PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Shame about past alcoholism predicts relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics

2013-02-04
(Press-News.org) Feeling shame about past instances of problem drinking may increase the likelihood of relapse and other health problems, according to a new study in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia, shows that behavioral displays of shame strongly predicted whether recovering alcoholics would relapse in the future.

Public shaming has long been viewed as a way to encourage people to amend their ways and research suggests that experiences of shame can motivate people to improve their self-image and contribute to a common good.

But it's not clear that improvement on a general level extends to specific behaviors. Researchers don't know whether experiencing shame about a DUI, for example, actually deters drinking and driving. In fact, some studies suggest that shame might do more harm than good, as it can motivate hiding, escape, and general avoidance of the problem.

Psychological scientists Jessica Tracy and Daniel Randles of the University of British Columbia wondered whether the distinction between shame and guilt might play an important role in determining future behavior.

People who feel shame may blame themselves for negative events and view their "bad" behavior as an unchangeable part of who they are. Thus, shame may actually be a risk factor for certain behaviors rather than a deterrent. But this doesn't seem to be the case for guilt.

"One reason that certain sobriety programs may be effective," the researchers say, "is because they encourage people to see their behaviors as something they should feel guilty, but not necessarily shameful, about."

Feeling guilt about previous behavior, as opposed to shame about being a "bad" person, may be an important component of recovery.

To investigate the influence of shame and guilt on recovery from addiction, Tracy and Randles looked at drinking and health outcomes in a sample of newly sober recovering alcoholics.

Shame is difficult to measure because people often avoid acknowledging feelings of shame. To account for this, the researchers used measures that assessed both self-reported shame and shame-related behaviors, such as a narrowed chest and slumped shoulders. The researchers hypothesized that participants would be less able to voluntarily control their behavioral displays of shame.

In the first session, participants were asked to "describe the last time you drank and felt badly about it," and their responses were video-recorded by the researchers. In a second session about four months later, participants were asked to report their drinking behaviors. The participants completed questionnaires about their physical and mental health at both of the sessions.

The results were revealing.

People who displayed more shame-related behavior were likely to be in poorer physical health at the time of the first session.

More surprising, though, was the finding that behavioral displays of shame predicted whether participants would relapse after the first session.

"How much shame participants displayed strongly predicted not only whether they relapsed, but how bad that relapse was — that is, how many drinks they had if they did relapse," say Tracy and Randles.

Shame behaviors at the first session also predicted distressing psychiatric symptoms at the second session. And the data indicate a possible association between shame and worsening health over time.

In contrast, self-reported shame did not predict likelihood of relapse, number of drinks consumed, or health outcomes, providing further evidence that self-report may not be an accurate way of measuring shame.

Consistent with the researchers' hypotheses, self-reported guilt was not associated with any of the outcomes measured.

This study provides the first evidence that feeling shame about one's addiction can directly promote relapses.

"Treatment providers have long suspected that shame is a barrier to recovery, but this is the first time we've seen this link evidenced so robustly," note Tracy and Randles.

The results have clear implications for anyone who struggles with addiction or who has loved ones struggling with addiction, and it also has implications for researchers and clinicians who study emotion and addiction.

The findings are also important in light of the fact that some policymakers and judges have argued for the use of public shaming as a punitive measure against crime.

"Our research suggests that shaming people for difficult-to-curb behaviors may be exactly the wrong approach to take," Tracy and Randles argue. "Rather than prevent future occurrences of such behaviors, shaming may lead to an increase in these behaviors."

The researchers are conducting additional studies to test whether the effect of shame on behavior change generalizes to problematic behaviors beyond addiction.

### This research was supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award and establishment grant, and a Canadian Institute for Health Research New Investigator Award.

For more information about this study, please contact: Jessica L. Tracy at jltracy@psych.ubc.ca or Daniel Randles at dan3791@psych.ubc.ca

Clinical Psychological Science is APS's newest journal. For a copy of the article "Nonverbal displays of shame predict relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics" and access to other Clinical Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Beef Up: Middle-aged men may need more to maintain muscle mass

2013-02-04
Ottawa, ON (February 4, 2013) – People tend to lose muscle mass as they age; researchers are investigating ways to delay or counteract age-related muscle loss. A study conducted by the Exercise Metabolism Research Group at McMaster University suggests that current guidelines for meat consumption are based on the protein needed to prevent deficiency without consideration for preservation of muscle mass, particularly for older individuals who are looking to maintain their muscle as they age. This research was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Thirty-five ...

President Obama awards nation's top scientists and innovators highest honor

President Obama awards nations top scientists and innovators highest honor
2013-02-04
President Obama today awarded 12 eminent researchers the National Medal of Science and 11 extraordinary inventors the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government upon scientists, engineers and inventors. The recipients received their awards at a White House ceremony. This marks the 50th anniversary of the presentation of the first National Medals of Science in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy. "I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," Obama said when the awardees were announced. "They represent the ...

Amyloid imaging shows promise for detecting cardiac amyloidosis

2013-02-04
Reston, Va. – While amyloid imaging may now be most associated with detecting plaques in the brain, it has the potential to change the way cardiac amyloidosis is diagnosed. According to first-of-its-kind research published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) with 11C-PIB can positively visualize amyloid deposits in the heart. Currently there is no noninvasive test available for specific diagnosis. Cardiac amyloidosis is a deadly disorder caused by abnormal amyloid deposits in the heart tissue. Early diagnosis before ...

