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Guilt is a moral emotion that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation. Guilt is closely related to the concept of
remorse Remorse is a distressing emotion experienced by an individual who regrets actions which they have done in the past that they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or wrong. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment. When a perso ...
, regret, as well as shame. Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms.


Etymology

The etymology of the word is obscure, and developed its modern spelling from the O.E. form ''gylt'' "crime, sin, fault, fine, debt", which is possibly derived from O.E. ''gieldan'' "to pay for, debt". Because it was used in the Lord's Prayer as the translation for the Latin ''debitum'' and also in Matthew xviii. 27, and ''gyltiȝ'' is used to render ''debet'' in Matthew xxiii. 18, it has been inferred to have had the primary sense of ‘debt’, though there is no real evidence for this. Its development into a "sense of guilt" is first recorded in 1690 as a misuse of its original meaning. "Guilt by association" is first recorded in 1941. "Guilty" is similarly from O.E. ''gyltig'', itself from ''gylt''.


Psychology

Guilt and its associated causes, advantages, and disadvantages are common themes in
psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
and
psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...
. Both in specialized and in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by ' conscience'.
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego – parental imprinting. Freud rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he described another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that contributed to illness, Freud in fact coming to consider "the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt...as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery." For his later explicator, Lacan, guilt was the inevitable companion of the signifying subject who acknowledged normality in the form of the Symbolic order. Alice Miller claims that "many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations....no argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest period, and from that they derive their intensity." This may be linked to what Les Parrott has called "the disease of false guilt....At the root of false guilt is the idea that what you ''feel'' must be true." If you ''feel'' guilty, you must ''be'' guilty! The philosopher Martin Buber underlined the difference between the Freudian notion of guilt, based on internal conflicts, and ''existential guilt'', based on actual harm done to others. Guilt is often associated with
anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
. In mania, according to Otto Fenichel, the patient succeeds in applying to guilt "the defense mechanism of denial by overcompensation...re-enacts being a person without guilt feelings." In psychological research, guilt can be measured by using questionnaires, such as the Differential Emotions Scale (Izard's DES), or the Dutch Guilt Measurement Instrument.


Defenses

According to psychoanalytic theory, defenses against feeling guilt can become an overriding aspect of one's personality. The methods that can be used to avoid guilt are multiple. They include: # Repression, usually used by the superego and ego against instinctive impulses, but on occasion employed against the superego/conscience itself. If the defence fails, then (in a return of the repressed) one may begin to feel guilty years later for actions lightly committed at the time. # Projection is another defensive tool with wide applications. It may take the form of blaming the victim: The victim of someone else's accident or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person's hostility. Alternatively, not the guilt, but the condemning agency itself, may be projected onto other people, in the hope that they will look upon one's deeds more favorably than one's own conscience (a process that verges on
ideas of reference Ideas of reference and delusions of reference describe the phenomenon of an individual experiencing innocuous events or mere coincidences and believing they have strong personal significance. It is "the notion that everything one perceives in the ...
). #Sharing a feeling of guilt, and thereby being less alone with it, is a motive force in both art and joke-telling; while it is also possible to "borrow" a sense of guilt from someone who is seen as in the wrong, and thereby assuage one's own. #Self-harm may be used as an alternative to compensating the object of one's transgression – perhaps in the form of not allowing oneself to enjoy opportunities open to one, or benefits due, as a result of uncompensated guilt feelings.


Behavioral responses

Guilt proneness is reliably associated with moral character. Similarly, feelings of guilt can prompt subsequent virtuous behavior. People who feel guilty may be more likely to exercise restraint, avoid self-indulgence, and exhibit less prejudice. Guilt appears to prompt reparatory behaviors to alleviate the negative emotions that it engenders. People appear to engage in targeted and specific reparatory behaviors toward the persons they wronged or offended.


Lack of guilt in psychopaths

Individuals high in psychopathy lack any true sense of guilt or
remorse Remorse is a distressing emotion experienced by an individual who regrets actions which they have done in the past that they deem to be shameful, hurtful, or wrong. Remorse is closely allied to guilt and self-directed resentment. When a perso ...
for harm they may have caused others. Instead, they rationalize their behavior,
blame Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, or making negative statements about an individual or group that their actions or inaction are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for ...
someone else, or deny it outright. People with psychopathy have a tendency to be harmful to themselves and to others. They have little ability to plan ahead for the future. An individual with psychopathy will never find themselves at fault because they will do whatever it takes to benefit themselves without reservation. A person that does not feel guilt or remorse would have no reason to find themselves at fault for something that they did with the intention of hurting another person. To a person high in psychopathy, their actions can always be rationalized to be the fault of another person. This is seen by psychologists as part of a lack of moral reasoning (in comparison with the majority of humans), an inability to evaluate situations in a moral framework, and an inability to develop emotional bonds with other people due to a lack of
empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...
.


