Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1994, Vol. 67, No. 4, 585-595

Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

'If Only I Weren't" Versus "If Only I Hadn't": Distinguishing Shameand Guilt in Counterfactual Thinking

Paula M. Niedenthal, June Price Tangney, and Igor Gavanski

The role of counterfactual thinking in 2 emotions—shame and guilt—was examined. In 1 series ofstudies, Ss read about situations evocative of shame and guilt or described personal experiences ofguilt or shame. They then generated counterfactual alternatives to "undo" the distressing outcomes.Consistent with predictions derived from Tangney (1991), Ss tended to undo shame situations byaltering qualities of the self and to undo guilt situations by altering actions. In a 2nd series of studies,Ss imagined themselves in a situation that could evoke either guilt or shame. Ss were then led tomutate the self or behavior to undo the situation. Mutation manipulations amplified shame and guiltsuch that the former Ss anticipated feeling greater shame, whereas the latter anticipated feelinggreater guilt. The role of counterfactual thinking in specific emotions and in differentiating shame-and guilt-prone personalities is discussed.

Individuals are naturally drawn to search for the causes ofevents, particularly unexpected events, that occur in the courseof day-to-day life (Kelley, 1972; Weiner, 1985). In the process ofthis causal search, individuals often engage in counterfactualthinking; they reflect on how past events might have otherwiseunfolded had some aspect of the situation or their behavior beendifferent. The mental simulation of alternative outcomes ap-pears to guide individuals' attributions about the causes of ac-tual outcomes (Gavanski & Wells, 1989; Lipe, 1991; Roese &Olson, in press; Wells & Gavanski, 1989).

Counterfactual thinking is also a determinant of individuals'affective reactions to events. Some past research has providedevidence to suggest that the consideration of near outcomes—events that almost happened, but did not—can influence satis-faction with an actual outcome (Johnson, 1986; Kahneman &Miller, 1986; Markman, Gavanski, Sherman, & McMullen,1993; Roese, 1994). In this view, counterfactuals are alterna-tives against which reality is compared. Thus, a person mightbe quite satisfied with having won a small prize, but unsatisfiedif she perceives herself as having just missed winning a muchlarger prize. Other work has linked counterfactual thinking to

Paula M. Niedenthal and Igor Gavanski, Department of Psychology,Indiana University; June Price Tangney, Department of Psychology,George Mason University.

This research was supported by Grant MH44811 -01A1 from the Na-tional Institute of Mental Health and Grants BNS-8919755 and DBS-291019 from the National Science Foundation to Paula M. Niedenthaland Grant RR07031-27 from the Biomedical Research Support GrantProgram to Igor Gavanski. We are grateful to Denise Beike, RussellFazio, Tom Gilovich, Jamin Halberstadt, Jim Sherman, and CarolinShowers for their helpful comments on a draft of this article and toProgna Choudhury, Chukwudube Egbuniwe, Darcie Dimitroff, KellyMann, Marc Setterlund, and Priya Singh for their competent technicalassistance.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to PaulaM. Niedenthal, Department of Psychology, Indiana University,Bloomington, Indiana 47405, or to June Price Tangney, Department ofPsychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030.

the intensity of an affective reaction to an outcome such that theease of imagining an alternative to reality is positively related tothe intensity of the reaction to an actual outcome (Gleicher etal., 1990; Kahneman &Tversky, 1982;Landman, 1987; Roese,1994).

In this research we extend the idea that counterfactual think-ing mediates affect and propose that, through its role in assess-ments of causation, counterfactual thinking helps to shape thespecific emotions an individual experiences in reaction to a sit-uation. Of interest are two emotions that have the same (nega-tive) valence, but different phenomenologies: shame and guilt.Although rarely mentioned by students of counterfactual think-ing, shame and guilt are, in fact, noted by clinicians to be asso-ciated with obsessive mental undoing of a past emotional situa-tion. Research by Tangney (1989a, 1992) suggested to us thatthe two emotions involve different types of counterfactualthinking and that the counterfactual alternatives that peopleconsider in distressing situations may serve to produce or atleast amplify those specific feelings. Next, we discuss the pro-cesses by which such effects may occur.

Counterfactual Thinking and Causal Attribution

Consistent with the ideas of Kahneman and Miller (1986)and Einhorn and Hogarth (1986), Wells and Gavanski (1989)reported empirical evidence demonstrating that judgments ofcausation are guided by a comparison between reality andknowledge of, or belief about, what might have been (coun-terfactual alternatives). The research was based on the assump-tions that an event will be judged as causal of an outcome to theextent that it is mutable (i.e., the event can be psychologicallyaltered), and the mental mutation of the event to a differentvalue can logically change or undo the outcome.

In two experiments, Wells and Gavanski (1989) manipulatedthe salient ("default") counterfactual alternatives to events re-sulting in negative outcomes. The counterfactual alternativeseither did or did not alter the actual outcomes. For instance, inExperiment 1, subjects read a story in which a woman named

585

586 P. NIEDENTHAL, J. TANGNEY, AND I. GAVANSKI

Karen is taken out to dinner by her boss. The boss considersordering two different entrees for Karen, ultimately choosing infavor of a dish containing wine. Unbeknownst to the boss,Karen has an allergy to wine, and she dies from an allergic reac-tion to the meal. In one version of the story, one of the two dishesthat the boss considers ordering for Karen does not containwine (the one-wine version). In another version, both of the en-trees under consideration contain wine (the two-wine version).Thus, in the one-wine version the most available alternativeevent would have resulted in a different, and better, outcome(Karen living), whereas in the two-wine version, the availablecounterfactual alternative would have resulted in the same out-come (Karen dying).

After reading one of the two versions of the scenario, subjectswrote counterfactual statements to "undo" Karen's death andlisted the causes of Karen's death. Compared with subjects whoread the two-wine scenario, subjects who read the one-wine sce-nario were more likely to mutate the boss's choice of entrees inmentally undoing Karen's death and to blame the boss for thedeath. Subjects who read the two-wine scenario mutated otherfactors such as Karen's choosing to eat the dish and blamedother agents such as Karen's behavior or her allergies. This re-sult nicely illustrates the role of counterfactual alternatives incausal attribution: When the most salient counterfactual (de-fault) alternative resulted in Karen living (in the one-wine sce-nario), subjects found the boss responsible for Karen's death.When the most salient alternative still produced Karen's death,the boss's behavior seemed less causal. As Wells and Gavanski(1989) pointed out, this result cannot be easily explained bytraditional attribution theories in which only the features of theactual event are evaluated in judgments of causality (Lipe,1991).

