NCJ Number
70251
Journal
Interamerican Journal of Psychology Volume: 12 Dated: (1978) Pages: 131-136
Date Published
1978
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This study aimed to determine the utility of a shame-guilt formulation for understanding delinquency among lower-class and middle-class Mexican adolescents.
Abstract
Hypotheses tested were that shame (relative to guilt) reactions will be more frequent among Mexican delinquents than among roughly matched nondelinquent controls and that shame (relative to guilt) reactions will be most frequent in urban-migrant youth and least frequent in urban middle-class youth. The shame level of urban lower-class subjects will fall in between. Subjects were 135 male adolescents from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon Mexico; age varied from 14 to 18 years. The youths came from urban-migrant, urban-lower, and urban-middle levels and were arrested but released, arrested and awaiting further processing, or nondelinquent. They responded to a 12-item shame-guilt inventory and to an open-ended question concerning how their own deviant behavior could most effectively be curtailed. Failure to find that guilt sanctions are less salient among delinquents than nondelinquents is incompatible with several U.S. study results and may result because personality factors in general may contribute to a small proportion of the variance in adolescent deviance or because shame and guilt provide control over deviance in Mexican youth. If the cumulative weight of the two kinds of moral sanctions rather than their differential salience is operative, then the measure would require revision to accommodate this possibility. Another finding suggests that delinquents forwarded for further processing may have been more serious offenders. If this is true than the group had a greater proportion of individuals with weakened internal consciences. The finding of a more internalized cognitive orientation among middle-class than among lower-class individuals is consonant with data from other cultures. However, the low degree of adherence to shame sanctions was unexpected. It may have involved pressure to please middle-class interviewers perceived as representatives of legal authorities. However, the inclination of Western investigators to regard Mexico as promulgating 'shame-morality' may be an inaccurate stereotype. Footnotes and 12 references are provided.