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183

The
British
Psychological
British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2008), 26, 183–196
q 2008 The British Psychological Society
Society

www.bpsjournals.co.uk

Shame and guilt as behaviour regulators:

Relationships with bullying, victimization
and prosocial behaviour

Ersilia Menesini1* and Marina Camodeca2

1
University of Florence, Italy
2
University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy

This study aimed at investigating intentional and non-intentional situations eliciting

shame and guilt in relation to children’s involvement in bullying, victimization and
prosocial behaviour. We used the contextual model designed by Olthof, Schouten,
Kuiper, Stegge, and Jennekens-Schinkel (2000) according to which certain situations
elicit more shame than guilt (‘shame-only’, SO), whereas others elicit both guilt and
shame (‘shame-and-guilt’, SAG). Besides these, four new scenarios were added (2 SO
and 2 SAG) in which the protagonist was alternatively the perpetrator or the receiver of
harm. Participants were 121 children aged 9–11, who filled in the self-report Shame and
Guilt Questionnaire, and a peer nomination survey to investigate the roles of bully,
victim, prosocial and not involved. Results showed that in SAG situations, perpetrated-
harm situations elicited more guilt than neutral situations; while in SO situations,
neutral situations elicited more shame than received-harm situations. In SAG situations,
prosocial children reported feeling more ashamed and guilty than bullies and not-
involved children, while in SO situations, victims scored higher on shame than not-
involved children. Results are discussed considering the contextual model employed
and the relationship between emotions and behaviours.

In recent years, research on emotion has increased enormously and agreement has been
reached about the importance of emotions in regulating behaviour and enhancing social
competence (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000; Saarni, Campos,
Camras, & Witherington, 2006; Weiner, 1995). An interesting area of research, not yet
fully covered, concerns the study of self-conscious emotions, which imply that children
are aware of themselves as different from others, of social standards usually accepted in
society and of their individual responsibility in meeting or not meeting these standards
(M. Lewis, 1992). The attribution of responsibility to the self in case of success or failure
in meeting these norms elicits emotions such as shame, guilt, pride, empathy and envy.
The present study focuses on the emotions of shame and guilt as potential regulators of

* Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Ersilia Menesini, Department of Psychology, University of Florence, via San
Niccolò 93, 50125, Firenze, Italia (e-mail: menesini@psico.unifi.it).

DOI:10.1348/026151007X205281
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184 Ersilia Menesini and Marina Camodeca