Causal Attribution and Emotion

Cognitive appraisal theories of emotion hold that specificemotions are shaped by individuals' interpretations of evocativesituations (e.g., Arnold, 1960; Fridja, Kuipers, & ter Schure,1989;Roseman, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985;Scherer, 1988;Weiner, 1985). Empirical research in this area has focused pri-marily on identifying the appraisal dimensions that account forthe greatest variance in emotional experience. Specific emo-tions are thought to correspond to distinct profiles of values onthe appraisal dimensions.

Although the critical appraisal dimensions vary slightly inname and number from theory to theory, nearly all of the majorempirical undertakings have revealed that causal attribution di-mensions play a prominent role in shaping affective reactions.For instance, dimensions such as responsibility (i.e., the extentto which self, other, and environment are responsible for insti-gating the situation) and control (i.e., the extent to which theself, other, and environment influence the course and outcomeof the situation) characterize the findings of several studies. InWeiner's (1985; Weiner & Graham, 1984) view, the extent towhich an outcome is attributed to internal-external, stable-un-stable, and controllable-uncontrollable factors all figure impor-tantly into the causal attribution and, consequently, the emo-tional reaction to the outcome.

Cognitive appraisal theories of emotion thus predict that the

same outcomes can evoke very different emotional reactions de-pending on an individual's beliefs about the causes of the out-come. There exists good support for this idea (e.g., Smith &Ellsworth, 1987; Weiner, 1980). For instance, in a study byWeiner (1980), individuals ("lenders") responded with anger toa request by another person ("borrower") to borrow their classnotes when the need for the notes arose because the borrowerwent to the beach rather than to class on a particular day. Onthe other hand, lenders responded with pity to the samerequest when it arose because the borrower suffered from an eyeproblem.

The present work shares with the appraisal theories the as-sumption that attributions of causes of positive and negativeoutcomes can influence individuals' specific emotional reac-tions to those outcomes. However, it shares somewhat morewith Abelson's (1983) view that an analysis of the counterfac-tual ideas that individuals entertain following such outcomesmay go a long way in predicting specific emotional reactions:Counterfactual thoughts provide both hints to causes of out-comes and provide anchors against which individuals perceivediscrepancies between reality and possibility. Such discrepan-cies (or "inconsistencies") importantly determine the instiga-tion of emotion itself (Carver & Scheier, 1981; Higgins, 1989).Thus, we believe that specific emotions can arise "whenever al-ternative construals of events with sharply different hedonic im-ports for an individual are concurrently mentally exercised"(Abelson, 1983, p. 46).

Shame and Guilt

Of particular interest in the present work were the emotionsof shame and guilt. Shame and guilt are both dysphoric feelingsthat involve negative self-evaluations. In a recent study of theappraisals and action tendencies associated with different emo-tions, shame and guilt, along with regret, were uniquely associ-ated with endorsement of an appraisal item that read "youwished you had not done something or that you could undo it,"suggesting to us that spontaneous counterfactual thinking playsan important role in shaping these feelings in particular (Fridjaet al., 1989). However, cognitive appraisal theorists sometimesdescribe shame and guilt as very similar emotions that both in-volve perceiving the self as the causal agent (e.g., Fridja et al.,1989; Roseman, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). This descrip-tion is probably due to the lack of precision in defining appraisaldimensions (cf. Brown & Weiner, 1984).

Investigations that have specifically compared shame andguilt find that the emotions focus on quite different concernsabout the self that result in distinct phenomenological experi-ences (Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1989a, 1993; Wicker,Payne, & Morgan, 1983). Shame involves an evaluation of theself. Although a specific failure or transgression may trigger ashame reaction, the implications of the event are attributed tothe self. When ashamed, people feel as if they are a "bad person"and that the self has been humiliated or disgraced. Shame is anoverwhelming feeling characterized by a sense of being "small"and worthless in the eyes of both the self and others. With thisfeeling of shame comes a desire to hide or escape from the situ-

SHAME AND GUILT 587

ation (Lewis, 1971; Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1989a,1991, 1993; Wicker, Payne, & Morgan, 1983). In contrast, guiltinvolves a concern with a specific behavior or transgression.When guilty, people are consumed with the idea that they did a"bad thing" (or failed to do a good thing). Guilt is characterizedby feelings of tension, remorse, and regret over the bad thingthat was done. But the cognitive-affective processes in guilt stopshort of the self-condemnation involved in shame. Not surpris-ingly, with this guilt over specific behaviors comes a concernwith reparative action (Lewis, 1971; Lindsay-Hartz, 1984;Tangney, 1989a, 1993).

Interestingly, although shame and guilt involve distinct phe-nomenologies, the situations that elicit shame and guilt are notnecessarily distinctive. Studies of narrative accounts of real-lifeshame and guilt experiences reported by children and adults(Tangney, 1992; Tangney, Marschall, Rosenberg, Barlow, &Wagner, 1993) reveal that there is substantial overlap in thetypes of events and behaviors that give rise to the two emotions.'In fact, there appear to be few, if any, "classic" shame-inducingor guilt-inducing situations; most situations seem to be metwith the two emotions equally often across individuals. For ex-ample, whereas 21% of all guilt-eliciting situations nominatedby a sample of young adults referred to an experience in whichthey had lied, 11% of all shame situations nominated also re-ferred to lying (Tangney, 1992). Similarly, 17% of the partici-pants in the same study nominated hurting another personemotionally as guilt eliciting, and 9% nominated the same typeof behavior as shame eliciting.

Counterfactual Thinking, Shame, and Guilt

What is it, then, that determines whether people feel shameor guilt in a distressing situation if not the nature of the situationitself? Clearly, some people habitually respond to ambiguousdistressing situations by feeling ashamed, whereas others re-spond by feeling guilty (Tangney, 1992). But what are the cog-nitive processes that mediate these reactions? We believe thatthe tendency to spontaneously undo distressing situations suchas those in which one has lied or cheated (Fridja et al., 1989),importantly mediates the quality of the emotional reaction.Specifically, the consideration of alternative scenarios mayguide the assessment of the cause of the actual situation (self vs.behavior), which in turn leads to the specific emotional experi-ence (shame vs. guilt). For a variety of reasons, an individualmight perceive the possession of a different personal quality(i.e., something inherent to the self) as the default counterfac-tual alternative for a particular situation. In the same situation,a different individual might perceive an alternative course ofaction to be the default value. These counterfactual alternativesmay amplify the resulting emotions by emphasizing a discrep-ancy between reality and a more desirable state of affairs, andby locating the cause of the distressing situation in the attributesof the self and in behavior, respectively.

