Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1993

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Kathleen L. Davis

Committee Members

Mark Hector, Steve McCallum, Ron Hopson, Gary Klukken

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the linear models that best predicted the relationship between current feelings of shame and perceptions of (a) past maternal caretakers' dispositions, (b) past paternal caretakers' dispositions, and (c) present-day internalized dispositions. Participants were 44 male and 121 female undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 25 years. The Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) model was used to operationalize and measure the participants' perceptions of their caretakers' dispositions and their own intrapsychic dispositions. The Internalized Shame Scale (ISS) was used to measure the participants' shame proneness. Shame scores were significantly related to the Marlowe-Crowne Scale (MCS), a measure of socially desirable response bias. Therefore, ISS scores were adjusted to remove the effects of social desirability. Various stepwise regression procedures were used to determine the linear combinations of variables from each set of SASB variables (maternal caretakers' dispositions, paternal caretakers' dispositions, and intrapsychic dispositions) that best predicted adjusted shame scores. In the primary analyses, the participants' gender was also used as a predictor variable. Results support theoretical associations between shame and (a) parent-child relationships, and (b) internalized dispositions. Maternal attacking and rejecting in combination with gender predicted 25% of the variation in adjusted shame scores. Paternal ignoring and neglecting, belittling and blaming, and nurturing and protecting as well as gender predicted 30% of the variation in adjusted shame scores. Fifty-six percent of the variation in adjusted shame scores was predicted by the combination of the following variables: gender, self-loving and nourishing, self-monitoring and restraining, self-rejecting and destroying, self-indicting and oppressing, and daydreaming and neglecting of self. Subsequent analyses were performed to investigate gender differences. The selected regression models for males and females differed with regard to the adequacy of fit and the combinations of SASB variables that best predicted shames scores. Canonical analyses were conducted to determine the empirical relationships between the participants' perceptions of their caretakers' dispositions and their own intrapsychic dispositions. The results provide limited support for Benjamin's (1974, 1984) principle of introjection as operationalized using the her SASB model.

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