Causes


Evolutionary theories

Some evolutionary psychologists theorize that guilt and shame helped maintain beneficial relationships, such as reciprocal altruism. If a person feels guilty when he harms another or fails to reciprocate kindness, he is more likely not to harm others or become too selfish. In this way, he reduces the chances of retaliation by members of his tribe, and thereby increases his survival prospects, and those of the tribe or group. As with any other emotion, guilt can be manipulated to control or influence others. As highly social animals living in large, relatively stable groups, humans need ways to deal with conflicts and events in which they inadvertently or purposefully harm others. If someone causes harm to another, and then feels guilt and demonstrates regret and sorrow, the person harmed is likely to forgive. Thus, guilt makes it possible to forgive, and helps hold the social group together.


Social psychology theories

When we see another person suffering, it can also cause us pain. This constitutes our powerful system of empathy, which leads to our thinking that we should do something to relieve the suffering of others. If we cannot help another, or fail in our efforts, we experience feelings of guilt. From the perspective of group selection, groups that are made up of a high percentage of co-operators outdo groups with a low percentage of co-operators in between-group competition. People who are more prone to high levels of empathy-based guilt may be likely to suffer from anxiety and depression; however, they are also more likely to cooperate and behave altruistically. This suggests that guilt-proneness may not always be beneficial at the level of the individual, or within-group competition, but highly beneficial in between-group competition.


Collective guilt

Collective guilt (or group guilt) is the unpleasant and often emotional reaction that results among a group of individuals when it is perceived that the group illegitimately harmed members of another group. It is often the result of "sharing a social identity with others whose actions represent a threat to the positivity of that identity". For an individual to experience collective guilt, he must identify himself as a part of the in-group. "This produces a perceptual shift from thinking of oneself in terms of 'I' and 'me' to 'us' or 'we'.”


Comparison with shame

Guilt and shame are two closely related concepts, but they have key differences that should not be overlooked. Cultural Anthropologist Ruth Benedict describes shame as the result of a violation of cultural or social values, while guilt is conjured up internally when one's personal morals are violated. To put it more simply, the primary difference between shame and guilt is the source that creates the emotion. Shame arises from a real or imagined negative perception coming from others and guilt arises from a negative perception of one's own thoughts or actions. Psychoanalyst
Helen Block Lewis Helen Block Lewis (August 22, 1913 – January 18, 1987) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Her work pioneered the study of the differences between guilt and shame. She founded the journal ''Psychoanalytic Psychology'', taught at un ...
stated that, "The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done is the focus." An individual can still possess a positive perception of themselves while also feeling guilt for certain actions or thoughts they took part in. Contrary to guilt, Shame has a more inclusive focus on the individual as a whole. Fossum and Mason's ideas clearly outline this idea in their book Facing Shame. They state that "While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person". Shame can almost be described as looking at yourself unfavorably through the eyes of others. Psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman portrays this idea by stating that "Shame is an acutely self-conscious state in which the self is 'split,' imagining the self in the eyes of the other; by contrast, in guilt the self is unified". Both shame and guilt are directly related to self-perception, only shame causes the individual to account for the cultural and social beliefs of others.  Paul Gilbert talks about the powerful hold that shame can take over someone in his article Evolution, Social Roles, and the Differences in Shame and Guilt. He says that "The fear of shame and ridicule can be so strong that people will risk serious physical injury or even death to avoid it. One of the reasons for this is because shame can indicate serious damage to social acceptance and a breakdown in a variety of social relationships. The evolutionary root of shame is in a self-focused, social threat system related to competitive behavior and the need to prove oneself acceptable/desirable to others" Guilt on the other hand evolved from a place of Care-Giving and avoidance of any act that harms others.


Cultural views

Traditional Japanese society,
Korean society The traditional culture of Korea is the shared cultural and historical heritage of Korea and southern Manchuria before the division of Korea in 1945. Manchuria refers to the ancient geographical and historical region in Northeast Asia, includ ...
and
Chinese culture Chinese culture () is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia and is extremely diverse and varying, with customs and traditions varying grea ...
are sometimes said to be " shame-based" rather than "guilt-based", in that the social consequences of "getting caught" are seen as more important than the individual feelings or experiences of the agent (see the work of Ruth Benedict). The same has been said of Ancient Greek society, a culture where, in
Bruno Snell Bruno Snell (18 June 1896 – 31 October 1986) was a German classical philologist. From 1931 to 1959 he held a chair for classical philology at the University of Hamburg where he established the ''Thesaurus Linguae Graecae'' research centre in 19 ...
's words, if "honour is destroyed the moral existence of the loser collapses." This may lead to more of a focus on etiquette than on
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
as understood in Western civilization, leading some in Western civilizations to question why the word ''
ethos Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...
'' was adapted from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
with such vast differences in cultural norms.
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
inherit most notions of guilt from
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...
,
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
n, and
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
ideas, mostly as interpreted through
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
, who adapted
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's ideas to Christianity. The
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
word for guilt is ''culpa'', a word sometimes seen in law literature, for instance in ''mea culpa'' meaning "my fault (guilt)".