USDA scientists say mix-and-match cover cropping can optimize organic production

2013-02-04
This press release is available in Spanish. Farmers can fine-tune their use of cover crops to help manage costs and maximize benefits in commercial organic production systems, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Production expenses for high-value organic crops like lettuce and broccoli can exceed $7,000 per acre, so producers often try to streamline costs with an annual two- to three-crop rotation. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) horticulturalist Eric Brennan designed a long-term investigation that examined several different cover ...

Little House books' Mary Ingalls probably did not go blind from scarlet fever, U-M study says

2013-02-04
Ann Arbor, Mich. — In the beloved American stories of the Little House on the Prairie, author Laura Ingalls Wilder writes emotionally about how scarlet fever robs her big sister Mary of her sight. But in a new study published today in the journal Pediatrics, University of Michigan researchers found it is likely scarlet fever had nothing to do with Mary's blindness. Senior author Beth A. Tarini, M.D., and her co-authors used evidence from newspaper reports, Laura Ingalls' memories and school registries to conclude Mary's blindness was probably caused by viral meningoencephalitis. "Since ...

Can cancer be turned against itself?

2013-02-04
Though a small group of proteins, the family called Ras controls a large number of cellular functions, including cell growth, differentiation, and survival. And because the protein has a hand in cellular division, mutated Ras, which can be detected in one-third of all tumors, contributes to many human cancers by allowing for the rapid growth of diseased cells. Now Prof. Yoel Kloog of Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology, along with Dr. Itamar Goldstein of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center and their students Helly Vernitsky and ...

Study finds incentive price for reducing HIV risk in Mexico

Study finds incentive price for reducing HIV risk in Mexico
2013-02-04
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Studies have found that conditional cash transfer programs, in which governments pay citizens if they consistently practice societally beneficial behaviors, have improved pediatric health care and education in Mexico, increased HIV testing in Malawi, and reduced sexually transmitted infections in Tanzania. Public health researchers therefore investigated whether the idea could be applied to HIV risk behaviors among gay men and male sex workers in Mexico City. A new study reports not only that some members of those populations would ...

New kind of extinct flying reptile discovered by scientists

2013-02-04
A new kind of pterosaur, a flying reptile from the time of the dinosaurs, has been identified by scientists from the Transylvanian Museum Society in Romania, the University of Southampton in the UK and the Museau Nacional in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. The fossilised bones come from the Late Cretaceous rocks of Sebeş-Glod in the Transylvanian Basin, Romania, which are approximately 68 million years old. The Transylvanian Basin is world-famous for its many Late Cretaceous fossils, including dinosaurs of many kinds, as well as fossilised mammals, turtles, lizards and ancient ...

In combat vets and others, high rate of vision problems after traumatic brain injury

2013-02-04
Philadelphia, Pa. (February 4, 2013) - Visual symptoms and abnormalities occur at high rates in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI)—including Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans with blast-related TBI, reports a study, "Abnormal Fixation in Individuals with AMD when Viewing an Image of a Face", in the February issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Vision problems are similar for military and civilian patients with TBI, ...

Study shows Facebook unfriending has real life consequences

2013-02-04
DENVER (Feb. 4, 2013) – Unfriending someone on Facebook may be as easy as clicking a button, but a new study from the University of Colorado Denver shows the repercussions often reach far beyond cyberspace. "People think social networks are just for fun," said study author Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. "But in fact what you do on those sites can have real world consequences." Sibona found that 40 percent of people surveyed said they would avoid in real ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New Simon Fraser University–University of Exeter partnership fast-tracks path to become a lawyer

Busy bees can build the right hive from tricky foundations

Deep sea worm fights ‘poison with poison’ to survive high arsenic and sulfide levels

New monthly pill shows potential as pre-exposure prophylaxis HIV drug candidate

Estalishing power through divine portrayal and depictions of violence

Planetary scientist decodes clues in Bennu’s surface composition to make sense of far-flung asteroids

For students with severe attention difficulties, changing school shifts is not the solution

Novel virtual care program enhances at-home support for people with heart failure

Giving mRNA vaccines a technological shot in the arm

Study IDs what can help collaborative groups actually accomplish their goals

Simpler models can outperform deep learning at climate prediction

Expert on catfishes publishes updated volume on catfish biology and evolution

Inaugural editorial: the Energy and Environment Nexus

As World Alzheimer’s Month approaches, supporting personhood for family members with dementia is key

Acosta to examine moisture-driven polar ice growth & its impact on global sea level

Mount Sinai scientists identify three potent human antibodies against mpox, paving the way for new protective therapies

Smarter robot planning for the real world

Optimization of biosafety laboratory management via an AI-driven intelligent system

Mouse neurons that identify friends in need and friends indeed

Why the foam on Belgian beers lasts so long

On tap: What makes beer foams so stable?

Overweight older adults face lower risk of death after major surgery

Body composition, fitness, and mental health in preadolescent children

Medical school admissions after the Supreme Court’s 2023 Affirmative Action ruling

Scientists map dendritic cell reactions to vaccines

"Fatigue" strengthen steels

Bacterial memory could be the missing key to beating life threatening pathogens

Global analysis reveals overlooked hotspots at risk for long COVID due to early disability burdens

Metabolomic characteristics and clinical implications in pathological subtypes of lung cancer

Faster biological aging linked to cognitive decline in older adults

[Press-News.org] Shame about past alcoholism predicts relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics