Explainable Multilayer Perceptron Classification Model for Detecting the Internalized Shame-Based on Childhood Trauma, Social-Emotional Competence, Cognitive Flexibility, Distress Tolerance, Alexithymia, and Age

Internalized shame is a degrading emotional experience that is associated with avoidance tendencies, negative self-esteem, and feelings of self-control (such as self-loathing) and it can affect a person’s cognition and feelings in self-perception and individual functions. This research aimed to explain internalized shame based on childhood trauma, social-emotional competence, cognitive flexibility, distress tolerance, and age. Method: The participants in this research were a convenience sample of 906 (53.1% female and 46.9% male) people living in Tehran in 2023. The survey assessments included demographic characteristics, the presence of childhood trauma, social-emotional competence, internalized shame, and the Toronto Alexithymia scales together with measures of cognitive flexibility and distress tolerance. The data were analyzed using the Multilayer Perceptron Classification Model. The input layer included 6 features (childhood trauma, social-emotional competence, alexithymia, cognitive flexibility, distress tolerance, and age) and the output layer included internalized shame divided into Low and High groups Two hidden layers were determined consisting of 4 and 3 units respectively. The sample was divided into two with 70% of used as the training sample. Results: Classification accuracy in the training and test samples was 93.5% and 92.7% respectively. The AUC of 0.953 in the models indicated an excellent fit. The sensitivity and specificity of the classification were both more than 0.8 in the low and high internalized shame groups. Conclusion: Alexithymia, distress tolerance, cognitive flexibility, social-emotional competence, childhood trauma, and age were the most important effects in explaining the classification of internalized shame.