Social Life
Can saying a hundred Hail Marys help you out in the eyes of your
peers as well as those of God? Guilt, it's now clear, serves some very
useful social functions.
It is really something between people, not just something inside
them, says a trio of psychologists led by Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., of Case
Western Reserve University. They argue that guilt strengthens social
bonds and attachments three ways:
o It can promote closeness and emotional harmony by making people
pay more attention to their partner's needs and emotional soft
spots.
o It can help relatively powerless souls get their way through the
ubiquitous "guilt trip."
o It can help rectify a volatile situation by making a wrongdoer
feel bad about his or her transgression, which in turn can actually
reduce the suffering of the victim involved.
Psychology and psychiatry have never lacked for explanations of
guilt. Earlier views held it arose from fear of castration, fear of
separation from the mother, or from a repressed wish to be
punished.
But after reviewing tons of research, Baumeister and Co. see guilt
as a kind of social glue rather than a product of the individual psyche.
Its roots lie in empathy, or an individual's ability to feel the pain of
others, and fear of alienation by the social group.
Reporting in the Psychological Bulletin (Vol. 115, No. 2), the
psychologists describe some of the newer insights into guilt:
o Women feel more guilt over moral transgressions than do men, who
respond more to the fear of getting caught.
o Levels of guilt and self-esteem are closely related. Individuals
with low self-esteem are more prone to deep feelings of guilt than those
with high self-esteem.
o Guilt-proneness may go hand in hand with such personality traits
as shyness, lack of social assertiveness, and loneliness.
o Confessions arising from guilt has been shown to increase calm
and improve health in the confessor.
All in all, guilt motivates people to apologize, to attempt to make
amends, to try to repair damage to relationships, to confess and seek
forgiveness, and to change their behavior in order to please and satisfy
their relationship partners.
Too much guilt, though, is no panacea. It can actually cause people
to abandon a relationship to avoid unpleasant feelings. Further, constant
"guilt trips" can generate resentment and lead to exploitation-by-guilt
in a relationship.
ILLUSTRATION
