508 v. AFFECTI vE PROCESSES
Gramzow, 1992; Tracy & Robins, 2004a; 
2006).
However, several researchers have raised 
questions about this fairly straightforward 
view of shame as bad and guilt as good. These 
authors note that many studies demonstrat -
ing this pattern of effects rely on measures 
that operationally define shame in terms of 
withdrawal and maladaptive coping, and 
guilt in terms of proactive coping (e.g., the 
Test of Self-  Conscious Affect [TOSCA]; 
Tagney & Dearing, 2002). The TOSCA fur -
ther isolates the maladaptive side of shame 
and the adaptive side of guilt by examining 
partial correlations between shame or guilt 
and dependent measures while controlling 
for the other emotion (e.g., examining a par -
tial correlation between shame and aggres -
sion while controlling for guilt), a tactic that 
captures guilt-free shame and shame-free 
guilt but precludes the possibility of finding 
that both shame and guilt—and, important -
ly, the shared variance between the two—
might have both adaptive and maladaptive 
outcomes. In contrast, several research -
ers using measures other than the TOSCA 
have observed positive effects of both emo -
tions; for example, when assessed as single- 
adjective items, both emotions have been as -
sociated with a desire to make amends and 
change the self (e.g., Leach & Cidam, 2015; 
Lickel, Kushlev, Savalei, Matta, & Schmad -
er, 2014; Tignor & Colvin, 2017).
Taken together, these studies suggest that 
the correlates of shame and guilt largely de -
pend on how these emotions are measured. 
Both the TOSCA and single-  item approach -
es have limitations, and one important fu -
ture direction is to develop measures that (1) 
capture behavioral tendencies, cognitions, 
and feelings without relying on the often- 
confused single words; (2) allow for the pos -
sibility of shared variance between the two 
emotions; and (3) avoid inherently embed -
ding prosocial and antisocial content into 
the measure itself, thus conflating presumed 
definitions of these emotions with their out -
comes. One potentially promising measure is 
the scenario-  based Guilt and Shame Prone -
ness (GASP) scale, which include separate 
subscales capturing the tendency toward 
negative self-  evaluations, negative behavior 
evaluations, repair action tendencies, and 
withdrawal action tendencies (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011). Although these 
researchers labeled the negative behavior 
evaluation and repair action tendencies scale 
as “guilt,” and the negative self-  evaluation 
and withdrawal action tendencies scale as 
“shame,” their primary aim was to allow for 
tests of independent effects of each of these 
components; future iterations might consider 
removing the “shame” and “guilt” labels al -
together. For a more detailed discussion and 
review of available measures of shame and 
guilt, as well as other self-  conscious emo -
tions, see Robins, Noftle, and Tracy (2007).
Embarrassment
Embarrassment is typically considered a less 
intense or prolonged emotional experience 
than shame or guilt; it is also less likely to 
occur in response to moral wrongdoings or 
transgressions that harm others, compared 
to generally harmless mishaps that expose 
the individual (Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & 
Barlow, 1996). In fact, embarrassment’s most 
defining characteristic is that it involves pub -
lic exposure or negative evaluations by oth -
ers (Miller & Leary, 1992; Semin & Man -
stead, 1982). Miller (1996) found that the 
most common causes of embarrassment are 
situations in which the individual behaved in 
a clumsy or hapless way while others were 
watching. More sociologically oriented the -
orists subscribe to a “dramaturgic” account, 
in which embarrassment is the result of a 
social role or social script disruption (Goff -
man, 1956; Silver, Sabini, & Parrott, 1987). 
In all these cases, embarrassment seems to 
be functional by virtue of motivating indi -
viduals to behave in appeasing or concilia -
tory ways that might re-earn approval and 
inclusion (Cupach & Metts, 1992; Leary, 
Landel, & Patton, 1996). Personality studies 
indicate that there are individual differences 
in proneness to embarrassment (Modigliani, 
1968); those high in this dimension tend be 
high in neuroticism, negative affect, self- 
consciousness, fear of negative evaluations, 
and shyness (Edelmann & McCusker, 1986; 
Leary & Meadows, 1991; Miller, 1995), 
which may be the result of high sensitivity to 
social norms (Miller, 1996). Personality dif -
ferences can also affect the onset of embar -
rassment; Hofmann, Moscovitch, and Kim 
(2006) found that shy individuals showed 