British English versus Polish "shame" and "guilt": an individualistic-collectivistic perspective

• Authors: Wilson Paul A.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

On the basis of the relatively more individualistic British culture versus the relatively more collectivistic Polish culture (Hofstede 1980), the conceptualisations of British English shame and guilt were compared with those of their respective Polish counterparts wstyd and wina to determine whether the former showed a pattern that conformed to what is normally found in individualistic cultures and the latter to collectivistic cultures. The results from the GRID instrument (Scherer 2005) were consistent with these expectations despite the reservations that were raised concerning conceptual and methodological criticisms of individualism and collectivism, and whether Polish culture had been particularly exposed to external influences in recent years following the fall of communism that might have increased its individualism. There was a trend showing that norm transgression was conceptualised by the British participants more as guilt and by the Polish participants more as shame. Other findings showed that shame had a higher outward action and focus than wstyd and that there was a greater distinction between wstyd and wina than between shame and guilt in terms of outward action versus withdrawal. Pearson correlation performed on the complete profile of 144 GRID features supported the relatively greater similarity of shame and guilt. These results are consistent with the relatively greater salience of guilt in British culture and of shame in Polish culture.

Keywords

EN

shame; guilt; individualism; collectivism; British English; Polish; cross-cultural; cross-linguistic; GRID

• Publisher: Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Płocku
• Journal: Społeczeństwo. Edukacja. Język
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 111-122

Contributors

author

Wilson Paul A.

• Uniwersytet Łódzki