Yashvi Bansal, Dhvani Malhotra and Meetu Khosla
Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi
The present study aimed to understand how values are integrated within the self, and
how values and self-conscious emotions affect the emotional well-being of an individual.
This study reveals how young people incorporate changes into their existing value
system and undergo various kinds of self-conscious emotions such as shame and guilt
that influence their Emotional Well-being (EWB). Quantitative data was collected from
145 participants- 125 females and 20 males, between the ages of 18 to 25 years and of
Indian nationality, using an online questionnaire containing three scales. The scales used
included Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, PANAS (Watson, Clark, and Tellegen,
1988); Test of Self Conscious Affect, TOSCA (Tangney, Wagner and Gramzow, 1989);
and Portrait Values Questionnaire, PVQ (Schwartz et al., 2001). Through analysis of the
data, correlations between Schwartz’s values, Self Conscious Emotions (Shame and
Guilt) and Emotional Well-being (Positive Affect and Negative Affect) were calculated.
Results showed that self-focused values are not positively related to EWB and social
values are negatively related to EWB. It was found that people with guilt and shame
had poorer Emotional Well-being. Guilt-proneness proved to have a positive correlation
with self-focused values while Shame-proneness did not have negative correlations
with social-focused values. It is implicated to develop intervention to enhance EWB by
enhancing values that will help to reduce the feelings of shame and guilt.