From Shame to Recovery: Understanding the Comprehensive Process of Experiencing Shame and Its Recovery

• In Event: The Role of Emotions in Learning

Abstract

This study examined Korean PhD-students’ shame-experiences in relation to their cultural self-construals and their recovery from shame-episodes. The participants were eight Korean PhD-students currently attending a US university. We conducted surveys and interviews to determine the comprehensive process of shame-experiences and recovery. Then, we created a theoretical model by using a grounded-theory-approach. The main reasons for participants experiencing shame were due to perceiving different types of self-discrepancies, influenced by students’ cultural self-construals. We also found factors that amplified self-discrepancies and experiencing shame. After experiencing shame, students encountered emotional, behavioral, and physiological consequences. Students’ resilience-factors (motivation and personality-traits), however, helped them use different types of strategies (volitional and emotional coping-strategies) and learn lessons from their shame-experiences.

Authors

• Juhee Kim, Florida State University
  Presenting Author

• Jeannine E. Turner, Florida State University
  Non-Presenting Author