The Role of Genes and Temperament in Shame-Proneness

The present study did not focus on the temperamental effects of the nature, development and consequences of shame-proneness. However, the findings indicated that child, parent and environmental factors and other shared and non-shared environmental aspects could not explain the differences in the nature and development of shame-proneness among the participants. The present study shows that individuals can have siblings whose shame-proneness, attachment styles, self-esteem etc. are quite different. Some individuals who have low self-esteem, internalized shame and different kinds of psychological difficulties and disorders have, for example, a sibling who seems to have high (or fragile) self-esteem, and who does not seem to suffer from the negative effects of shame or who do not seem to need treatment for their psychological problems or disorders. There seemed to be a great

729 Harper & Hoopes 1990, 45-46.

730 Wells, Hill, Brack, Brack & Firestone 2006, 78-80.

731 Whitfield 1987, 43.

732 Whitfield 1991, 66-67.

733 Mellody, Miller & Miller 1989, 31, 94, 99-101, 107-111.

734 Bradshaw 1988, 14.

735 Wells, Hill, Brack, Brack & Firestone 2006, 78-80.

736 Wells, Glickauf-Hughes & Jones 1999, 66-68.

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difference among the siblings’ internalizations of shame and in their methods of coping with shame. The findings of the present study showed that a child’s temperament could influence, for example, how much belittling, humiliation, abuse, or corporal punishment he or she can stand for and what kinds of coping mechanisms and defenses he or she utilizes. If someone is competent and believes that he or she has some good qualities even though caregivers and other significant ones keep sending opposite or conflicting messages and if someone has high self-esteem, even it is fragile, he or she might be able to maintain positive feelings about him- or herself and avoid the internalization of shame. An individual who is able to avoid the internalization of shame might have fragile or unstable self-esteem and he or she might develop externalized shame, narcissism, and perfectionism to defend against the internalization of feelings of inferiority. Someone else with different genetic makeup may not believe in him- or herself and have low self-esteem because they might not feel competent or might be preoccupied or anxious in close relationships. When he or she faces parents’ and significant ones’ ignoring, neglecting and engaging in abusive behaviors, he or she cannot so easily defend him or herself against feelings of inferiority and could instead slowly internalize shame. He or she might also develop low self-esteem and the traits of covert narcissism.

For some of the participants heritability had an important impact on the development of such personality traits as self-esteem,⁷³⁷ insecure attachment,⁷³⁸ narcissism,⁷³⁹ and perfectionism.⁷⁴⁰ On the other hand, previous research has shown that self-esteem, insecure attachment, narcissism, and perfectionism are correlated with shame. There is very little evidence that there is a relationship between heritability and shame-proneness. On the other hand, there is strong evidence the heritability of shyness⁷⁴¹ is due to feelings and fear of shame.⁷⁴² Based on observational and maternal report data for twins, Zahn-Waxler and Robinson found high levels of heritability and low levels of environmental influence for shame. The heritability estimates were .89, .81, and .44, at ages 14, 20, and 24 months, respectively. In contrast, they found much lower genetic influence on guilt at 14 months and the evidence for genetic influence disappeared at 20 and 24 months. The heritability estimates for guilt were .40, −.22, and .03, respectively. For shame, the influence of shared environment disappeared with age.

For guilt it was the opposite; the influence of shared environment became stronger with age, which supports the conclusion that there is an increasing role of socialization for that emotion.⁷⁴³ Behavioral-genetics research indicates that for the siblings growing up in the same family it is shared genetics, not shared experiences that make them resemble one another.⁷⁴⁴ Based on the research of heritability it could be suggested that genes have a great impact on the development of shame-proneness.

737 Raevuori, Dick, Keski-Rahkonen, Pulkkinen, Rose, Rissanen, Karpio, Viken & Silventoinen 2007, 1628-1630; Neiss, Sedikides & Stevenson 2006, 255-257; Neiss & Sedikides & Stevenson 2002, 361.

738 Jang, Livesley & Vernon 1998, 338-341.

739 Livesley, Jang, Jackson & Vernon 1993, 1828-1829; Vernon, Villani, Vickers & Harris 2008, 448-450.

740 Tozzi, Aggen, Neale, Anderson, Mazzeo, Neale & Bulik 2004, 487-490.

741 Saudino, McGuire, Reiss, Hetherington & Plomin 1995, 724-731; Ganiban, Saudino, Ulbricht, Neiderhiser

& Reiss 2008, 228-232.

742 Zimbardo 1977, 277.

743 Zahn-Waxler & Robinson 1995, 156-158.

744 Plomin, Asbury & Dunn 2001, 225.

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Individuals can play a significant role in shaping their social life and social environment.

