
Additional studies are needed to examine the extent to which the different forms of 
pride are causally related to these divergent 
mental health profiles.
Other Social  Emotions
In the past two decades, emotion and per -
sonality researchers have begun to examine 
a wider range of social emotions, beyond 
the self-  conscious emotions that previously 
pervaded the nonbasic emotion research lit -
erature. One unifying theme is that these 
other emotions are almost always inher -
ently social, arising on the basis of actual 
or potential interactions among people, or 
in response to a social comparison. This is 
an important distinction from self-  conscious 
emotions, which can (and often do) occur in 
response to social events but are more intrin -
sically about the self, and can occur when 
individuals evaluate themselves without re -
gard to others. These other social emotions 
are nonetheless similar to self-  conscious 
emotions in that most are thought to serve 
adaptive functions, though evidence for their 
evolutionary origins is generally much weak -
er than that for pride and shame. Here, we 
provide a brief overview of extant research 
on six social emotions, with an emphasis on 
findings from or relevant to personality psy -
chology.
Gratitude
Gratitude arises when an individual believes 
that he or she has benefited from another 
person’s action, and can motivate the indi -
vidual to engage in tedious tasks that are 
helpful to a benefactor, and to donate more 
of his or her personal profit to a commu -
nal pot (e.g., Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006). 
Gratitude also prompts altruistic behaviors 
toward one’s romantic partner, which in 
turn helps bind the two individuals together, 
thereby enhancing relationship quality (e.g., 
Algoe, 2012). At a dispositional level, trait 
gratitude is positively linked to life satis -
faction, optimism, and positive affect (Mc -
Cullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002), and 
negatively to a range of psychopathologies, 
including depression, anxiety disorders, and 
posttraumatic stress disorder (Wood, Froh, 
& Geraghty, 2010).