social behaviour and aims at relating them to bullying among schoolchildren. Our main
interest was to investigate whether bullies, victims and prosocial children differ from
one another and from a comparison group in feeling these emotions.
Shame and guilt can be seen as precursors of conscience, moral reasoning, moral and
prosocial behaviour. According to some authors (Berti & Bombi, 2005; Hoffman, 2000;
Kochanska, Gross, Lin, & Nichols, 2002; Nucci, 2001), moral behaviour develops from
different components such as knowing the rules, internalizing them, being able to judge
what is good and what is bad, resisting temptation as well as feeling certain emotions.
Among these, shame is a painful emotion characterized by the concern about the
others’ judgment on the self, the awareness of appearing in front of an audience in an
undesired or not approved way (‘unwanted identity’) and is typically accompanied by a
sense of shrinking or of ‘being small’, of worthlessness and powerlessness (Bybee &
Quiles, 1998; H. B. Lewis, 1971; Olthof, Schouten, Kuipers, Stegge, & Jennekens-
Schinkel, 2000). Guilt is the emotion elicited by understanding that one’s own
behaviour is wrong because it caused harm to someone who is now suffering; it involves
tension and regret, induces a discouragement to commit transgression and may lead to
repentance and repair of the harm done (Olthof et al., 2000; Tangney, 1998).
While guilt is associated with moral transgression, shame appears to be linked to
non-moral experiences of inferiority, incompetence or derision, as well as to moral
transgression (Smith, Webster, Parrott, & Eyre, 2002). The moral connotation of guilt
and the double connotation of shame (i.e. moral and non-moral) are made clear in these
studies by Olthof and colleagues (Olthof, 2002; Olthof & Goossens, 2003; Olthof et al.,
2000). In particular, Olthof et al. developed a model, supported by data, according to
which there are situations that elicit only shame and are characterized by non-moral
actions (‘shame-only’, SO, situations; e.g. falling asleep in the classroom during lesson),
and situations that elicit both shame and guilt and are characterized by moral
transgressions, because incompetent behaviours do cause harm (‘shame-and-guilt’, SAG,
situations; e.g. breaking a friend’s toy). In a subsequent review of the model (Olthof,
Ferguson, Bloemers, & Deij, 2004), situations eliciting only guilt were added, meaning
events which cause a moral wrong without intention and without an audience
evaluating the person’s identity. As the authors pointed out, these are situations in
which personal responsibility is not present, such as those referring to physical illness
(e.g. obliging the family to stay home, because of being ill). However, these ‘guilt-only’
(GO) situations are beyond the scope of the present work and will not be considered.
Given the focus on specific contextual characteristics related to guilt and shame in SO
and SAG situations, we will refer to this model as ‘contextual approach’.
In Olthof et al.’s (2000) situations, however, it was not clear whether the harm done
was intentional or accidental. We could consider them as ‘neutral’. Since responsibility
has an important role in the development of moral reasoning (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004;
Nucci, 2001), we decided to add some situations in which the protagonist either
perpetrated an attack on purpose (‘perpetrated-harm SAG’ situations) or received an
attack on purpose (‘received-harm SO’ situations). In this way, we aimed at investigating
whether shame and guilt were experienced in similar ways by children when they
caused intentional harm or suffered from it. It is possible that higher levels of shame and
guilt are elicited in perpetrated-harm situations as compared to neutral SAG situations,
because the context is highly moral and the harm is done on purpose. On the other
hand, received-harm SO situations (indicating victimization) are more likely to elicit
lower levels of shame and guilt in comparison to neutral situations, because they involve
protagonists who suffer as a result of harm caused by someone else.
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Shame, guilt and bullying 185

If there is common agreement that a certain level of guilt is an adaptive emotion,

because it is linked to empathy, responsibility and internalization of rules, and is
oriented towards prosocial behaviour (Aksan & Kochanska, 2005; Bybee & Quiles, 1998;
Hoffman, 1998, 2000; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992), the same evidence
has not been found for shame. The latter emotion has often been correlated with
humiliation, anger, indirect hostility, low self-esteem and high self-contempt, and
therefore considered maladaptive (Tangney et al., 1992). However, recent studies
claimed that shame could also have an adaptive function and promote prosocial
behaviour (Ahmed & Braithwaite, 2004). Particularly in the case of moral shame, it
would lead to responsibility and good relationships: children would use internal
sanctioning reasoning and develop moral behaviour. When considered adaptive, shame
and guilt may predict the development of moral behaviour and repentance, preventing
people from committing transgressions and promoting prosocial behaviour (cf. Bybee &
Quiles, 1998; Olthof, 2002; Williams, 1998).
Therefore, high levels of shame may be adaptive due to the fact that they express a
child’s ability to account for his/her own sense of exposure and harm done and allow
him/her to avoid similar situations in the future. Along the same line of reasoning, high
levels of shame and guilt experienced when the subject is the target of others’
intentional harm can be maladaptive and reveal a chronic sense of shame and self-
blaming (Ferguson, Stegge, Miller, & Olsen, 1999). We surmise that feelings of shame in
SO situations (non-moral) may indicate concern for one’s own behaviour and for
embarrassing situations, but also a deep sense of humiliation, derision and anxiety in
front of others, which could be maladaptive. In sum we claim, in line with a functionalist
approach, that emotions per se are not dysfunctional but they can become so when
expressed intensively, frequently and inappropriately relative to the demands of the
situation, to the child’s needs and to the cost of the response in the relationships (Clark
& Watson, 1994; Ferguson et al., 1999).
The aim of the present study is to investigate whether there is a relationship between
shame and guilt, on the one hand, and bullying/victimization and prosociality, on the
other. Among the cognitive points of view which tried to understand bullying, neither
the theory of mind (Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999) nor the social information-
processing approach (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005; Crick & Dodge, 1994) have
included morality, which, in fact, seems to play a significant role in describing and
understanding aggressive and prosocial behaviour; while most children (and prosocial
children in particular) are guided by moral values such as fairness or justice, the same
values do not seem to guide bullies’ behaviour (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004). Besides, it is
not only important that a child understands a situation and responds to it, but it is also
important that he/she experiences appropriate emotions. So far, available studies are
consistent in claiming that aggressive children may lack in morality and conscience, and
that a lack of empathy is typical of bullies and aggressive children, who seem to fail in
feeling the victims’ suffering and in experiencing remorse (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001,
2004; Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Kaukiainen et al., 1999).
However, little research has considered the role of shame and guilt in relation to
bullying and victimization. The main contribution comes from Menesini et al. (2003),
who investigated whether children attributed the emotions of responsibility (shame and
guilt) and disengagement (indifference and pride) to the bully of an imaginary story.
Although they found significant results for moral disengagement, they did not find
significant effects for moral responsibility (shame and guilt). Another study on bullying
and moral emotions found that, when humiliated, bullies do not acknowledge shame,
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186 Ersilia Menesini and Marina Camodeca

