Shame and Guilt and its Relation to Direct and Indirect Experience of Trauma in Adolescence,a Brief Report

Exposure to different kinds of traumatic events is common among adolescents. This brief report study examined whether shame proneness and guilt proneness were associated with direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic events (PTEs). We investigated the relationship between gender, PTEs, shame, and guilt among adolescents (n?=?314, age?=?15–20 years). We hypothesized that shame proneness and guilt proneness would be associated with direct experience of interpersonal and sexual PTEs, that both direct and indirect experience of potentially traumatic sexual event/s would correlate with female gender, and that potentially traumatic direct and indirect interpersonal event/s would correlate with male gender. Shame was positively associated with having experienced direct sexual trauma and with female gender. Girls had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct sexual events and boys had more often experienced potentially traumatic direct interpersonal events. Indirect experiences of traumatic events were not related to either gender or shame. We conclude that the relation between shame, PTEs, and gender is complex with both types of traumas and gender interact with shame. This study found that shame and direct experience of sexual traumatic events were associated among adolescent girls. Gender and what type of traumatic events adolescents’ direct experience is most likely related but not gender and what type of indirect experienced trauma.

     

Latin America in a time of global financial turmoil∗

Following the financial turmoil in Asia and Russia, Latin America has suffered dramatic setbacks, including major economic slowdown, threats to democratization, and worsening social conditions. For the medium term, neither prosperity nor political stability are assured, says Abraham F. Lowenthal, founding president of the Pacific Council on International Policy at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Lowenthal identifies three positive shifts that have occurred in the region over the past few years: a convergence among economic policymakers on the main tenets of sound policy; an even more widespread embrace of constitutional democracy as an ideal; and a growing disposition on the part of Latin American nations toward pragmatic cooperation with each other and with the industrialized countries, including the United States.