Predicting Shame Based on Wanted/Unwanted Birth; Mediating Role of Emotional Abuse

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of emotional abuse in predicting shame based on wanted/unwanted birth.

This study is categorized in descriptive and correlational plans. The statistic population included all 12th grade students (+17 years old) in Qom city in the school year 2022-2023 and the final sample after the first phase by cluster random sampling and second phase by stratified random sampling included 368 students. The instruments used in this study were Rizvi Shame Inventory (RSI) and Childhood Traumas Questionnaire’s (CTQ) Emotional Abuse subscale. The path analysis method was used to analyze the research data and was performed using SPSS 22 and AMOS 24 software.

The results showed that the proposed model has a good fit. Path coefficients also showed that direct paths from wanted/unwanted birth to shame, wanted/unwanted birth to emotional abuse, emotional abuse to shame and indirect path from wanted/unwanted birth to shame by emotional abuse as mediator are significant.

Thus it is concluded that unwanted children are more likely prone to emotional abuse and experience higher levels of shame in adolescence.