Although the literature surrounding children’s experiences and acts of shaming are based in the same theories, shame is measured in various ways: Helwig et al. (2013) created a coding system in both Chinese and English with bilingual researches to provide a balanced analysis of recorded interviews; Bidjerano et al. (2010) administered a series of questionnaires concerning emotional reactions and parental evaluative feedback, then calculated Cronbach’s alpha to analyze results; Sznycer et al. (2016) had participants rate the shamefulness of scenarios on a simple scale and then plotted the responses on a scatter graph. Regardless of the methods used, we begin to see an emerging pattern in the analysis that compares shame in collectivist and individualistic cultures.
Expectations:
Children in collectivist and individualistic cultures do not value or experience shame in the same way (Sznycer et al. 2016).
Not all actions or experiences are considered shameful in various countries due to their cultural differences (Sznycer et al. 2016).
Based on the expected inherent differences in ethnotheories, children in collectivist cultures should become more accepting of shaming practices as they grow older (Helwig et al. 2013).
Observations:
Individuals across collectivist and individualistic cultures agreed about the anticipated shame of a hypothetical experience, as well as how society is expected to react to the experience. The consistency across studies shows that the use of shame, although there may be discrepancies, has the same function in individualistic and collectivist cultures (Helwig et al. 2013; Sznycer et al. 2016).
Increased frequency of parental shaming does not translate into a positive view of parental shaming (Helwig et al. 2013).
Children’s awareness of parental shaming consistently leads to a criticism of their parents and an understanding that shame as a parenting tool causes negative psychological effects on children (Helwig et al. 2013).
The level of parental acceptance or rejection transcends how the individualistic or collectivist cultures value shame; a parent’s acceptance of the child’s actions will mitigate the feeling of socializing emotions, whereas a parent’s rejection of the child’s actions will exacerbate the socializing emotions (Bidjerano et al. 2010; Helwig et al. 2013).
Conclusion:
Regardless of culture, children view shaming as a negative parenting technique with negative psychological effects.