To illustrate by way of example, recall that having lied tosomeone is variously associated with shame and guilt reactionsacross different individuals (Tangney, 1992). Suppose two peo-ple, Bruce and Frank, both tell a lie, and the lie results in anegative outcome. Bruce, for reasons of focus of attention, ordevelopmental history, might think "if only I were stronger, I

would have told the truth." This counterfactual alternativewould emphasize the self as bad (i.e., weak) and a change in theself as necessary to undo the outcome. If qualities of the selfare spontaneously mutated in order to undo the situation, thensomething about the self has caused the bad situation. Bruce istherefore likely to experience shame. On the other hand, Frankmight reflect on the fact that he could have told the truth, andthe bad outcome would have been avoided. The counterfactualalternative "if only I had told the truth" emphasizes a singlebehavior (i.e., the one lie) as the cause of the bad outcome.Frank, then, is more likely to experience guilt.

Overview of the Current Studies

In the first series of studies reported, we investigated the pro-posed differences in the focus of counterfactual alternatives thatpeople consider in situations in which they report feeling shameand guilt. College students imagined themselves in (Studies laand lb) or recalled (Study lc) experiences that elicited shameand guilt and were instructed to mentally undo the experiences.The resulting counterfactual statements were coded accordingto whether the self, behavior, or other aspects of the situationswere mutated. We expected situations in which individuals re-port feeling shame to be accompanied by counterfactual think-ing involving mutations to the self; we expected situations inwhich individuals report feeling guilty to be accompanied bycounterfactual thinking about alternative courses of action.

In a second series of studies we tested the implied causal (oramplifying) relationship between counterfactual thinking andfeelings of shame and guilt. Subjects in Study 2a imaginedthemselves in a distressing situation that college students findvery plausible and familiar. They then completed counterfac-tual statements that directed them to mutate the self or to mu-tate their actions in order to undo the situation. Finally, subjectsrated how much shame or guilt they would experience in thesituation. We predicted that subjects who generated counterfac-tual alternatives about the self would report greater shame andthat those who mutated their actions would report greater guiltabout the situation. In Study 2b subjects imagined themselvesin the same situation used in Study 2a. They then mutated theself or behavior or were not asked to engage in any counterfac-tual thinking at all. We expected that, compared with those sub-

' One question that arises is whether participants could actually fol-low instructions to identify and report on shame and guilt experiences.As noted earlier, the terms shame and guilt are often used interchange-ably by laymen and psychologists alike. In an earlier study, we askedcollege students to provide definitions of shame and guilt (Tangney,1989b). Results indicated that even these verbal, well-educated youngadults had a great deal of difficulty defining and distinguishing betweenshame and guilt in the abstract. However, when people are asked to de-scribe personal shame and guilt experiences (without any further defi-nition of these emotion terms), they clearly describe different experi-ences. In several studies involving children, college students, and non-college adults (Tangney, 1989a, 1992; Tangney, Marschall, etal., 1993),such subject-generated narrative accounts of personal shame and guiltexperiences varied systematically in a theoretically consistent manneralong a broad range of phenomenological dimensions. Thus, this seemsto be a case where participants "know more than they can say," at leastin the abstract context.

588 P. NIEDENTHAL, J. TANGNEY, AND I. GAVANSKI

jects who engaged in no counterfactual thinking, directed mu-tations of the self would yield greater shame and directed muta-tions of the behavior would yield greater guilt.

In this research we explicitly solicited (Series 1) and guided(Series 2) counterfactual thinking because our interest was inhow the content of counterfactual thinking mediates specificemotions. Other work has shown that people spontaneouslygenerate counterfactual thinking when they experience negativeoutcomes (Gleicher et al., 1990) and even when they experiencepositive outcomes (Markman et al., 1993). And, as mentioned,we know shame and guilt to be associated with a concern withundoing the outcome of the precipitating experience (Fridja etal., 1989).

Series 1: Counterfactual Alternatives in Shame andGuilt Situations

Studies la and lb

Method

Participants. One hundred undergraduates in introductory psy-chology courses at Johns Hopkins University volunteered their effortsfor Study lain return for partial credit toward a course requirement.

Approximately equal numbers of female and male students partici-pated. Forty-five undergraduates from the same population participatedin Study lb.

Scenarios. As noted earlier, the types of situations that elicit shameand guilt are generally very similar (Tangney, 1992; Tangney, Marschall,et al., 1993). For this study, however, we attempted to identify a pair ofsituations that—in content and emphasis—would be more likely toelicit feelings of shame and guilt, respectively. Eight scenarios were ini-tially constructed by examining the classes of situations that youngadults nominate as being shame and guilt eliciting (Tangney, 1992) andby discussing specific situations with a small group of college under-graduates. On the basis of these sources of information, we wrote fourscenarios that were thought, a priori, to elicit greater shame than guiltand four that were thought to elicit greater guilt than shame. The situa-tions were also thought by the undergraduates who helped generatethem to be easy to imagine and likely to happen to almost any collegestudent.

In a pilot test, approximately 150 Johns Hopkins undergraduatesread each of the scenarios and rated them on two 7-point scales accord-ing to how much shame and guilt they would feel in the situation werethey to actually experience it. A 1 meant that the situation would elicitno shame (guilt) and a 7 indicated that it would elicit a lot of shame(guilt).

Two scenarios, one that subjects rated on average as likely to elicitmore shame than guilt and one that was rated as likely to elicit moreguilt than shame, were selected for use in Studies la and lb. The shamescenario involved failure in a school setting and read as follows:

You are sitting in a class of about 15 students that is taught by aprofessor you admire more than any other on campus. You reallybelieve that he/she is brilliant. The professor asks a question aboutone of the readings/assignments and you immediately volunteerthe answer with some enthusiasm. But it's the wrong answer, theprofessor informs you somewhat dryly, and he/she turns to addressanother student in the class, [professor scenario]

Pilot subjects rated the professor scenario 4.82 on the shame scaleand 2.51 on the guilt scale (p < .01). The guilt scenario involved unin-tentional damaging of another's possession and read:

You are house-sitting for a friend's parents. It's a pretty easy task,

actually. All you have to do is eat their food, collect the mail, andfeed their bird. Everything is going just fine until one morning youdiscover that the bird died during the night. You turned the air-conditioning on "high" during the day and forgot to turn it downat night as you had been instructed. The bird died from the exces-sive cold, [bird scenario]

Pilot subjects rated the bird scenario 5.70 on the guilt scale and 4.62on the shame scale (p < .01).

Procedure. Participants in Study la completed a questionnaire inwhich they were asked to vividly imagine each of the two situations(professor scenario and bird scenario) actually happening to them.

