ABSTRACT
The interesting study that compared German and Cameroonian styles of regulating babies emotions made it clear that attachment is culturally determined: that which would be labelled as insecurely attached in Germany is an adequate, secure attachment pattern in Cameroon. The same applies to the self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt: children in the United States give these emotions a different meaning than do Nepalese children. In the important cross-cultural psychological study into guilt proneness and shame-proneness Fontaine explored four different theories about shame and guilt in three cultures. In order to capture any culture-specific aspects, some questionnaires contained culture-specific questions, but this did not provide any added value. Shame primarily appears to be the emotional reaction to an expected event, while guilt shows up in emotional reactions which require relatively complex cognitive processing. The impact of cultural influences combined with stereotyping was discussed in detail with respect to the problematic situation of ethnic Moroccans in Dutch society.
