Aetiology of shame and its association with adolescent depression and anxiety: results from a prospective twin and sibling study

Background Shame is considered a maladaptive self‐conscious emotion that commonly co‐occurs alongside depression and anxiety. Little is known, however, about the aetiology of shame and its associations with depression and anxiety. We estimated, for the first time, genetic and environmental influences on shame and on its associations with depression and anxiety in adolescence. Methods The sample was twin and sibling pairs from the Genesis 1219 Study (Time 1, N = 2,685; males 42.8%, M age = 14.95, SD = 1.67, age range: 12–21; Time 2, N = 1618; males 39.7%, M age = 16.97, SD = 1.64, age range: 14–23). Participants completed validated questionnaires to measure shame (at Time 1), depression and anxiety (at Times 1 and 2). Results Shame was moderately to strongly associated with concurrent depression and anxiety. Prospectively, shame was significantly associated with an increase in depression, but not anxiety. Genetic analyses revealed that shame was moderately heritable with substantial nonshared environmental influence. The associations between shame and concurrent depression and anxiety were primarily accounted for by overlapping genetic influences. Prospectively, the association between shame and later depression was primarily accounted for by genetic and nonshared environmental influences shared with earlier depression. The unique association between shame and later depression was mostly explained by common nonshared environmental influences. Conclusions The findings offer novel evidence regarding aetiology of shame—although moderately heritable, shame in adolescents may also result from nonshared environmental factors. Genetic and nonshared environmental influences contribute to the co‐occurrence of shame with depression and anxiety.