The order of the scenarios was counterbalanced. Subjects were in-formed that the experimenter was not interested in whether theythought the experiences could actually happen but just in their thoughtsabout the experiences if they were to happen. After reading each sce-nario, subjects were posed with the following question: "What couldhave been different about you, your behavior, or any aspect of the situa-tion so that the situation would have ended differently?" The phrase "Ifonly . . ." then appeared, with spaces to write four responses beneath.

The instructions for counterfactual thinking used in Study la werequite directive, and subjects may have thought that they were required tochange all aspects (self, behavior, and situation) in their counterfactualresponses. Although all subjects did receive the same instructions, thestrong focus on distinct counterfactual categories potentially limitedour discovery of what people would think without such direct instruc-tion. We therefore conducted Study 1 b using the same scenarios. Therewas a single change made to the questionnaire: Following each of thescenarios, subjects were asked to list four ways in which the scenariocould have unfolded differently so that the negative outcome would nothave occurred. There was no reference to self, behavior, or situation.Again, the phrase "If only . . ." appeared with spaces to write fourresponses beneath.

Coding. Counterfactual statements (for both studies) were coded bytwo independent judges, one of whom was unaware of the experimentalhypotheses, according to the following categories (examples in italicscome from the bird scenario; the rest come from the professor scenario):

1. Self-chronic. This category included mutations of enduringaspects of the self. Included were mentions of (a) personality traits(weren't impulsive, weren't so self-centered), (b) attitudes/prefer-ences (didn't always care what others think), and (c) intelligence(weren't so dumb).

2. Self-acute. These were mentions of transient qualities of selfincluding the following: (d) personal states (hadn't been so impul-sive, hadn 't been absent-minded), (b) self-presentation (hadn't triedto impress), (c) knowledge/insight (considered the needs of thebird), and (d) effort/care (e.g., thought more carefully, paid moreattention).

3. Behavior. The second category consisted of mutations of spe-cific behaviors or failures to act. Included were (a) thoughts (hadthought of the right answer, had thought to turn down the AC), and(b) actions (hadn't raised my hand, had read the material, hadn'tcome to class, covered the bird cage, turned down the AC, hadmoved the bird cage).

4. Situation. The last category consisted of statements that mu-tated the situation, with a focus on (a) the self (I wasn't in classthat day; / wasn 't house-sitting), (b) other people (the professor hadcalled on someone else, the owners came home early), and (c) otheragents (it had happened in a different class, the bird hadn't been sosensitive to cold).

The coding procedure proved to be very reliable. The two judgesagreed on 83% of the specific categorizations for Study la. Discrepan-cies were resolved by discussion.

Results of Study laFour participants did not provide at least one codable coun-

terfactual for each scenario. The data from these questionnaires

SHAME AND GUILT 589

Table 1First and Total Counter/actuals Reported by Category: Study la

Scenario

First counterfactualProfessor scenarioBird scenario

Total counterfactualsProfessor scenarioBird scenario

Self-chronic

3(3%)2(2%)

31(9%)14(4%)

Self-acute

44 (46%)29 (30%)

128(37%)66 (20%)

Behavior

31(32%)53 (55%)

96 (28%)147 (43%)

Situation

18(19%)12(13%)

93 (27%)112(33%)

Total

9696

348339

were not analyzed. Thus, the results are based on the remaining96 subjects.

Table 1 presents the frequency and percentages of self-chronic, self-acute, behavior, and situation counterfactuals foreach scenario and includes both the first counterfactual gener-ated by subjects and the total number of counterfactuals nomi-nated by subjects. The pattern of results, however, was the samein each case: Compared with imagining themselves in the guiltsituation, after imagining themselves in the shame situation,subjects were more likely to mutate aspects of the self, particu-larly transient aspects. Subjects mutated their own behavior inorder to undo the guilt experience far more than they mutatedtheir behavior to undo the shame experience.

For statistical analysis, mutations of chronic aspects of selfwere coded - 1 , mutations of acute aspects of self were coded 0,and mutations of behavior were coded 1 to reflect a continuumfrom mutations of the self to mutations of actions. Mutations ofthe situation were eliminated from the analysis (and this re-sulted in variability of degrees of freedom for the analyses, be-low). We first examined the nature of the first counterfactualsgenerated; these are thought to be the most accessible beliefsabout alternatives to reality. A t test showed that after imaginingthemselves in the bird scenario, subjects tended to mutate as-pects of their behavior (M = .607) more than they did afterimagining themselves in the professor scenario (M = .359),

We also analyzed the data by averaging the codes for all fourcounterfactuals. These analyses also revealed that on averagesubjects mutated behavior more often when they tried to undothe bird scenario (M = .597) than when they tried to undo theprofessor scenario {M = .270), t{91) = 6.03, p < .001.

Finally, the analyses were repeated using only the codes orig-inally (i.e., prior to discussion) generated by the coder who wasuninformed about the experimental hypotheses. This was doneto address the possibility that the results were due to the knowl-edge of the informed coder. The pattern of results was un-changed: Codes from the naive coder showed that subjects weremore likely to mutate behavior in undoing the bird situation(first counterfactual M = .595; all counterfactuals M = .571)than they were in undoing the professor situation (first coun-terfactual M = .410; all counterfactuals M = .302), ts = 2.20and 5.24, ps < .05 and < .001, respectively.

Results of Study lb

Three subjects did not follow instructions, and their ques-tionnaires were discarded. The same two judges coded the

counterfactuals generated by the remaining 42 subjects usingthe previously described coding scheme. This time they catego-rized the items with 94% agreement. Disagreements were re-solved by discussion.

Table 2 shows that the change in instructions had virtually noeffect on the pattern of results. Even when participants were notdirected to mutate aspects of the self, behavior, or situation, theydid so, and in a manner that replicated the results of our previ-ous study.

Mutations were coded as in Study la. Tests of the first coun-terfactual showed that on average subjects mutated their behav-ior to undo the bird scenario (M = .722) more than they did toundo the professor scenario {M = .432), t(30) = 2.90, p < .05.Examination of the average codes for all four counterfactualsshowed the same result (M = .770 for the bird scenario .250 forthe professor scenario), <(40) = 6.84, p < .001. Once again, itappeared as if subjects were more likely to mutate specific ac-tions rather than aspects of themselves.

Studies la and lb lend consistent support for the notion thatfeelings of shame and guilt are associated with quite differenttypes of counterfactual thinking. In contrasting the counterfac-tual statements that were freely generated by participants in re-sponse to two scenarios—one scenario that pilot testing indi-cated was more likely to engender shame, and the other morelikely to engender guilt—a reliable pattern of results was ob-served. The scenario likely to induce feelings of shame was fol-lowed by a higher proportion of counterfactual mutations of theself, compared with the mutations of the guilt-inducing sce-nario. In contrast, the scenario likely to induce substantial feel-ings of guilt was followed by a higher proportion of mutations ofspecific behaviors, compared with the mutations of the shame-inducing scenario.