but, on the other hand, they blame others and show hostility (Ahmed & Braithwaite,
2004). In line with these studies and with the idea that shame and guilt may be adaptive
emotions for the regulation of behaviour, we expected bullies to show low levels of
shame and guilt in comparison to their classmates, and prosocial children to score the
highest. This pattern is especially expected in perpetrated-harm SAG situations, because
bullies usually adopt intentional attacks to affirm themselves and are therefore used to
legitimize and value this kind of behaviours. A lack of shame and guilt in bullies can be
useful for them to reduce cognitive dissonance and continue to harass others.
Victims may be extremely concerned about the way they appear, about performing
in front of an audience and about being judged by others, which may increase their level
of anxiety and shame (Björkqvist, Ekman, & Lagerspetz, 1982; Hawker & Boulton, 2000;
Olthof, 2002). Furthermore, they tend to endorse characterological self-blaming
attributions and to show an internal locus of control in response to imagined harassment
(Graham & Juvonen, 1998), which could be associated with a big concern about the self
(shame in SO) and with a dysfunctional thought about having caused a harm even when
it was not the case (guilt in SO).
Finally, two comparison groups were taken into consideration: a group of prosocial
children who showed a high level of empathic and helpful attitude towards the victim
and a group of control children who were neither bullies nor victims or prosocial and
can therefore be viewed as bystanders. As previously suggested, shame and guilt can be
considered as adaptive emotions, leading to responsibility, regulating behaviour and
preventing people from committing transgressions or behaving inadequately (Aksan &
Kochanska, 2005; Bybee & Quiles, 1998). Furthermore, Hoffman (1998) proposed a
positive link between guilt and prosocial behaviour. We have therefore reasons to
expect prosocial children to show high levels of moral emotions, especially in
perpetrated-harm SAG situations, in which children are asked to imagine causing harm
on purpose.
The children of the second comparison group, not involved in either problematic or
prosocial behaviour, are those who are aware of the problem, as most students usually
are, but do nothing to stop it (Craig & Pepler, 1997). Bystanders’ attitudes of indifference
can depend on egoistic motives or simply on their wish not to be involved, and is likely
to be related to low levels of responsibility and moral-emotion experiences (Hoffman,
2000).
In summary, the general aim of the present study was to analyse the emotions of
shame and guilt in two different situations and to investigate the link between the
regulation of these feelings and children’s prosociality or involvement in bully/victim
problems. Moreover, we would like to detect whether this relationship can vary
according to the degree of personal responsibility perceived in doing a harm or in
suffering from it.

Method
Sample
One hundred and twenty-one children took part in the study (71 males and 50 females,
aged 9–11). Data were collected in two schools (six classes) near Florence, in central
Italy, which covered areas of mixed socio-economic backgrounds and can be considered
as representative of the child population. Fifty-nine children attended the fourth grade of
a primary school and 62, attended the sixth grade (which corresponds to the first grade
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Shame, guilt and bullying 187

of a middle school in the Italian school system). A letter was sent to the children’s
parents in order to obtain their consent for their children’s participation. Consent was
given by 100% of the families. Children were tested individually by trained students in a
quiet room in their own school.

