Assessment, Statistics, and Research

Taya Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University has made the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP) available online. Here’s what Dr. Cohen said about the scale in 2011. I’ll include a link to the full scale below. The Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (GASP) measures individual differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame across a range of personal transgressions. The GASP contains four four ‐ item subscales: Guilt ‐ Negative ‐ Behavior ‐ Evaluation (Guilt ‐ NBE), Guilt ‐ Repair, Shame ‐ Negative ‐ Self ‐ Evaluation (Shame ‐ NSE), and Shame ‐ Withdraw. Each item on the GASP is rated on a 7-point scale from 1 = very unlikely to 7 = very likely. Here’s an example of an item from the GASP scale. _____ 1. After realizing you have received too much change at a store, you decide to keep it because the salesclerk doesn't notice. What is the likelihood that you would feel uncomfortable about keeping the money? Information about reliability, validity, a...

Psychologists assess shame as one of a few measures of self-conscious emotions. In addition to shame, the list includes embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, and pride. As with many measures of person characteristics, there are measures of traits or dispositions and measures of states.  State shame is a temporary emotion such as a state of shame following a specific act that has been made public. Trait shame is a durable condition, which means a person experiences shame for a period of time in multiple settings. The classic measure of shame is the TOSCA (Test of Self-Conscious Affect. The TOSCA, developed by June P. Tangney , is now in its third edition and includes versions for adolescents (TOSCA-A) and children (TOSCA-C; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). People taking the TOSCA read a scenario and provide a response.  The TOSCA-3 is a 16-item scale. The responses reflect different ways to respond to a situation, which yield six dimensions of shame:  1. shame-...