When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don’t need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads.
While the Depravity Scale allows a ranking of just how depraved/horrific/ egregious specific behaviors are, the GASP scale allows us to assess the level to which others (or ourselves) are prone to guilt and shame reactions.
There are, perhaps not surprisingly, disagreements among researchers about how to distinguish between guilt and shame. According to some, guilt is largely focused on your behavior (“I did a bad thing”) while shame is focused on your character (“I am a bad person”). Others think that private (that is, not publicly known) bad behaviors cause guilt, where transgressions that are made public cause shame.
photo { Christopher Payne }
