Abstract: The main objective was to comparethe emotion of shame under Chinese culture and American culture, based on the self theory of Markus and Kitayama. There were 69 Chinese collage students and 65 American collage students involved in this study. Each subject was asked to recall one shameful event he or she experienced. Then based on the theoretical hypothesis and characters of these shameful autobiographical memories, a coding scheme was developed. All autobiographical memories were coded according to the scheme. The main results are as follows: 1) the shameful autobiographical memories of Chinese subjects were more specific than those of the American subjects’; 2) compared with those of the American subjects, Chinese subjects’autobiographical memories contained more interpersonal contents; and 3) compared with the American subjects, Chinese subjects reported more shameful autobiographical memories happened in the period of childhood and adolescence, in the places of school and with teachers’comments on the events.

Key words: shame, autobiographical memory, cultural comparison, self

摘要： 基于Markus和Kitayama的自我文化理论, 考察羞耻情绪在中美两国文化下的差异。69名中国大学生和65名美国大学生作为被试, 每个被试被要求回忆一个自己亲身经历的羞耻性事件。之后根据羞耻自传体记忆的特点及理论假设, 制定了编码规则。根据编码规则, 对每个记忆进行编码统计。研究结果显示: 1) 中国被试羞耻性自传体记忆的具体程度高于美国被试; 2)中国被试的羞耻记忆出现更多人际关系的内容; 3)中国被试更多报告羞耻事件发生在童年和青春期, 更多涉及学校和老师的评价。

关键词: 羞耻, 自传体记忆, 文化比较, 自我