Their temperament, emotion and cognition affect their behavior and decisions that they have to make all the time and these behaviors and decisions might affect the responses of the people with whom they interact. In addition, their heritability might influence what kinds of coping and defensive mechanisms they are able and willing to use, and their competence and resilience might affect their ability to handle life challenges. This all shapes the social environment around them. Although many researchers and theorists emphasize parents’ and other significant ones’ roles in the development of the lives of children and adolescents, research also shows that children and adolescents shape their interactions with others, and more broadly shape their own environment.⁷⁴⁵ Pike and Plomin stated that “the parental contribution to parent-child relationships is substantially child-driven in the sense that parental behaviour reflects genetic differences among children.”⁷⁴⁶ Werner and Smith found that those infant temperamental traits that appear distressing and non-rewarding to the parents may contribute to initial difficulties with attachment and bonding.⁷⁴⁷ Active and social babies who do not have distressing sleeping and feeding habits tend to elicit more positive responses from their mothers.⁷⁴⁸ After Fonagy’s review of attachment literature he argued that “the observed associations between parenting sensitivity and attachment classification may be driven by the behavior of the child and accounted for by the child’s genetic predispositions (the so-called child to parent effects).” According to him, non-shared environmental effects could be better understood as genetic in origin so that genetically influenced aspects of children’s behavior may provoke special responses in parents and in other people. He referred to the term “evocative covariance,” which means that “children with different genetic dispositions elicit complementary responses from the caregiver.”⁷⁴⁹ A review of Collins et al.'s study showed that the relationship between parents’ behavior and the affective experiences of their children and adolescents is not simple but it is more a reflection of the interactions between the parent’s personality and the child’s temperament. They state that

“even though parental behavior is influenced by child behavior, parents’ actions contribute distinctively to the child’s later behavior.”⁷⁵⁰

In the present study an extraverted⁷⁵¹ child who was open to new experiences and who approached other people with openness had more positive and self-esteem strengthening experiences than an introverted and shy child who tried to avoid contacts with others.⁷⁵² A shy child will easily be overlooked and stay in the shadow of more social and extravert siblings or peers. However, it should be kept in mind that compared to a shy and introverted child an open-minded and extraverted child gets more frequently involved in social situations

745 Kuczynski & Kochanska 1995, 621-624; Deater-Deckard, Fulker & Plomin 1999, 771-772; Ryan 2005, 991-992.

746 Pike & Plomin 1997, 655.

747 Werner & Smith 1982, 32-33.

748 Werner & Smith 1992, 200.

749 Fonagy 2003, 216, 217.

750 Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington & Bornstein 2000, 222.

751 In the research and literature there are two spellings of this personality type, extravert and extrovert. You might want to introduce this footnote earlier as you have used “extravert” several times before this.

752 Not all of the participants in this study were classified either as extraverts or introverts but they were some in between the two. Kaufman (1996, 94) notes that “mixtures are certainly the rule, and temperament always remains open to considerable modification by learning and the environment.”

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that are possibly shame inducing. Rejection and emotional hurt induces shame that needs to be dealt with or it must be denied or repressed and the result might be externalized shame and more defensive and inauthentic behaviors. A good example of an extraverted child in the present study was Maria who had a very tough childhood but was able to make contacts with others and have positive experiences which helped her avoid the internalization of shame.

According to Pike et al., a child’s genetic propensities to be sociable and easy-going may help him or her to be more popular than a child with a shy and introverted genetic tendency.

A social and easy-going child is more likely to evoke positive and friendly behavior from others.⁷⁵³ Henderson and Zimbardo suggested that “fearful and/or shy adolescents may be at significant risk for the development of shame-based self-concepts, and thus for the belief in personal inadequacy.”⁷⁵⁴ The study of Kochanska suggested that fearful and anxious children are socialized more easily because they respond to lower levels of punishment (less power-oriented socialization).⁷⁵⁵ Thus, it is possible that fearful and anxious children more readily respond with shame to power-oriented socialization due to their temperament. The findings of the present study concerning the effects of temperament on the development of shame-proneness are consistent with the study of Abe and the shame theory of Kaufman. Abe investigated the relations of the intrapersonal and interpersonal correlates of shame- and guilt-proneness and self- and peer-ratings of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality. The results of the self-ratings revealed that shame-proneness correlated negatively with extraversion.⁷⁵⁶ According to Kaufman, an introvert who is comfortable with his or her inwardness naturally withdraws “deeper inside in response to shame.” For an extravert, who is focused outwardly and who verbalizes their inner experience to others, shame is manifested in an externally visible mood.⁷⁵⁷

The data of the present study indicates that many shame-prone individuals have shy temperamental characteristics and are easily embarrassed. This could be another indication of the effects of genes on the development of shame-proneness. Individuals who are shy have difficulties in their social lives because they lack the self-confidence and social skills that could help them have positive and self-confidence strengthening experiences. On the other hand, easily embarrassed individuals are sensitive to the appropriateness of their social behavior. The research shows that heritability has an important impact on the development of the personality trait of shyness.⁷⁵⁸ On the other hand, shyness is found to be correlated with shame.⁷⁵⁹ Miller found that shyness and the tendency to be embarrassed are positively related to fear of negative evaluation and concern about disapproval and rejection from others. The results showed also that shyness predicts low self-confidence in social situations and low social skills and the tendency to be embarrassed predicts socially sensitivity.⁷⁶⁰

