Self-conscious emotions are a distinct category of emotional responses that are rooted in social contexts. Previous findings suggest that negative self-conscious emotions might be elicited by a specific social factor, that is, symbolic intergroup threat. The present study tested the hypothesis that this is true, with three experiments conducted in the Chinese-context. In particular, the Mandarin words for shame (羞愧), guilt (内疚) and loss of face (丢脸) were examined. Symbolic threats were manipulated in all three experiments, with participants randomly divided into a symbolic threat condition and a control condition in each experiment. As expected, participants in the symbolic threat condition always reported more negative self-conscious emotions compared to participants in the control condition. These results suggest that symbolic intergroup threat can lead to self-conscious emotions as well as basic emotions, as was demonstrated by previous research.

自觉情绪是植根于社会环境中的一种独特的情绪反应。先前的发现表明，负面的自我意识情绪可能是由特定的社会因素（即象征性的群体间威胁）引起的。本研究通过在中文上下文中进行的三个实验检验了这一假设的正确性。特别是检查了羞耻，内lt和丢脸等普通话。在所有三个实验中都操纵了象征性威胁，参与者在每个实验中随机分为象征性威胁条件和控制条件。不出所料，与控制状态下的参与者相比，象征性威胁状态下的参与者总是报告出更多的负面自我意识情绪。