Instruments
The Shame and Guilt Questionnaire developed by Olthof et al. (2000) and validated for
the Italian population (Camodeca & Menesini, 2007) was used to detect the moral
emotions of shame and guilt in children. The questionnaire consisted of 10 situations:
five of them elicited only shame (‘shame-only’ situations, SO, e.g. ‘You did not sleep well
last night and this morning you were half asleep at school. The teacher asked you a
question, but you did not understand. How do you feel?’), and the other five elicited
both shame and guilt (‘shame-and-guilt’ situations, SAG, e.g. ‘You and your mother are
sitting at a table. Your mother is writing a letter and you are drinking a juice. You start
to move on your chair, your mother tells you to stop, but you don’t stop. Suddenly
you push the juice that splits over the table and also over your mother’s letter. How
do you feel?’). We asked children how much they would feel guilty and ashamed on a
five-point Likert scale, from 0 to 4 (not at all, a little bit, quite a bit, a lot or very very
much). In this way, we had, for each of the 10 situations, a score for guilt and a score
for shame.
While Olthof et al. (2000) presented children with situations involving imaginary
children (balanced according to gender), we asked children to imagine themselves
being directly involved in the situations (cf. Camodeca & Menesini, 2007).
Reliabilities reported by Camodeca and Menesini (2007) on a larger Italian sample
reached sufficient levels, except for guilt in SO. They were respectively: shame in SAG
(a ¼ :61), guilt in SAG (a ¼ :63), shame in SO (a ¼ :66) and guilt in SO (a ¼ :48). The
lower level of the latter measure (guilt in SO) proves that guilt can be controversial in
situations where the focus is on embarrassing and inadequate behaviour, and responses
to these items may be inconsistent with each other.
In these 10 situations the protagonist’s intention was ambiguous, i.e. there was no
cue to understand whether the action was carried out on purpose or whether it was
accidental. We will refer to these situations as ‘neutral’ situations (or ‘original’, to
indicate they were the ones developed by Olthof et al., 2000) to distinguish them from
the ones added by us, as explained below.
In order to test whether personal responsibility mattered in feeling ashamed or
guilty, we added four new situations, which depicted events in which the action was
clearly intentional (perpetrated-harm SAG) or was experienced by someone who
received it as an intentional attack (received-harm SO). The two SAG situations were the
following: (1) ‘You always have fun in tripping one of your classmates. One day you do
that and your classmate falls down and gets hurt. How do you feel?’ (2) ‘You always have
fun calling one of your classmates “big fat”. One day your classmate starts crying. How
do you feel?’ Again, children provided an answer for shame and an answer for guilt on
the same five-point Likert scale. (Correlations between these two perpetrated-harm SAG
situations were respectively: r ¼ :26; p , :01 for shame; and r ¼ :41; p , :001 for
guilt.) The two SO situations were proposed on the victim’s side: (1) ‘A classmate of
yours always has fun tripping you. One day you fall down and get hurt. How do you
feel?’ (2) ‘A classmate of yours always has fun calling you “big fat”. One day you
start crying. How do you feel?’ (Correlations between these two received-harm SO
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188 Ersilia Menesini and Marina Camodeca

