Self-conscious emotions of guilt, shame, and pride are some of the most private emotions people experience, and yet they are central emotions for governing collective and organizational life. A missed deadline, a forgotten email, or a poor performance review can evoke feelings of guilt or shame. Victory over a competitor, a successful product launch, or a compliment from a colleague can evoke feelings of pride. Organizational scholars have theorized about how self-conscious emotions affect a range of employee outcomes such as responses to layoffs (Brockner, Davy, & Carter, 1985), positive inequity (Adams, 1965; Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978), and institutional reproduction (Douglas Creed, Hudson, Bokhuysen, & Smith-Crowe, 2004), but empirical evidence in support of these claims has been sparse, particularly in comparison to research on other emotional experiences such as positive and negative affectivity.
