A new study led by researchers at the University of Western Australia suggests chronic feelings of shame may connect childhood emotional abuse to the development of destructive thought patterns in adulthood. The work, conducted with 93 undergraduate volunteers, used a social exclusion game to probe how shame operates in survivors’ minds and how it relates to aversive cognitive perseveration.
Childhood emotional abuse refers to non-physical maltreatment by caregivers, such as threats, terrorisation or relentless belittling, which can erode a child’s developing sense of self-worth. The study’s authors describe it as a potent early-life stressor with long-lasting psychological implications.
Aversive cognitive perseveration is the term used to capture a pattern in which individuals ruminate on negative thoughts while simultaneously attempting to avoid or suppress distressing feelings. The researchers break this into three components: brooding rumination, experiential avoidance and emotional non-acceptance.
The laboratory component employed Cyberball, a widely used paradigm for inducing feelings of social exclusion. Participants believed they were passing a virtual ball among three other players; in reality the other players were computerised avatars that eventually excluded the participant.
To intensify the feeling of rejection, the game ended with a message stating the participant had the lowest performance and was being removed from the task. Immediately afterwards, researchers measured participants’ levels of shame and negative affect, then reassessed their use of cognitive perseveration after a short distraction task.
Analyses showed that a history of childhood emotional abuse predicted higher chronic shame in adulthood. This chronic shame, in turn, forecast greater reliance on aversive cognitive perseveration in daily life and a higher immediate use of these patterns after the laboratory rejection.
The researchers also tested whether a spike in shame during the game would mediate the link between past abuse and immediate cognitive perseveration. The results did not show the expected statistical significance for this direct pathway.
An intriguing finding emerged when looking at participants reporting moderate to severe childhood emotional abuse. In these individuals, immediate shame and cognitive perseveration actually decreased after the rejection, a pattern the authors interpret as a possible blunted emotional response or emotional numbness in the face of new stressors.
Across the board, however, the study reaffirmed a robust association between shame and aversive cognitive perseveration, whether considered as a stable trait or a momentary reaction. The authors suggest that when shame is felt deeply, individuals may engage in excessive self-analysis in an attempt to repair perceived flaws.
Clinically, the findings point to a need for therapies that help clients distinguish general distress from shame-specific experiences. Because shame tends to drive avoidance, recognising it within oneself can be particularly challenging for patients.
The researchers caution that the study’s small sample size limits statistical power and that the university-based, non-clinical sample screens out individuals with severe depression, potentially limiting broader applicability. All measures relied on self-report collected in a single session, which may reflect other emotions or transient states beyond pure shame.
Looking ahead, the authors advocate incorporating physiological measures—such as heart rate or skin conductance—to complement subjective reports and to explore whether survivors of emotional abuse experience a physiological shutdown during stress. Longer-term tracking could also determine whether immediate shame becomes a persistent negative self-view.
The study, titled Shame as a mediator of the association of childhood emotional abuse with aversive cognitive perseveration in adults, lists Mohammadali Amini-Tehrani, Michael Weinborn, Kenneth Sim, Jeneva L. Ohan and Kristin Naragon-Gainey as authors.