It is possible, however, that something about the scenariosused for the first two studies, other than the fact that pilot sub-jects indicated that the situations described would be met withgreater shame or guilt, accounted for the results we observed.For instance, although Tables 1 and 2 show that subjects gener-ated all three types of counterfactual alternatives (self, behavior,and situation) for each scenario, features of the self may havebeen more salient and more mutable in the professor scenario.Likewise, specific behaviors done or left undone may have beenmore salient in the bird scenario. Therefore, in a third study inthis series we examined young adults' counterfactual mutationsto personal, self-generated shame and guilt experiences recalledfrom the recent past. This procedure allowed us to consider abroad range of situations and content areas associated with

590 P. NIEDENTHAL, J. TANGNEY, AND I. GAVANSKI

Table 2First and Total Counterfactuals Reported by Category: Study lb

Scenario

First counterfactualProfessor scenarioBird scenario

Total counterfactualsProfessor scenarioBird scenario

Self-chronic

2(5%)1 (2%)

19(13%)3 (2%)

Self-acute

17(40%)8(19%)

52 (37%)18(12%)

Behavior

18(43%)27 (65%)

30(21%)79(51%)

Situation

5(12%)6(14%)

41(29%)55 (35%)

Total

4242

142155

shame and guilt rather than one example of each. In addition,such autobiographical accounts move our consideration be-yond lab-generated hypothetical events to college students' nat-urally occurring self-relevant emotional experiences.

Study 1c

Method

Participants. Subjects were 120 undergraduates at Johns HopkinsUniversity and Indiana University who participated in return for credittoward an undergraduate psychology course.

Procedure. Participants completed questionnaires that instructedthem to describe a situation that had really happened to them. Half ofthe subjects described an event that caused them to feel shame. Theremaining subjects described an event that caused them to feel guilt.Subjects also rated the situations according to how much shame or guiltthey had felt in the situation on a 7-point scale. Finally, subjects listedfour things that might have been different so that the situation wouldnot have ended the way it did. Again, this portion of the task was intro-duced with the sentence stem "If only. . ."

Sixteen of the subjects either did not describe an actual event or didnot provide at least one codable counterfactual statement, so their ques-tionnaires were discarded. Two new judges, unaware of the experimen-tal hypothesis, read the remaining 104 scenarios and coded the coun-terfactual thoughts according to the same coding scheme used in Studiesla and lb. The judges agreed 83% of the time, and disagreements wereresolved through discussion. Example scenarios, counterfactuals, andcodes are presented in the Appendix.

Results of Study 1cAs directed, subjects tended to report very emotional epi-

sodes. Of those subjects who described situations in which theyhad felt shame, 81% rated their feelings in the situation as a 5,6, or 7 on the 7-point scale of shame. Similarly, of the subjectswho described situations in which they had felt guilt, 73% ratedtheir feelings in the situation as a 5,6, or 7 on the 7-point scaleof guilt.

Table 3 presents the frequencies and percentages of self-

chronic, self-acute, behavior, and situation counterfactuals forthe subject-generated shame and guilt scenarios. Again, we re-port the frequencies and percentages of classifications of the firstcounterfactual nominated by each subject as well as the totalnumber of counterfactuals nominated by subjects.

As in the first two studies, for statistical analysis mutations ofchronic aspects of self were coded - 1 , mutations of acute as-pects of self were coded 0, and mutations of behavior were coded1. In examination of the first counterfactuals it appeared thatregardless of the type of situation they were mentally undoing,subjects were somewhat more inclined to mutate their actions.However, a t test revealed that subjects who described guilt ex-periences were marginally more likely to mutate their behavior(M = .738) than were subjects who described shame experi-ences (M = .500), /(86) = 1.78, p < .08. Analysis of all fourcounterfactuals generated yielded a stronger result (Ms were.640 and .385, respectively), t(l00) = 2.44,p < .05.

Consistent with the findings from Studies la and lb, partici-pants describing personal guilt experiences were more likely tomutate their own behaviors compared with those generatingcounterfactual statements in response to personal shame expe-riences. Thus, the relationship between counterfactual thinkingand emotion does not appear to be due simply to idiosyncraticfeatures of the bird and professor scenarios used in the previousstudies.

One other descriptive result that deserves some note is thedifference in the raw number of self and behavior mutations.The data from all three studies reported thus far (Tables 1, 2,and 3) suggest that people are more likely to mutate behaviorthan aspects of the self. This makes sense because specific ac-tions should be, on average, more psychologically mutable thanaspects of the self. If our present argument about the role ofcounterfactual thinking in shame and guilt is correct, then guiltshould be a more commonly experienced emotion than shame.We are not aware of data on the relative frequency of guilt andshame. However, the prevalence of means to admit guilt and be

Table 3First and Total Counterfactuals Reported by Category: Study lc

Experience

First counterfactualShame experienceGuilt experience

Total counterfactualsShame experienceGuilt experience

Self-chronic

4 (8%)3 (6%)

20(10%)10(5%)

Self-acute

15(28%)5 (9%)

50 (26%)27(14%)

Behavior

27(51%)34 (67%)

77 (40%)95 (50%)

Situation

7(13%)9(18%)

45 (24%)59(31%)

Total

5351

192191

SHAME AND GUILT 591

forgiven of sins in organized religion might be some indicationthat guilt is a very common experience.

Series 2: Causal Influences of Counterfactual Thoughtin Shame and Guilt

Together, the first three studies provide consistent support forthe idea that when people engage in counterfactual thinkingabout situations that could cause, or did cause, them shameand guilt, they focus on different events to mentally undo theoutcomes. Shame experiences were associated with the ten-dency to undo aspects of the self. Guilt experiences were associ-ated with the tendency to undo specific behaviors.

So far, therefore, we have provided some evidence for the ideathat counterfactual thinking about situations evocative ofshame and guilt involve a different focus on the self. Of course,it is unclear from the findings of the first three studies just howcounterfactual thinking is related to these emotions. If shameand guilt involve a focus on the self and on behavior, respec-tively, then it should not be surprising that the content of coun-terfactual thinking should be different. However, we argued ini-tially that counterfactual thinking may also serve to produce oramplify feelings of shame and guilt by highlighting the self orbehavior, respectively, as the cause of the distressing situation.Studies 2a and 2b were designed to test the direction of theeffect. Subjects in Study 2a imagined themselves in a situationthat could elicit either shame or guilt, as determined by pilottesting. Half of the subjects were then directed to undo the out-come of the situation by mutating aspects of the self, whereasthe remaining subjects were led to undo the outcome of the sit-uation by mutating their behavior. All subjects then reportedhow much shame or guilt they would feel in the situation. Wepredicted that subjects who mutated the self would feel strongershame than guilt and that subjects who mutated their behaviorwould feel stronger guilt than shame.

