The present study aimed to expand on previous research that explains when affect can influence subsequent judgments in an incongruent way. It also investigated a context where a negative emotion may have been maintained in order to achieve a subsequent goal. Participants in a guilt, shame, and control condition visualized past events. Those in the guilt and shame condition wrote about a time when they committed a moral transgression and were instructed to write an apology letter to a person they hurt. They then rated themselves on a number of interpersonal traits as a way to measure self-enhancement. I hypothesized that those in the guilt condition would self-enhance on interpersonal traits as a result of feeling guilt, which is a repair-focused emotion that has been shown to benefit interpersonal relationships. I also hypothesized that participants in the guilt condition would express a desire to maintain their feelings of guilt as a strategy to help them write an apology letter. The present findings do not support my hypotheses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-4415 |
| Date | 30 April 2014 |
| Creators | Moloney, Jaclyn |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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