American and Japanese university students’ shame (haji)-related reactions across a number of diverse situations, and the personality correlates of these reactions, were studied. With age, shame ratings decreased significantly in situations describing defects in the “private selffiamong American students, and haji ratings decreased significantly in situations in which the “public selffiwas ridiculed or discomforted among Japanese students. Also with age, individual differences in personality, particularly internal self-introspection, played an increasingly important role in predicting shame reactions among American students, whereas among Japanese students, individual personality differences became increasingly unimportant in determining haji-related phenomena. Finally, American students showed an increasing, and Japanese students a decreasing, integration of internal- and external-oriented elements of personality with development. Results are discussed in terms of theories of emotional development and cultural differences in self-concept.
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