Study 2a

MethodParticipants. Participants were 108 undergraduates at Indiana Uni-

versity, who were participating individually in an unrelated experiment.For their efforts they received partial credit toward an undergraduate

psychology course. Approximately equal numbers of male and femalestudents participated.

Scenario. On the basis of the pilot testing of scenarios for Studiesla and lb, we chose to use a scenario that possessed the following char-acteristics: (a) The situation elicited equal amounts of shame and guilt(Ms = approximately 46), (b) the situation could happen naturally toboth male and female participants, and (c) the situation was a relativelyhigh-probability event in a college setting. The selected scenario read asfollows:

Your good friend, who rarely dates, invites you to attend a partywith him/her and his/her date, Chris. It is your friend's first datewith Chris. \bu go along and discover that Chris is not only veryattractive, but is also flirting with you. You flirt back. Although youare not seriously interested in him/her, at the end of the night yougive Chris your phone number. The next day your good friend ravesto you about how much he/she liked Chris, [flirting scenario]

Procedure. Participants completed a questionnaire that includedthe flirting scenario. They were prompted to vividly imagine the situa-

tion happening to them. After reading and imagining the scenario, par-ticipants were instructed to engage in one of two types of counterfactualthinking. Half of the participants received instructions designed to in-duce them to focus on counterfactual alternatives involving the self. Theinstructions read as follows:

Now complete the sentence stem "If only I were (not). . "Com-plete the stem twice. Both times, describe how if you were or werenot a particular TYPE OF PERSON (e.g., with particular person-ality traits, emotional style, intelligence) you wouldn't have gotteninto this situation in the first place. Thus your sentence should takethe form: "If only I were (were not) [a particular type of person]."

The remaining participants were instructed to imagine alternativebehaviors and to complete the stem "If only I had (not). . ."They weretold to describe specific behaviors that they could have taken or nottaken so that they would not have gotten into the situation. Thus, theirsentences were to take the form "If only I had (had not) [donesomething]."

Half of the participants in each mutation condition then rated theamount of shame they would anticipate feeling in the flirting situation,using a 7-point scale where 1 indicated they would feel no shame and a7 indicated they would feel extreme shame. The remaining participantsin each condition rated the amount of guilt they would feel,'using a 7-point scale where 1 indicated no guilt and 7 indicated extreme guilt.The decision to conduct a between-subjects collection of emotion rat-ings was guided by pilot work indicating that the first rating of an emo-tion (shame or guilt) tended to determine the second rating such thatthere was very little within-subjects variance on ratings of shame andguilt. This experiment thus involved a 2 (mutate: self vs. behavior) X 2(feelings rated: shame vs. guilt) fully between-subjects design.

Results of Study 2a

Participants had no trouble imagining themselves in theflirting situation or following the mutation instructions. Com-ments written on questionnaires as well as spontaneous com-ments to the experimenters indicated that the scenario was bothplausible and troubling.

Example responses from participants who completed thestem "If only I were (not) . . ." included "smart enough toavoid a situation in which no matter what I do someone mightbe hurt by my actions," "a disciplined, trustworthy friend,""not such a backstabber," "not the kind of person who lovedattention," "not so selfish," "stronger," and "not such a flirt." Incompleting this stem subjects sometimes listed acute aspects ofthe self, which reinforces the validity of the coding procedurefor the first series of studies. Such mutations included "werenot attracted to Chris," "were more attentive to the situation,""were not so desperate for someone to go out with," "were ableto tell my friend that I was interested in Chris too," and "moresensitive to the feelings of my friend."

Typical completions of the stem "If only I had (not) . . ."included "not given Chris my phone number," "not flirted withChris," "refused to go on this damn date in the first place,""given them some time alone to get to know each other," and"brought a date for myself to distract me."

The shame and guilt ratings were subjected to a 2 (mutate) X2 (feelings rated) analysis of variance (ANOYA). As can be seenby inspecting the means in Table 4, there was a significant maineffect of mutate condition, F(\, 104) = 4.89, p < .05: Subjectswho mutated the self reported higher levels of bad feelings (bothguilt and shame) than did subjects who mutated their behavior.

592 P. NIEDENTHAL, J. TANGNEY, AND I. GAVANSKI

This effect was, however, qualified by the predicted interactionbetween mutate condition and type of feelings rated, F(l, 104)= 4.44, p < .05. The interaction indicates that shame ratingswere higher than guilt ratings in the mutate self condition andguilt ratings were higher than shame ratings in the mutate be-havior condition. Thus, our predictions were supported: Self-mutation led to greater anticipated shame, and behavior muta-tion led to greater anticipated guilt.

Study 2b

Method

As described in the introduction, Wells and Gavanski (1989) foundthat individuals tend to rate an event as more causal of an outcomeif the most salient counterfactual event would have yielded a differentoutcome. Importantly, in their study this effect was enhanced when sub-jects engaged in counterfactual thinking before (versus after) specifyingthe causes of the outcome in question. The present Study 2b was a rep-lication of Study 2a except that one third of the subjects did not explic-itly engage in counterfactual thinking at all before rating the amount ofshame or guilt they would feel were they to experience the flirting situa-tion (the remaining subjects were directed, as before, to either mutatethe self or mutate their behavior). We expected to replicate the result ofStudy 2a such that subjects directed to mutate the self would anticipatefeeling greater shame than guilt, and subjects directed to mutate theirbehavior would anticipate feeling greater guilt than shame. Using Wellsand Gavanski's logic, we also expected that the former subjects wouldanticipate more shame than subjects in the no-mutate condition, andthat the latter subjects would anticipate feeling more guilt than subjectsin the no-mutate condition. The experiment entailed a 2 (feelings rated:shame vs. guilt) X 3 (mutate: self vs. behavior vs. no mutation) fullybetween-subjects design. Participants were 305 undergraduates at Indi-ana University who participated individually in a longer, unrelated ex-periment for course credit. Sixteen subjects failed to complete the ques-tionnaire or follow instructions and their data were discarded.

