Compass of Shame Scale

The compass of shame defines four styles of coping with or defending against shame: avoidance (denial), withdrawal (isolation), attack others, and attack self. It originates in an important book in the psychology research field, by Nathanson, published in 1992. There is also a Compass of Shame Scale, a nice 2 page self-assessment.

For what it is worth, at this time my primary coping style is avoidance, followed closely by withdrawal; attack self and attack others are tied for a distant third. No surprise there, right? Avoidance and withdrawal are indeed my usual coping styles and I have done a lot of work on those behaviors but on reflection I see I need to do more.

What I find interesting is how often, when I do not attack, others say they feel attacked. Saying you feel attacked can be an attack on another.

What else can anyone do, besides avoid, withdraw, or attack? Do other choices even exist? Yes. We can learn to reduce feelings of shame so we have less shame to cope with or defend against. John Gottman and Brene Brown and many others suggest we try judicious opening up.

Re coping, maladaptive or not, one author remarks (my italics):

A constructive script for shame management is to attend to its source and evaluate whether or not one cares to address it; few people consistently achieve this ideal. The four poles of the Compass of Shame characterize the many scripts by which shame is reduced, ignored, or magnified, without addressing its source (Nathanson, 1992).

Una+ wrote:What I find interesting is how often, when I do not attack, others say they feel attacked. Saying you feel attacked can be an attack on another.

This is an interesting observation, definitely puts some experiences I have had in a different (and more logical) context. One of my biggest faults is being incredibly adverse to confrontation. However it has still happened that people have claimed I attacked them... It's been very confusing to me and I haven't been able to understand what the heck I've done that constitutes an attack. I can see how I might offend someone through unexplained withdrawal, but that's not an attack. Frustratingly, people in the past have used the attack they perceived me as having committed as grounds to justify attacking me. Makes a lot of sense that their initial perception of me attacking was in itself an attack.

Do you have any idea how to handle that kind of attack by another person? Where others say they feel attacked, despite you having not attacked?


I'm going to see if I can find the self assessment online. II'm pretty sure my tendencies are withdrawal, followed by attacking myself. It would be good to know for sure though, and start working on a healthier approach.

We'd love to see a link, if anyone can post one.

Thanks,

Mary and Allegra

The original publication including the Compass of Shame Scale (CoSS):

Elison, J., R. Lennon, S. Pulos (2006) Investigating the Compass of Shame: The development of the Compass of Shame Scale, Social Behavior and Personality 34(3):221-238

The PDF is available for download from a Norwegian trauma and dissociation therapy website, FASett; a link to the PDF is at the bottom of the right sidebar.

The scale was first published with results from a "general population" of university students. The students' mean scores (= sum of values 0-4 endorsed for each of 12 items) were reported as:

24.20 Attack Self
22.59 Avoidance
21.89 Withdrawal
14.93 Attack Other

My scores are:

11 Attack Self
20 Avoidance
19 Withdrawal
11 Attack Other

Keep in mind that I am 3 decades older than a university student. When I was that age I used Attack Self and Attack Other far more often than I do now.

I've had a quick look at the questionnaire and it really made me think. It Woukd be quite enlightening to get someone who knows you well to complete it about their experience of you and for you to do your own, and then compare.
It Woukd take someone with enormous self awareness and honesty to get an accurate reflection. How many of us use attack in response to shame? You would need to know you were experiencing shame before you could analalyse your response. You would then need to be able to say that blaming or attacking someone else was your response and that they didn't deserve what you did. I bet most of us could more easily identify times we have been on the receiving end of someone else's shame response.
I might take this to my next therapy session as a talking point. Shame is at the bottom of a lot for me.
Thanks una

Jolly jo, try actually doing the CoSS and tallying the result. It may turn out not as you thought it would at first glance.

I thought about if I could do the CoSS for any other person. I don't think I could. The Attack Self items, negative self talk and so on, generally no one else knows about. Avoidance and Withdrawal often are not very apparent either.

Thanks for the link and the info, Una.

Una+ wrote:Keep in mind that I am 3 decades older than a university student. When I was that age I used Attack Self and Attack Other far more often than I do now.

We're also three decades older than most university students. We'll check out the link later this week and see how we do.

MDs

Neat little assessment if I can figure out to score it! Lol

Scoring works like this. Make a table with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 across the top and Avoid, Withdraw, Attack Self, Attack Other down the side. Then for each item response make a tic mark in the appropriate cell of the table. There are 12 items each with 4 responses so a total of 48 tics. Check your work: there should be 12 tics in each row, and the number of tics in each column should add up to 48.

Next step: for each row multiply the number of tics in each cell by the numerical value of the column, and sum the results. So for Avoid you might have 2*0 + 3*1 + 6*2 + 1*3 + 0*4 = 18. Do this for each point of the 4-point compass of shame.