The role of shame in the relationships among childhood maltreatment, fears of evaluation, and associated submissive behaviors

Risk for excessive fears of evaluation in adulthood may increase with severity of exposure across five sub-domains of childhood maltreatment. Childhood exposure to childhood maltreatment may increase risk for behaviors associated with fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and fear of positive evaluation (FPE), such as submissive behavior displays (e.g., eye gaze avoidance). Additionally, previous literature (while limited) suggests that negative affect, especially shame, may play an influential role in the relationship between overall childhood maltreatment history severity and fears of evaluation in adulthood. Shame has the potential to increase FNE and FPE along with associated behaviors (i.e., gaze avoidance). The goal of this study was to further establish the relationships among retrospective reports of childhood maltreatment severity, trait fears of evaluation in adulthood, trait shame and state shame following negative or positive evaluative feedback in an audio-visual computerized paradigm, and associated submissive behavior (i.e., eye gaze avoidance).

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Woods, Savannah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Howell, Ashley N.
• Black, Kristen Jennings, 1991-; Shelton, Jill T.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Fear
• Child abuse--Psychological aspects
• Shame

Licence

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/832

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-2005