situations were respectively r ¼ 27; p , :01 for shame; and r ¼ :07; ns for guilt.)
The non-significant correlation in the case of guilt in SO was consistent with the low
reliability of this scale in the original model and probably due to the fact that few
children reported feeling guilty in SO situations.
The correlations between the original scales and perpetrated/received-harm
situations were significant and showed a good consistency in our participants: shame
in SAG (r ¼ :64, p , :001), guilt in SAG (r ¼ :45, p , :001), shame in SO (r ¼ :62,
p , :001). Only guilt in SO situations presented a low correlation (r ¼ :19, ns).
Reliabilities of these overall scales, combining the original neutral stories with our
new additions were: shame in SAG (a ¼ :70), guilt in SAG (a ¼ :70), shame in SO
(a ¼ :72) and guilt in SO (a ¼ :52). Given the low consistency of the guilt in SO scale
both in the neutral and in the received-harm situations, we decided to discard it from
further analyses.
Peer nominations were employed to assess bullying, victimization and prosocial
behaviour. Previous studies (Österman et al., 1994; Pellegrini, 2001; Perry, Kusel, &
Perry, 1988) claimed that, in the case of bullying, peer reports are more reliable than self-
reports, because they provide a higher number of judgments, minimizing bias due to
individual raters. Furthermore, peer reports avoid the risk of social desirability, which
can be quite common when self-reports are used. Of course, peer reports may be biased
by prejudice and friendship, but nevertheless they seem the most reliable measure to
uncover bullying.
We presented children with the following definition of bullying: ‘We say that a child
is being bullied when another child, or a group of children, say mean things to him/her.
It is always bullying when a child is hit, beat, kicked and threatened, when he/she is
locked in a room, receives offensive notes, when nobody talks to him/her and things like
that. These episodes happen quite often and the victims are not able to defend
themselves. It is also bullying when a child is repeatedly teased in a mean way. It is not
bullying when two children of similar strength fight or play rudely.’ We asked children to
nominate those classmates that they thought were bullies and victims. Children also had
to nominate those classmates who tried to comfort other children (‘Who in your class
tries to console other kids when they feel sad?’), and who often helped other children
(‘Who in your class often helps other kids?’). The mean of these two questions was used
as a prosocial behaviour scale. Children were permitted to nominate themselves to each
item, if it was the case.
We averaged the scores for bullying, victimization and prosocial behaviour,
dividing the nominations received by each child by N, where N was the number of
classmates. Since no differences were found between younger and older children, we
standardized the scales for the whole sample using z scores. On this basis, we
considered as bullies those children who scored higher than .50 (half SD) on the
standardized bullying scale and higher in the bullying scale than in the victimization
scale; and as victims those who scored higher than .50 on the victimization scale and
higher in the victimization than in the bullying scale. Those children who scored
higher than .50 on the prosocial scale and lower than .50 on both the bullying and
the victimization scales were considered as prosocial. We chose a cut-off of .50,
which allowed us to have more clear-cut groups, as compared with lower values
reported for example in Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Osterman, and Kaukiainen
(1996) and in Sutton and Smith (1999). Finally, in order to have a group of not-
involved, we considered those children who scored lower than the mean (M ¼ 0) on
the bullying, victimization and prosocial scales.
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Shame, guilt and bullying 189

In this way, we found 19 bullies (15.7%), 22 victims (18.2%), 24 prosocial children

(19.8%) and 37 not-involved children (30.6%). Role was therefore attributed to a total of
102 children; the remaining 19 (15.7%) children did not meet the criteria for any role
and were therefore not included in the analyses.

Results
Gender and age differences
A preliminary analysis was carried out to investigate age and gender differences in
relation to the four roles. Cross-tabulations showed a significant chi-squared only for
gender (x2 ð3Þ ¼ 17:11; p , :01): boys were more often bullies than girls, while girls
were prosocial more often than boys. No gender differences were found in victims and
not-involved groups.

Relationship between moral emotions and roles

Three mixed-design analyses of variance were carried out, with the three emotions
(shame in SAG, guilt in SAG and shame in SO) as the three dependent variables and with
2 (gender) £ 2 (age group: fourth and sixth grade) £ 4 (bullying role: bully, victim,
prosocial and not-involved) as between-subjects factors. Neutral vs. perpetrated/
received-harm situations served as the within-subjects factor.

Within-subjects effects
A multivariate test was used to determine whether perpetrated- and received-harm
situations elicited more shame and guilt than neutral situations, or the other way
around. A main within-subjects effect was found in two of the three analyses
(descriptive statistics are displayed in Table 1). For SAG situations, no differences were
found for shame in perpetrated-harm situations as compared to neutral ones (Pillai’s
Trace ¼ :002; Fð1; 86Þ ¼ 0:15). Conversely, significant effects emerged for guilt in SAG
(Pillai’s Trace ¼ 0:14; Fð1; 86Þ ¼ 14:20; p , :001), with perpetrated-harm situations
eliciting more guilt than neutral situations. This indicates that causing harm on purpose
(e.g. tripping someone over) made children feel more guilty than if harm was caused
with no particular aim to hurt (e.g. breaking a friend’s toy). Results were different for SO
situations because we found that neutral situations elicited more shame than received-
harm situations (Pillai’s Trace ¼ 0:14; Fð1; 86Þ ¼ 14:04; p , :001). In other words,
assuming an unwanted identity when you behave in an incoherent or incompetent way
(e.g. falling asleep in the classroom) makes you feel more ashamed than assuming the

Table 1. Means and standard deviations of the scores of shame and guilt in SO and SAG situations

Neutral situations Perpetrated/received-harm situations

Scale M SD M SD

Shame in SAG 2.07 0.76 2.08 1.01

Guilt in SAG 2.60 0.69 2.99 0.77
Shame in SO 2.59 0.70 2.24 1.04

Note. N ¼ 121:
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190 Ersilia Menesini and Marina Camodeca

same unwanted identity when someone else causes it (e.g. falling down because
someone tripped you over).
Interactions among gender, age, role and type of situations were not statistically
significant (Fs , 2:40), indicating that children, regardless of their gender, age, and,
especially, role, responded similarly when harm was provoked/received on purpose and
when it was accidental.

Between-subjects effects
Age, gender and role served as between-subjects variables. Gender never reached
statistical significance, but an effect was found for age in SO situations. Younger children
felt more ashamed than older children (Fð1; 86Þ ¼ 7:53; p , :01).
Role in bullying was significant as a between-subjects effect in all the three analyses,
as displayed in Table 2. We used a post hoc Bonferroni test to compare the scores of the
four role groups. Prosocial children scored higher than bullies and not-involved children
in shame and guilt in SAG situations, while victims reported more shame in SO
situations, in comparison with not-involved children.

Table 2. Means, standard deviations (between parentheses) and tests of group differences of shame
and guilt as a function of role

Bully Victim Prosocial Not-involved

(N ¼ 19) (N ¼ 22) (N ¼ 24) (N ¼ 37) F(3, 86)

Shame in SAG 1.71 (0.96)a 2.17 (0.50)ab 2.58 (0.72)b 1.98 (0.82)a 4.70**
Guilt in SAG 2.54 (0.69)a 2.93 (0.56)ab 3.17 (0.51)b 2.67 (0.61)a 4.54**
Shame in SO 2.23 (0.90)ab 2.80 (0.77)a 2.50 (0.84)ab 2.14 (0.68)b 4.03*

Note. Means in the same row with different superscripts a and b differ significantly at p , :05, using the
Bonferroni test.
*p , :05; **p , :01.

Discussion
In relation to neutral vs. perpetrated/received-harm situations, results partially support
Arsenio and Lemerise’s (2004, p. 992) claim that ‘children’s judgment that a harmful act
was committed intentionally has a central role in determining the moral (or non-moral)
status of that act’. We found that perpetrated acts elicited more guilt in SAG situations:
when harm is caused on purpose, children are likely to feel more guilty than if harm was
caused with no particular aim to hurt. This is a further confirmation of the moral
connotations of SAG situations. On the other hand, shame in SO situations was elicited
by neutral (or ambiguous) acts more than by received attacks, because these situations
indicate a failure more than a moral transgression and the individual is not considered
responsible. The non-moral connotation of SO situations appears clear and this explains
the low frequency and lack of consistency of guilt in SO ratings. The distinction into two
types of contexts (shame-only and shame-and-guilt) proposed by Olthof et al. (2000) is
further confirmed in this study and traces a possible difference between non-moral
situations that elicit only shame or embarrassment, and moral situations in which both
guilt and shame are experienced. The finding and theoretical view that guilt is
experienced together with shame in the latter situations may follow from the fact that
feeling responsible for the harm caused (guilt) often gives way to an undesired identity
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Shame, guilt and bullying 191

