Psychological Development and Education ›› 2013, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (2): 159-165.

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The Effects of Locus of Control and Guilt and Shame on Counterfactual Thinking

GAO Xue-de   

  1. School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, China
  • Online:2013-03-15 Published:2013-03-15

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Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate the role of locus of control and self-oriented moral emotions (guilt and shame) in inducing the counterfactual thinking. 128 college students were first divided into two groups of high and low locus of control based on their scores on an Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (IE), they were then randomly assigned to conditions in which they were primed with either guilt or shame. After the guilt and shame priming procedure, participants were induced to generate counterfactual thinking. In this study a 2 (Locus of Control: external control and internal control) ×2 (Self-Moral Emotion: guilt and shame) experimental design were adopted. The results indicated that: (1) Locus of control had significantly effect on counterfactual thinking, external control participants generated more action and situational-oriented counterfactual thinking, but internal control participant generated more self-oriented counterfactual thinking. But guilt and shame had no significant effect on counterfactual thinking. (2) The generation of counterfactual thinking was influenced jointly by locus of control and self-oriented moral emotions (guilt and shame): For participants of external control, there were more likely to an action and situation-oriented counterfactual thinking in shame emotion than in guilt emotion, but for participants of internal control, there were more likely to a self-oriented counterfactual thinking in guilt emotion than in shame emotion. The results can also explain the contradiction thinking of relationship between guilt and shame and counterfactual thinking of previous studies based on different participants.

Key words: locus of control, counterfactual thinking, guilt, shame

CLC Number: 

  • B844.3
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