Results of Study 2b

Means are reported in Table 5. Analysis of the data from sub-jects in the two mutate conditions revealed the same Mutate XFeelings Rated interaction observed in Study 2a, F(l, 181) =6.99, p < .01. This indicates that subjects in the mutate selfcondition anticipated greater shame than guilt and that subjectsin the mutate behavior condition anticipated greater guilt thanshame. Ratings of shame and guilt from all subjects were thensubmitted to a 2 (feelings rated: shame vs. guilt) X 3 (mutate:self vs. behavior vs. no mutate) ANOVA. There was a maineffect of feelings, F(l, 283) = 4.33, p < .05, such that, overall,

Table 4Mean Shame and Guilt Ratings From Subjects in MutateBehavior Conditions: Study 2a

Emotion rated Mutate self Mutate behavior

ShameGuilt

5.70 (« = 29)5.18 (« = 27)

4.38 (n = 26)5.15 (« = 26)

Note. Shame and guilt were rated on scales from 1 to 7, where 1 meantthat subjects would feel that emotion not at all and 7 meant that subjectswould feel the emotion very much.

Table 5Mean Shame and Guilt Ratings From Subjects in Mutate Self,Mutate Behavior, and No Mutate Conditions: Study 2b

Emotion rated Mutate self No mutate Mutate behavior

ShameGuilt

5.52 (n = 48)5.13 (n = 38)

4.77(« = 47)5.56 (n = 52)

4.87(« = 54)5.60 (n = 50)

Note. Shame and guilt were rated on scales from 1 to 7 where 1 meantthat subjects would feel that emotion not at all and 7 meant that subjectswould feel the emotion very much.

subjects thought they would feel more guilt than shame in theflirting situation. In addition, the two-way interaction was sig-nificant, F(2, 283) = 4.35, p = .01, indicating that ratings ofguilt and shame differed across mutation conditions. SeparateANOVAs were therefore conducted on shame and guilt ratings.The analysis of shame revealed a main effect of mutation con-dition, F(2, 146) = 3.13, p < .05. Subjects who mutated the selfreported more shame than did subjects in the mutate behaviorcondition, t(93) = 2A6,p< .05, and than did subjects who werenot asked to engage in counterfactual thinking at all, /(100) =2.39, p < .05. The analysis of guilt ratings did not reveal a maineffect. Subjects who mutated the self reported marginally lessguilt than the subjects who mutated their behavior, ?(88) = 1.58,p < . 12, and than subjects who did not engage in counterfactualthinking, ;(86) = 1.34, p < . 19.

In summary, the present findings replicate those of Study 2a.Subjects directed to mutate the self felt more shame than guilt,and subjects directed to mutate behavior felt more guilt thanshame after imagining themselves in the flirting scenario. In ad-dition, as predicted, subjects who were directed to mutate as-pects of the self to undo the situation reported much higher lev-els of anticipated shame than did subjects who did not explicitlyengage in counterfactual thinking before rating their feelings.Thus, mutations of the self had a clear amplifying effect on feel-ings of shame. Subjects who mutated the self reported slightlyless guilt than did subjects in the other two conditions, but thosewho mutated behavior did not anticipate higher guilt than thosein the no-mutate condition. The failure to observe an amplifi-cation of guilt through directed counterfactual thinking aboutbehavior may be due to two factors. First, as evidenced by theinclusion of a no-mutate condition, undergraduates at IndianaUniversity felt that the flirting situation would cause them bothmore guilt than the Johns Hopkins undergraduates did and alsothat they would feel more guilt than shame. This high baselinelevel of anticipated guilt may have imposed a ceiling effect onguilt such that directing subjects to mutate their actions couldnot raise guilt beyond the base level. Furthermore, it could bethe case that for the flirting scenario subjects tended to sponta-neously mutate their actions in the absence of any directions.This explanation is also consistent with the pattern of reportedshame. In both the mutate behavior and also the no-mutate con-ditions, subjects anticipated the same moderate amounts ofshame. Subjects directed to mutate the self anticipated muchhigher levels of shame. Nevertheless, the data do clearly showthat focus of counterfactual thinking mediates quality of antic-ipated feelings following an outcome that is ambiguous with re-spect to its cause.

SHAME AND GUILT 593

General Discussion

Previous research on counterfactual thinking has indicatedthat the discrepancy between factual and counterfactual out-comes can affect the valence and intensity of emotional reac-tions to events. The results of the current series of studies extendthis literature by demonstrating that different patterns of coun-terfactual thinking are associated with qualitatively differentaffective experiences, above and beyond the dimensions of eval-uation (valence) and intensity.

Shame and guilt are both negatively valenced, self-relevantemotions that people experience in response to failures andtransgressions. Although several empirical studies of the phe-nomenology of shame and guilt (Lewis, 1971;Tangney, 1989a;Tangney, Miller, & Flicker, 1992; Wicker et al., 1983) suggestsome differences in intensity of these emotions (shame is gener-ally a more powerful and painful experience than guilt), thedifference between shame and guilt is far more than a matter ofintensity. Shame is not merely a more intense form of guilt.Rather, shame and guilt appear to vary along a range of cogni-tive, affective, and motivational dimensions. One of the mostfundamental distinctions has to do with the functional role ofthe self in these affective experiences. Whereas shame involvesfeelings of fairly global self-condemnation in which the self isseen as the root of some focal failure or transgression, guilt in-volves a much more articulated condemnation of an unaccept-able behavior (or failure to act), somewhat apart from the self.

The findings from the studies in Series 1 clearly demonstratethat the counterfactual thoughts that accompany shame and guiltdiffer systematically, paralleling these differences in orientationto self versus behavior. When induced to feel (or asked to recallepisodes of) shame compared with guilt, people were more likelyto mentally undo aspects of self. When induced to feel (or askedto recall episodes of) guilt compared with shame, people weremore likely to mentally undo aspects of their behavior. Our find-ings indicate not only that induced or remembered feelings ofshame and guilt were associated with distinct patterns of count-erfactual thinking, but the findings from studies in Series 2 alsoshow that the nature of counterfactual thinking, itself, mediatesthese distinct affective experiences. Participants who were di-rected to produce counterfactuals about the self in connectionwith a negative interpersonal event subsequently reported higherlevels of shame than guilt. Conversely, participants who were di-rected to produce counterfactuals about their behavior subse-quently reported higher levels of guilt than shame. We interpretthe results of the five studies together as indicating that coun-terfactual alternatives that come to mind when individuals facenegative outcomes or experiences can influence the nature oftheir emotional reactions. We cannot conclude from these studiesthat counterfactual thinking is a requirement for the experiencesof shame and guilt, but the results of Studies 2a and 2b certainlyshow that the focus of counterfactual thinking can contribute tothe extent to which shame or guilt is felt. It is likely that thereexists a rather complex, bidirectional relationship between thecontent of counterfactual thinking and emotional experience. Inthe spirit of M. Lewis's (1990) "cognitive-emotional fugue," per-haps certain types of emotional experiences foster characteristicways of thinking, which in turn can highlight and intensify theexperienced affect. Thus, cognition and affect can work hand in

hand, mutually sustaining and reinforcing quite distinct phe-nomenological experiences.

