Physiological Correlates of Shame

Shame is a self-conscious emotion that is highly relevant to clinical psychology, psychotherapy and other related fields due to its connection with psychopathology. Despite its relevance, little attention has been paid to investigating shame using physiological methods, particularly electroencephalography (EEG). This thesis deals with the physiological correlates of shame. The theoretical part of the thesis presents the current state of knowledge on this topic, with an emphasis on EEG correlates of shame. The empirical part of the thesis consists of a pilot experiment conducted with healthy adult volunteers. The emotion of shame was induced by having participants listen to fragments of their own off-key singing, and the neutral stimulus in the experiment consisted of fragments of the original recording. Shame was then measured using EEG and subjective methods. The analyses in this thesis focused on whether exposure to the emotional stimulus led to increased power spectral density in the frontal theta band compared to the neutral condition. The thesis also examined the correlation between subjective shame ratings (Experiential Shame Scale, ESS) and EEG data, as well as changes in subjective valence, arousal, and dominance ratings (Self-Assessment Manikin) in the first part of the study and after...