in front of an audience. The nature of this failure is not a lack of success or an unusual
identity but a morally relevant behaviour of the protagonist (Olthof et al., 2000).
No interaction was found between intentionality and roles in bullying. This may
indicate that all children (even bullies) are able to distinguish between what is fair and
what is not, between what is a deliberate transgression and what is a harm not done on
purpose. All children, irrespective of their role, seem to consider moral, intentional,
transgressions as possible situations to feel guilty, even if some of them violate (also
deliberately) moral rules (cf. Arsenio & Lemerise, 2004). Further research is needed in
this domain, which can be extremely important to understand moral reasoning and
consequent behaviour.
The contextual model of shame and guilt proposed by Olthof et al. (2000) was
applied for the first time in relation to bullying and victimization, yielding interesting
results. According to this theoretical framework, shame and guilt are primarily different
answers to different situational antecedents. Relating bullying roles to these emotions
allowed us to show that moral emotions can be considered as regulators of behaviour
(Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007).
One of the most important outcomes of our study concerns the high levels of shame
and guilt reported by prosocial children in SAG situations, which are designed to elicit
morality. In these situations, shame and guilt appear, therefore, to be linked to the
development of social skills, conscience and prosocial behaviour, as well as to moral
reasoning, avoidance of transgression and desire of reparation (guilt) or internal
sanction (shame) (Bybee & Quiles, 1998; Ferguson et al., 1999), which are
characteristics of these children. As recent literature has pointed out, these children
show high levels of concern (empathy and sympathy) towards others, which in turn can
explain why they experience more feelings of guilt and shame in a morally relevant
situation (Eisenberg, Cumberland, Guthrie, Murphy, & Shepard, 2005; Hoffman, 2000).
The lower levels of shame and guilt expressed by bullies support and extend the
results by Menesini et al. (2003) and by Ciucci and Menesini (2004), who claimed that
bullies felt indifferent and proud when causing harm. What is particularly interesting is
that bullies felt significantly less guilty and ashamed than prosocial children especially in
SAG situations (and not in SO situations), i.e. when their behaviour caused harm or
distress to someone else. This is a confirmation that bullies may be guided by egocentric
reasoning and attribution of disengagement to the self which, in turn, makes them
indifferent to the victims’ sufferings (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Menesini et al., 2003).
They do not sympathize with the victim, do not feel responsible for the harm caused
and, therefore, do not experience guilt or shame in moral situations.
A similar profile has also been found for not-involved students, who showed almost
the same level of shame and guilt in SAG situations as bullies did. Even if we did not use a
specific measure to detect roles such as the Participant Role Questionnaire (Salmivalli
et al., 1996), we might consider not-involved children similar to outsiders or bystanders,
i.e. those children who pretend not to see bullying in order to avoid being involved
(Camodeca & Goossens, 2005; Menesini & Gini, 2000; Salmivalli et al., 1996). Since, by
definition, our not-involved children did not take sides nor helped, they probably feel
less guilty and ashamed compared with prosocial peers and perhaps do not even
experience what Hoffman (2000) called ‘the moral conflict of innocent bystander’,
according to which the one who witnesses someone in pain, danger or distress would
experience the moral conflict of whether to help or not. We can surmise that not-
involved children may be characterized by indifference in the consequences of their
behaviour, in any situation, and that it is this indifference which leads them to remain
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192 Ersilia Menesini and Marina Camodeca

outside any involving situation. In this view, not feeling guilty or ashamed could be an
antecedent of their avoidant behaviour.
Consequently, it is likely that guilt and shame in their moral connotation (i.e. in SAG
situations) function as possible causes of social behaviour. However, an alternative
explanation may be advanced to show how the lack of moral emotions can be the
consequence of antisocial or indifferent behaviour. This hypothesis has been advanced
by Leenders and Brugman (2005), who claimed that in order to perform immoral,
antisocial or indifferent behaviour and to protect their self-esteem, children need to
justify themselves and a way to do so is denying the feeling of moral emotions.
According to this view, these children risk experiencing cognitive dissonance, which
can be reduced by avoiding feelings of regret and repentance. The lack of moral
emotions in not-involved children is likely to protect them from getting involved in more
prosocial acts and, in a sense, to justify their not taking sides. However, with our
correlational data, we are not able to establish whether moral emotions are cause or
consequence of bullying and uninvolvement. We may probably assume a more circular
relation between social behaviour and socio-cognitive mediators, as hypothesized by
Bandura (1991).
Interesting results were also found for victims. They reported feeling more ashamed
than not-involved children in SO situations, which, as hypothesized, are supposed to
elicit non-moral shame. Therefore, feeling ashamed in front of an audience for a gaffe, a
defect, a failure or a loss of reputation is not linked to morality and underlines anxiety of
being exposed to social situation and desire of withdrawing and disappearing. Victims’
shame may also indicate their poor self-esteem and lack of self-efficacy in social
situations (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005). Victims may feel the focus of others on the self
to a greater extent than not-involved peers, they may not feel at ease and be afraid to be
exposed to others’ judgment (which is common for victims as they are often rejected or
teased for their behaviours or features; cf. Glover, Gough, Johnson, & Cartwright, 2000;
Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Berts, & King, 1982). Anxiety about having the focus of the
others on the self could be the discriminant feature which distinguishes not-involved
children from victims, with the latter group showing significantly higher levels of
concern about committing mistakes or gaffes and being subject, therefore, to derision
and harassment.
The study presents some limitations but also opens new directions for future
research. Although the use of peer reports to detect bullying roles has certain
advantages (Pellegrini, 2001; Perry et al., 1988), the use of teacher or self-reports may
also corroborate the outcomes. We investigated only general bullying; however, testing
more specifically physical, verbal and relational bullying and moral emotions may
enlarge our knowledge in this field. Children who bully using psychological tactics may
be more able to recognize emotions, but also may be more prone to avoiding repentance
or reparation, which may have consequences for their behaviour. Besides, investigating
other roles in bullying (e.g. the reinforcer or the assistant of the bully, cf. Salmivalli et al.,
1996) may be interesting, in order to discover whether particular groups of children
have a moral or non-moral attitude. It is also advisable that future studies enlarge the
sample and consider subtypes in the group of victims, such as passive and aggressive
victims, since different patterns of behaviours and emotions might emerge for the two
groups.
In addition, future research could also take into account other moral emotions, such
as empathy, envy or pride, in order to build a new model of moral emotions and to link
these emotions with bullying. For example, the fact that feelings of guilt can be related
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Shame, guilt and bullying 193