In literature

Guilt is a main theme in John Steinbeck's '' East of Eden'', Fyodor Dostoyevsky's '' Crime and Punishment'', Tennessee Williams' ''
A Streetcar Named Desire ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of per ...
'',
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's play '' Macbeth'',
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
's " The Tell-Tale Heart" and " The Black Cat", and many other works of literature. In Sartre's ''
The Flies ''The Flies'' (french: Les Mouches) is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. The play recounts the story of Orestes an ...
'', the Furies (in the form of flies) represent the morbid, strangling forces of neurotic guilt which bind us to authoritarian and totalitarian power. Guilt is a major theme in many works by
Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...
, and is an almost universal concern of novelists who explore inner
life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
and secrets.


In Epicurean Philosophy

In his Kyriai Doxai ( Principal Doctrines) 17 and 35, Epicurus teaches that we may identify and diagnose guilt by its signs and perturbations. Within his ethical system based on pleasure and pain, guilt manifests as constant fear of detection that emerges from "secretly doing something contrary to an agreement to not harm one another or be harmed". Since Epicurus rejects supernatural claims, the easiest way to avoid this perturbation is to avoid the antisocial behavior in order to continue enjoying
ataraxia ''Ataraxia'' (Greek: ἀταραξία, from ("a-", negation) and ''tarachē'' "disturbance, trouble"; hence, "unperturbedness", generally translated as "imperturbability", " equanimity", or "tranquility") is a Greek term first used in Ancient ...
(the state of no-perturbation). However, once guilt is unavoidable, Epicurean Guides recommended confession of one's offenses as a practice that helps to purge the character from its evil tendencies and reform the character. According to Norman DeWitt, author of "St Paul and Epicurus", confession was one of the Epicurean practices that was later appropriated by the early Christian communities.


In the Christian Bible

Guilt in the Christian
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
is not merely an emotional state but is a legal state of deserving punishment. The
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' New Testament uses a word for guilt that means "standing exposed to judgment for sin" (e. g., Romans 3:19). In what Christians call the " Old Testament", Christians believe the Bible teaches that, through sacrifice, one's sins can be forgiven (Judaism categorically rejects this idea, holding that forgiveness of sin is exclusively through repentance, and the role of sacrifices was for atonement of sins committed by accident or ignorance ). The New Testament says that this forgiveness is given as written in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: "3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, for that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." Some believe that the Old and New Testaments have differing opinions on the expiation of guilt because the Old Testaments were subject to the Age of Law and the New Testaments replace the Age of Law with the now current Age of Grace. However, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament salvation was granted based on God's grace and forgiveness (Gen 6:8; 19:19; Exo 33:12–17; 34:6–7). Animal sacrifices were only a symbol of the future sacrifice of
Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
(Heb 10:1–4; 9–12). The whole world is guilty before God for abandoning him and his ways (Rom 3:19). In Jesus Christ, God took upon himself the sins of the world and died on the cross to pay our debt (Rom 6:23). Those who repent and accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for their sins, will be redeemed by God and thus not guilty before him. They will be granted eternal life which will take effect when Jesus comes the second time (1 Thess 4:13–18). In contrast to surrounding nations which addressed their guilt with human sacrifice, the Israeli authors of the Bible called that an abomination (1 Kings 11:7, Jer 32:35). The Bible agrees with pagan cultures that guilt creates a cost that someone must pay (Heb 9:22). (This assumption was expressed in the previous section, "Defences": "Guilty people punish themselves if they have no opportunity to compensate the transgression that caused them to feel guilty. It was found that self-punishment did not occur if people had an opportunity to compensate the victim of their transgression.") But unlike pagan deities who demanded it be paid by humans, God, according to the Bible, loved us enough to pay it Himself, as a good father would, while calling us His "children" and calling Himself our "father" (Mat 5:45).


See also


Further reading

* Adam Phillips, 'Guilt', in ''On Flirtation'' (1994) pp. 138–147 * Nina Coltart, 'Sin and the Super-ego', in ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'' (1992)


References


External links

*
Guilt, unconscious sense ofGuilt
BBC Radio 4 discussion with Stephen Mulhall, Miranda Fricker & Oliver Davies (''In Our Time'', 1 Nov. 2007) {{Psychopathy Emotions Morality Moral psychology Philosophy of life