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Background: Despite Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) having been long associated with mental illness, they represent a common experience also in the non-clinical population, yet do not exhibit distress or need for care. Shame and guilt are emotions related to one's perception of oneself and one's responsibility. As such, they direct our attention to aspects of AVHs that are under-researched and elusive, particularly about the status of voices as others, their social implications and the constitution and conceptualisation of the self., Objectives: This paper aims to provide a systematic review of studies that investigated the relationship between auditory hallucinations, shame, and guilt in people without relevant signs of psychiatric issues., Methods: We searched studies reporting information about voices characteristics, the relationship between voices and hearers, hearer's reactions, and beliefs, paying peculiar attention to shame and guilt issues. Included papers were evaluated for risk of bias., Results: Eleven studies that explored the relationship between AVHs, shame and guilt, were extracted. Phenomenological, pragmatic, as well as neuropsychological features of hearing voices in non-clinical populations, allowed us to note a dynamic relationship and the constellation of subjective experiences that can occur. The role of guilt was characterized by few studies and mixed results, while shame was mainly common., Conclusions: Due to the high heterogeneity detected and the scarce sources available, further studies should focus on both the aetiology and the bidirectional relationship between hearing voices, shame, and guilt in non-clinical people. This can be helpful in therapies for non-clinical populations who are distressed by their voices (e.g., psychotherapy), and for whom shame, and guilt may contribute to negative consequences such as isolation, anxiety or future depression. Moreover, it might favour the development and implication of different treatments considering emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal sensitivity on the clinical populations., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Negative emotions can have an impact on a variety of cognitive domains, including Working Memory (WM). The present work investigated whether shame and guilt modulate WM performance in a dual-task test both in a non-clinical and a clinical population. In Experiment 1, 76 non-clinical participants performed a dual-task before and after being randomly assigned to shame, guilt or neutral inductions elicited by the writing of autobiographical past experiences. Shame and guilt elicitations were related to impaired WM performances. In Experiment 2, 65 clinical inpatients with eating disorders were assigned to the same procedure. The negative relationship of self-conscious emotions and WM was confirmed. Taken together these results suggest that shame and guilt are related to impairments of WM in both clinical and non-clinical participants., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: To explore the relationship between shame proneness, eating disorders outcomes and psychological aspects of patients with eating disorders (ED)., Methods: Sixty-six girls applying for inpatient treatment for ED and 110 female undergraduate students were assessed using the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 and the Shame Proneness Scale of the Test of Self-Conscious Affect., Results: Shame proneness showed significant correlations with several ED components and psychological scales of EDI-3, with some variations across the subgroups. Shame proneness levels were significantly higher in the clinical group than in controls., Conclusions: Shame proneness can be an important component for the development and the maintenance of ED due to a strong correlation not only with ED symptoms but also with psychological aspects of this disease, in both clinical and non-clinical samples.