Differentiating Shame- and Guilt-Prone Individuals

Our findings do more than extend the literature on coun-terfactual thinking as a mediator of specific emotions. The pres-ent results are also relevant to our understanding of the natureand implications of individual differences in proneness toshame and proneness to guilt. Previous research has demon-strated that children, adolescents, and adults alike vary consid-erably in the degree to which they are likely to experienceshame, guilt, or both, when faced with negative self-relevant sit-uations (Tangney, 1990, 1991; Tangney, Wagner, Gavlas, Hill,& Marschall, 1992). Results from the current studies suggestthat such individual differences in proneness to shame versusproneness to guilt may hinge, to some degree, on people's char-acteristic patterns of counterfactual thinking. That is, whenfaced with negative events, shame-prone individuals may bemore likely to spontaneously think about their personal quali-ties and engage in counterfactual thinking about the self (e.g.,"If only I were (or were not) such and such kind of person"). Inaddition, guilt-prone individuals may be more likely to focus onspecific aspects of their behavior and engage in counterfactualthinking about their specific actions (e.g., "If only I had (or hadnot) done such a thing").

Perhaps more important, such individual differences in pat-terns of counterfactual thought may, in part, explain the consis-tent observation that proneness to shame and proneness to guiltare differentially related to a broad range of psychological andsocial characteristics (Tangney, 1991, 1993; Tangney, Wagner,Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992; Tangney, Wagner, Gavlas, Hill, &Marschall, 1992; Tangney, Wagner, & Gramzow, 1992). In anutshell, shame-proneness appears to be the more maladaptiveaffective style. Across numerous studies, proneness to shamehas been linked to a range of psychological symptoms, as wellas to an impaired capacity for interpersonal empathy, high lev-els of anger and hostility, and unconstructive anger managementstrategies. In contrast, guilt-proneness appears to be a fairlyadaptive affective style, especially in the interpersonal realm.Proneness to "shame-free" guilt has been linked to empathicresponsiveness and constructive anger management strategies,and this style appears generally unrelated to psychologicalsymptomatology.

Why is it that a tendency to experience shame has such nega-tive implications for psychological and social adjustment? Onepossibility lies in the nature of the associated counterfactualthoughts. Counterfactual thoughts involve a mental undoing ofevents from the recent past. But such counterfactual thoughtsalso point us in alternative directions for the future (Markmanet al., 1993). That is, when we contemplate how a negative situ-ation might have otherwise unfolded, leading to a more agree-able outcome, we are also contemplating how things might bedifferent in future similar situations. Counterfactual thoughtsassociated with guilt (about specific behaviors) typically repre-sent quite straightforward possibilities for change in futureevents (Roese, 1994). We can readily imagine turning off theair conditioner, studying harder, resisting temptation, telling atruth, or helping another in some similar future circumstance.

594 P. NIEDENTHAL, J. TANGNEY, AND I. GAVANSKJ

The counterfactual thoughts associated with shame (about theself), however, are more likely to present a serious dilemma. Asclinicians well know, changes to the self pose a much greaterchallenge. Particularly when shame-related counterfactualthoughts center on fairly global characteristics of the self, theopportunities for change in the future may be quite limited. Inthis light, the anxiety, depression, anger, and unempathic self-involvement of the shame-prone individual are easilyunderstandable.

Conclusion

In sum, the present findings are consistent in showing thatcounterfactual thinking can mediate specific emotions. Fridjaet al. (1989) showed that both shame and guilt (as well as regret)are associated with a concern with mental undoing, somethingthat clinicians have noted for decades. The present work showsthat this mental undoing takes different forms in shame andguilt and that these different forms of undoing contribute to thephenomenologies of the two emotions.

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Appendix

Personal Experiences of Shame and Guilt Generated by Subjects in Study lc

Shame Scenarios

"A most shameful event of my life occurred when I attempted to cheaton a quiz in my first year of high school. The class consisted of about 30other kids and most cheated on every test. I had never cheated (neverdid again) before, but did it by peer pressure. A person I disliked mockedmy behavior and at the end of the day I confessed to the teacher. I feltshame because I compromised my own values, drawing criticism fromthose around me and myself."If only...

1. I had not cheated (obvious) [Behavior]2. I had more self-confidence to avoid such situations [Self]3. I had better study skills [Self]4. I could think holistically, see past immediate gratification [Self]

"When my parents found out about a class I Fed. They thought I wasdoing so well in school, but really I was partying too much, not studyingfor exams, not going to class. My own ignorance caused me to behavethis way. Just the look on my parent's face, you know that disappointedlook."If only...

1. I could be the daughter they expected me to be [Self]2. I was a better student [Self]3. My friends weren't such bad influences on me to party all of the

time [Situation]4. I could just say "no" [Self]

Guilt Scenarios

"I got into a fight with my boyfriend. I love him and have been datinghim for over a year. I picked the fight because I was in a bad mood and

taking it out on him. I said things that hurt him and he says he forgetsthem, but I know he won't. I told him he bored me, I was sick of himand I wasn't having fun. I told him he was ignorant, lazy, self-centered,irresponsible. I feel awful, I cried, I could kill myself for doing it."If only...

1. Stopped saying the things instead of keep going [Behavior]2. Not said a word to begin with [Behavior]3. Told him I was in a bad mood and just not to talk [Behavior]4. Not even gotten into the car [Behavior]

"I was out with some friends (at the bars) and saw a girl I had recentlymet. We talked, drank, etc., and I eventually ended up driving her home.I spend the evening and although nothing sexual happened, except for afew kisses, I felt guilty because I have a girlfriend who I'd been datingfor 11 months at the time. Alcohol was possibly a slight cause becauseeverything with my girlfriend was going fine (no rocky road) and I washappy with her and still am."If only . . .

1. I could have taken my girlfriend out that night, instead of goingout with the boys [Behavior]

2. I could have drank less, so I could have gone home safely afterdropping her off [Behavior]

3. I would have stayed home because summer session started the nextday [Behavior]

4. I wouldn't have taken her home [Behavior]

Note. Terms in brackets indicate how judges categorized each count-erfactual statement.

Received June 10,1993Revision received January 20, 1994

Accepted February 10, 1994 •