to empathy (Hoffman, 1998; Tangney, 1998) may explain why bullies lack both these
emotional experiences. More research is needed to investigate emotional and cognitive
mechanisms related to lower levels of guilt and shame in the case of bullies. Finally, as
already pointed out, our study simply provided relations between certain emotions and
behaviours, but we do not know about causal links. Is it the lack of shame and guilt that
leads children to bully? Or is it being a bully that leads to a lack of shame and guilt,
because bullies need a justification of their behaviour? Further research needs to be
carried out, also with longitudinal designs, to uncover such causal links.
The study, based on the contextual approach (Olthof et al., 2000), also makes a
contribution to the debate about the moral/non-moral connotations of shame and guilt
(Smith et al., 2002). The claim that morality is linked to guilt, while shame is only a result
of derision or incompetence (cf. Smith et al., 2002, and Tangney, Wagner, Hill-Barlow,
Marshall, & Gramzow, 1996), does not find confirmation in our results. Instead, we can
surmise that it is the particular situation which makes an emotion moral or non-moral.
Shame and guilt experienced in SAG situations are close to each other and can be
considered moral because they may lead to reparation and avoidance of a bad behaviour,
while shame as response to SO situations is not linked to morality and in this context is
probably close to embarrassment. The framework of the contextual approach could be
developed further to investigate how other self-conscious emotions are elicited by
different contextual situations.
It seems clear that moral emotions and behaviours are related to each other. The
regulation of moral emotions can be a promising and challenging direction for anti-
bullying intervention programmes for bullies, victims and bystanders. Interventions
could be developed to help children to interact in a more prosocial and non-
aggressive way. Interventions directed to not-involved children could be particularly
useful, as these children do not seem to present the same behavioural problems of
bullies and victims, but on the other hand do not reach the same feeling of
responsibility and level of emotional involvement which characterize prosocial
children. Helping them to develop a higher moral attitude could be extremely useful
not only for themselves, but also for their classmates, as bystanders could be
potential prosocial children.

Acknowledgements
The second author was partially supported by a post-doctoral scholarship by the Van Coeverden
Adriani Institution, Blokzijl, The Netherlands. We thank Tjeert Olthof for the shame and guilt
model on which we worked, and for providing us with his useful manuscripts. We are grateful to
Aristide Saggino for his statistical advice, to Beth Fairfield for checking the English, and to
anonymous referees for their useful suggestions. Finally, we are indebted to Glenda Santi, Elisa
Dalla Noce, Monica Chianucci and Francesca Chiarini for their help in adapting the measures for
the Italian children and in collecting data, and to children, teachers and schools taking part in the
study.

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Received 6 May 2006; revised version received 1 April 2007