04/12/08
Personal note: I am writing this entry extemporaneously as it occurs to me. So please forgive the incredible lack of documentation. I wish to thank June Tangney whose body of work on shame proneness most of these thoughts stem from. I will attempt to retrace my steps and make the necessary notations soon. For now, I encourage you to watch this podcast to get an idea of Ms. Tangney's work.
The initial observation is that on the surface, the terms guilt and shame seem to be interchangeable. But when the underlying impact of guilt proneness and shame proneness are examined, the differences and motivations are clear. Guilt proneness reflects an individual's perception of failure as it relates to the act. Whereas, shame proneness reflects an individual's perception of failure as it relates to self. Shame proneness is the breeding ground for self loathing. When an act that creates the feelings of shame, the individual turns inward and generates feelings of lw self-esteem. As a result, several outcomes have been associated with shame proneness. Drug addiction, early engagement in sex, aggression, lack of empathy are just a few. In addition, other behaviors have been linked. Procrastination is a mechanism for avoiding failure and the additional feelings of self hatred generated by the failure as well as other mechanisms to create a built-in excuse to delude oneself into believing that the failure is not their fault. This defensive mechanism is similar to blaming others, anger, and lying associated with a negative event.
Guilt proneness on the other hand is a feeling of failure. But it is more directed at the act than at one's self. As a result, the guilt prone individual is more concerned with reparations, with making things right. They are the ones who offer the sincere apology. In addition, guilt prone individuals don't share in the same self loathing. A shame prone individual sees little use in making reparations for a single act. They view their self loathing as so much larger than one act that the effort would be insufficient to offset their self loathing.
Considering these two behavioral traits, the question begs to be asked, how does God's word treat these two types of individuals and does it promote one over the other. My hypothesis is that the Christ-centered New Testament not only seeks to foster a guilt proneness but also offers a beneficial construct for both relating to shame prone individuals and empowering a shame prone individual to become more of a guilt prone individual by realizing the magnitude of grace. More to come.
