A Social Psychological Study on Shame Consciousness related to Behavioral Restraints.

2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 15530406
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Social psychology
• Research Institution: Toyo University
• Principal Investigator: NAKASATO Yoshimasa Toyo University, Department of Social Psychology, Professor, 社会学部, 教授 (30058036)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): MATSUI Hiroshi Kawamura Gakuenn University, Department of Psychology, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (00095465) ; NAKAMURA Shin Kawamura Gakuenn University, Department of Psychology, Associate Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (70281318)
• Project Period (FY): 2003 – 2004
• Keywords: Shame consciousness / Behavioral restraints / Junior high and high students / Parents-child relationship / International comparison

Research Abstract

There are mainly three purposes of this study. The first purpose is to verify the psychological structure of shame consciousness by factor analysis using the samples of junior high and high school students in Japan. The second purpose is to know the relations between shame consciousness and other factors such as value system, attitudes toward delinquency, morality, parent-child relationship and so on. If there are some significant relations between them, we will be able to clarify behavioral restrained power of shame consciousness. The third purpose is to know characteristics of shame consciousness of Japanese youths in comparison with Turkish youths. To know the differences between them is to contribute to find meaningful advice to Japanese society.
The results are summarized as follows.
1.There are three factors of shame consciousness of Japanese youths. These are autonomous shame (in relation to self), strong heteronomous shame (in relation to friends) and relatively weak heteronomous (in relation to fashion).
2.The youths who showed strong shame consciousness to all factors are to have desirable value system and to have a good relationship to their parents and not to have delinquent attitudes. So we concluded that shame consciousness restrain youths' undesirable behavior.
3.As compared with Turkish youths, the strength of shame consciousness of Japanese youths is rather weak and badly different. We are thinking that the reason of the results has strong relation to parent-child relationship. Generally speaking, parent-child relationship of Japanese youths is worse than Turkish youths so that Japanese youths have less chance to learn "shame" from their parents.
From the results of this study, we concluded that we Japanese should pay more attention to the necessity of the education concerning "shame" not only to youths but also to children.