Shame, guilt, and embarrassment may be experienced when a person behaves in ways that fail to meet some standard, rule, or goal. In the case of shame, this failure is attributed to the “global” self—that is, in the case of shame, the failure is treated like a dispositional flaw in character spanning across contexts. Guilt, on the other hand, is experienced
when the failure is attributed to the self and is isolated to the specific situationin which it occurred, not generalized to other contexts. In the case of guilt, the failure is not assumed to be indicative of a problem with the “global” self. Embarrassment is experienced when a person fails to meet some social convention. Because embarrassment is experienced as lighthearted, and as a less negative emotion than guilt or shame, many see it, at best, as playing only a minor role in moral behavior.