Short communicationProne to feel guilty: Self-evaluative emotions in alcohol-dependence

•Alcohol-dependent individuals (ADI) have interpersonal deficits.•However, it is unclear whether ADI report greater guilt and shame proneness.•ADI reported greater proneness to experience guilt.•ADI and healthy individuals reported the same proneness to experience shame.•ADI have a negative evaluation of their behaviors that transgress social norms.

BackgroundPrior research has repeatedly shown that alcohol-dependence is associated with interpersonal difficulties. However, guilt and shame, two crucial self-evaluative emotions triggered by the transgression of social norms, have not been explored among alcohol-dependent individuals despite their important role in psychiatric disorders. The present study thus aimed to investigate whether alcohol-dependence is associated with greater proneness to negatively evaluate one's own behaviors (guilt) or the entire self (shame).Methods25 alcohol-dependent individuals (ADI) and 25 matched healthy individuals completed a scenario-based inventory (TOSCA-3), requiring from participants to rate the extent they will react to each scenario in terms of (contextualized) guilt and shame. Participants also completed a list of adjectives related to the frequency at which they generally experience (uncontextualized) guilt and shame (PFQ-2).ResultsWhen controlling for possible confounds (i.e., depression and anxiety), ADI reported greater proneness to experience guilt at the TOSCA-3 (η2 = .22) compared to healthy individuals.ConclusionsThis study is the first to show that alcohol-dependence is associated with greater contextualized guilt-proneness, i.e., negative evaluation of one's own behaviors that transgress social norms. Therefore, these results reinforce the relevance of social disorders in alcohol-dependence and indicate that ADI may benefit of therapeutic programs to avoid a generalization of guilt towards shame.