Remember that time you weren’t there for your friend when she needed you most, or that time you led a guy on by going on several dates with no intention of staying with him?
We’ve all experienced guilt, and it never feels good, but it does have a purpose.
A new study from the University of Queensland in Australia found that guilt can play a role in employees remaining committed to their employers. There is a feeling of mutual obligation — if the employer does something for the employee, like provide paychecks consistently, then the employee will feel guilt if she doesn’t live up to her part (which could include leaving).
“Guilt is when people feel bad about a specific behavior, transgression or failure,” said June Tangney, a psychology professor at George Mason University. “It’s different from shame, where people feel badly about themselves.”
“It’s the difference between ‘I did a bad thing and I’m a bad person because of it’ — that’s a shame feeling — versus guilt, where people just say ‘I did a bad thing,” she said. “You can still be a good person and this bad thing needs to be fixed, but it’s not the bad self that needs to be fixed.”
There are more problems associated with shame than guilt, she said.
“The research pretty consistently shows that proneness to feelings of shame about the self is related to psychological problems like depression, anxiety [and] low self-esteem,” Tangney said. “People who are inclined to feel guilt about their behaviors when they have failed or transgressed are actually no more or less likely to be vulnerable to depression, anxiety [and] low self-esteem…”
She said there’s a strong correlation between depression and shame proneness, and people with depression tend to overgeneralize — “I did a bad thing, therefore I’m a bad person.”
People who feel shame don’t want to accept responsibility and try to hide, whereas people who feel guilt are “less likely to become defensive and more likely to take responsibility,” including making apologies and fixing the overall problem, she said.
“I think part of the reason is because the dilemma that’s posed by guilt is much more doable,” Tangney said. “It’s much easier to fix the bad behavior than it is to fix a defective self.”
Some causes of guilt and shame can be lying, stealing, cheating and hurting other people. Sometimes sex can make people feel guilty or have shame, though she said it depends on how people think about different issues.
“People tend to feel guilt, for example, about infidelity, if they were thinking about the effects on another person, or the potential effects on another person, but people are more inclined to feel shame if they think…that reflects badly on me as being a…slut or a whatever,” Tangney said.
Coming up with a plan to repair the situation can help relieve guilt, she said.
Shame is a different story. She said a woman needs to look at herself and figure out if she really is a horrible person or if it was just a behavior that needs to be changed.
People can overgeneralize and then feel shame, like when women feel they are horrible mothers because they yell at their children, instead of just focusing on the one behavior and altering that.
However, guilt is not always beneficial, and shame is not always a bad thing.
Guilt can be bad when people feel guilty for anything they’re not responsible for, she said, though sometimes people do need to make amends.
“I think sometimes, for example, women who are juggling multiple roles may end up feeling guilty for not being the perfect wife and the perfect career person and the perfect this and the perfect that,” Tangney said, but women need to step back and check if it’s “reasonable to expect me to do 100 percent,” and then adjust accordingly by setting more reasonable expectations.
Shame can be useful in some areas as well.
“Sometimes, once in a while, people do end up…developing a pattern of behavior that really is at odds with their core moral beliefs,” Tangney said. “Maybe feelings of shame can really cause a person to really sit up and take notice and do some really serious soul-searching about the kind of person they are.”
However, she said a person has to be strong with a resilient ego in order to avoid getting defensive due to shame.
Although it is uncertain why some people are more prone to shame and guilt than others, it has been found that the older people get, the less shame-prone they are, she said. Also, therapy can help.
“Women are prone to more shame and more guilt than men,” Tangney said. “They’re also more prone to just about every emotion…We tend to be more emotional or at least acknowledge emotions more than our male counterparts.”
One study from January featured in Science Daily did report that more women than men felt guilt. Another study from Sep. 2009 found that people can overcome shame when they make connections with other people and give themselves power to change a situation. It mentioned that some people are overcome with shame and tend to withdraw from society and their peers.
Source:
http://www.physorg.com/news199442982.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090908193523.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100125123305.htm