Browsing by Subject "syyllisyys"

The aim of this master’s thesis was to investigate the effect of audience on shame and guilt in Finland and Colombia. Finland is a rapidly developing country where multiculturalism is already part of everyday life. Therefore, it is very important to gather evidence on how people in different cultures understand and interpret emotions. More specifically, it will be investigated how possible cultural variations can be explained with individual, situational and cultural differences. My thesis is a by-product of a larger cross-cultural investigation into how different cultures perceive emotions and what kind of dissimilarities people have when experiencing emotions. This is conducted by postdoctoral researcher Mia Silfver-Kuhalampi from University of Helsinki and Professor Johnny Fontaine from Ghent University, Belgium. The questionnaire used in this thesis is based on the componential emotion theory. This cognitive model of emotions takes into account the concurrent relationship between many cognitive and physiological components. The participants in both countries filled in the questionnaire online. The Finnish sample consisted of 149 students from University of Helsinki from which 120 participants were female and 29 male. The Colombian sample consisted of 137 students from Universidad el Bosque, Bogota, Colombia from which 101 participants were female and 36 male. Factor analysis was used to identify how shame and guilt are factored in Finland and Colombia. Additionally, analysis of variance was used to identify how cultural differences and the effect of audience affect feelings of shame and guilt. The results of the study suggested that feelings of guilt and shame are factored in a similar manner in Finland and Colombia. Moreover, in both countries shame was split into two different types of shame: shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment. The Finnish sample experienced more shame/self-disgust than Colombian sample, while Colombian students experienced more shame/embarrassment than Finnish students did. Culture did not have an effect on guilt. Audience presence affected shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment in both countries. When it came to guilt the situation was not as clear. When there was no audience present, feeling of guilt was similar in both countries. However, when audience was present Colombian sample experienced significantly more guilt. Some of the results support results from previous research but significant is the fact that two different types of shame were found: shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment. This could partly explain why researchers have previously had difficulties in distinguishing shame and guilt.