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Association Between Shame Aversion And Ruminative Retribution: Evidence For Moderation By Externalization Of Blame And Control, Michelle Schoenleber, Emily Beltran, Jessica R. Peters, Michael D D. Anestis

Faculty Creative and Scholarly Works

Shame aversion has been theorized to motivate aggression against the self or others as means of down-regulating shame. Additionally, the direction of aggression may depend on tendencies to attribute blame or causes internally or externally. Data from two separate samples were used to examine shame aversion and its interaction with causal or blame attributions in relation to aggression, controlling for shame-proneness, which is more commonly studied. Results indicated that shame aversion was positively associated with verbal, relational, and passive-rational aggression, as well as with ruminative retribution and non-suicidal self-injury, after accounting for shame-proneness. Most noteworthy, a significant two-way interaction indicated …