753 Pike, Manke, Reiss & Plomin 2000, 111.

754 Henderson & Zimbardo 1998. See also http://www.shyness.com/encyclopedia.html

755 Kochanska 1993, 330-332.

756 Abe 2004, 91-96.

757 Kaufman 1996, 94.

758 Eley, Bolton, O’Connor, Perrin, Smith & Plomin 2003, 949-954.

759 Harder, Rockart & Cutler 1993, 346-347.

760 Miller 1995b, 326-331.

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Another personality trait that seems to at least indirectly affect the development of shame-proneness is negative emotionality and a difficult temperament⁷⁶¹. A child who cries often and whose soothing demands a lot of energy does not call forth positive emotions in caregivers’ but rather provokes them to feel irritated and possibly engage in neglectful behavior. It seems as if parents do easily recall incidents when their child was difficult to soothe and required extra care. Reminding their child or youth about his or her difficult temperament as a baby gives the message that he or she has been a burden to his or her parents. The results of a study by Lemery and Goldsmith indicated that there is a high correlation between difficult temperament and heritability. In addition, their study showed that a child’s difficult temperament is negatively associated with their sibling cooperation and positively associated with sibling conflicts.⁷⁶² Ryan suggested that “children who are irritable or difficult to sooth may impact caretakers’ stress level and or mood, which, especially when the adult shares some of the child’s vulnerabilities, may make them less nurturing and more likely to act in controlling rather than autonomy supportive ways.”⁷⁶³ This shows that heritability also affects parenting. Based on her study, Feldman stated that “in trying to engage infants with low self-regulation, inconsistent attention, limited social engagement, and unclear communicative signals, parents often resort to intrusive tactics.” She added that

“the direct influence of infant negative emotionality on family rigidity, above and beyond its impact on dyadic intrusiveness, underscores the persistent effects of infant dysregulation on any relational context.”⁷⁶⁴ In addition to affects of an individual’s temperament to received parenting, aspects of temperament, such as reactivity and self-regulation, are linked also to individuals' coping and their differences in physiological and emotional responses to stress.⁷⁶⁵ An individual with high reactivity and low self-regulation may have fewer possibilities for adaptive coping in potential shame inducing situations. Another indication of the possible connection between difficult temperament and shame development is in research that connects difficult temperament to embarrassment. This literature indicates that infants who show self-recognition and who have difficult temperaments are more likely to exhibit embarrassment than infants who show self-recognition but who have easygoing temperaments.⁷⁶⁶

Although the effects of genes and temperament are far too long-term and complicated to predict the outcome of an individual’s shame experiences and the development of shame-proneness the findings of the present study suggest that genetic factors could play a significant role, first of all, affecting the development of an individual’s shame-proneness and personality, secondly, influencing the parent-child relationship, and thirdly, affecting the social environment that each one creates around him or herself. Although speculative, it could be suggested that heritability and temperament serve as a diathesis in the developmental process of shame-proneness. An individual who has specific genes and who lives in a specific environment may have not a choice but to develop shame-proneness. This

761 According to Schore (2003, 31), “an infant with difficult temperament as manifesting poor adaptability to environmental changes, negative mood when challenged, and extreme intensity of these reactions over time and different situations.”

762 Lemery, & Goldsmith 2001, 86-92.

763 Ryan 2005, 992.

764 Feldman 2007, 301-307.

765 Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen & Wadsworth 2001, 90.

766 DiBiase & Lewis 1997, 266-267.

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suggestion is in line with the research that shows how children are already differentially prone to emotions like shame and guilt during toddlerhood.⁷⁶⁷ Potter-Efron and Potter-Efron stated that “children are born with different capacities toward shame, with some infants probably much more sensitive than others to those feelings.”⁷⁶⁸ In an extensive review of the literature, Mills went even further when she suggested that “temperament plays a role by influencing the psychological processes that contribute to a child’s reactivity to shame induction, and may itself be shaped by shame experiences.” She believed that temperament together with shame-promoting experiences results in proneness to shame and affects the magnitude of one's response to these experiences.⁷⁶⁹ However, considering the roles of heritability in the development of shame-proneness it is important to keep in mind Pike and Plomin’s assertion that genetic analyses “describe 'what is' rather than predict 'what could be'.”⁷⁷⁰ The findings of the present study together with these research findings highlight the importance of temperament and heritage in shame-proneness. Although childhood and adolescent experiences play an important role in shame-proneness there is strong support for the view that genes can either protect individuals from or lay the foundation for shame-proneness. Future research of genes and shame-proneness will definitely add to the literature concerning this important question.