The role of language and cultural orientation in guilt and shame experienced by bilingual female speakers

Abstract

In the present experiment, we asked two interrelated questions: (a) whether the dominant cultural orientation of bilingual female speakers (collectivism versus individualism), as promoted by the language currently in use (Arabic versus English), would lead respondents to treat guilt and shame as distinct or largely similar emotions; and (b) whether the affective profiles of guilt and shame would replicate or diverge from those attributed by the existing literature to members of individualistic cultures whose primary language is English. In the experiment, bilingual female speakers (n = 182) completed a measure of cultural self-orientation, recalled an experience of either guilt or shame, and then rated the emotion recalled on descriptive scales. They accomplished these tasks by relying on either English or Arabic. Although the two emotions were narrowly differentiated, shame was found to be more dominant than guilt. Shame also yielded a greater focus on oneself. Contrary to the expectation of higher emotionality for the first language (Arabic), language differences mostly underlined differences in participants' focus of attention, either others or oneself. These findings are compared with those reported in the cross-cultural literature, and implications are discussed.