Why Do High Achievers Feel Shame and How Do They Recover?

• In Event: Experiencing Shame While Becoming Professionals

Abstract

Often teachers/students believe low-achieving students experience shame. However, highly successful students can, and do, experience shame. When a student pursues difficult academic and professional goals, they begin the journey with at least a modicum of prior success; however, they may harbor doubts. To determine if they are making progress towards their difficult goal they must obtain external feedback; e.g., research has shown that engineering students rely on feedback to provide them with information that they are developing competence (Godwin, 2014). If students interpret negative feedback as failures, they are vulnerable to experiencing shame. My presentation focuses on (1) predictors of high-achievers’ state-shame experiences, and (2) predictors of their shame-resilience.

Most relevant to professional studies, shame-theorists propose that experiencing state-shame occurs when a person perceives they have failed to meet important standards that are relevant to their standards and identity (e.g., Lewis, 2019; Lazarus, 2001; Tracy & Robbins, 2007). In this sense, individuals may experience shame when they perceive a discrepancy between their identity/ideals and their current state (Higgins, 1987; Turner & Husman, 2009). Importantly, the failure/discrepancy is attributed to the self, and not to others (e.g., Lewis, 2019; Weiner, 1985), and is experienced as a devasting personal flaw.

Across several studies (Authors-2, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2014), participants were upper-division psychology students taking a difficult psychopharmacology course. Most students had future goals of pursuing graduate degrees (i.e., clinical psychology, medicine). I collected baseline characteristics during the first week of class, emotion-related data when they received test feedback, and conducted interviews at the end of the semester. I particularly followed students who indicated they experienced shame after their first exam.
Consistent with theory, results demonstrated that high-achievers experience shame when they have high interest in the topic (p < .001), focus on obtaining high grades (p < .001), and believe they control their learning (p < .001). However, they also demonstrated higher test-anxiety, especially the “worry” component (p < .001) and somewhat lower self-efficacy (p < .05) than students who did not experience shame. Most importantly, students’ perceived they failed, even if the “outcome” was not an objective failure (e.g., an exam score of 92%, p < .001). They also indicated their targeted grade was important to them (p < .001), they put forth great effort in studying (p < .001), and their shame were uniquely related to feeling shock (p < .001) and not surprise.

Although shame feels devasting, students are able to recover if they have certainty of their abilities (p < .05) and are focused on getting high grades (p < .05). Interviews revealed that resilient students had clear future goals that energized their motivation and help them focus on multiple ways to study, particularly ways that helped them make connections with the material. Initial surveys revealed that resilient students believed the class information was important for their future career success (p < .05), and most importantly, their class grade was important for future academic success (p < .001).

Author

• Jeannine E. Turner, Florida State University