Talk:Guilt (emotion)

Neurological Section?
At a glance it looks to me like a total conjecture on a new and undeveloped subject. If there isn't a citation on it, it should be removed.

Objective Guilt
This article fails to discuss objective guilt (guilt in the sense of actual violation of moral law), and only considers the concept as an emotional (or subjective) state. There is a Guilt (law) section, but it only deals with guilt in the context of criminal law, and societal standards. Should another article be added, or should this article be expanded to consider guilt feelings as a reflection of the incurring of objective guilt through transgression of moral law? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.57.240 (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

people unable to feel guilt...
'Psychopaths' (and sociopaths) are now called Anti-Social Personality Disorder, so that last section should probably be update to the current term. Also maybe add something about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, who also either don't feel guilt, or experience it as shame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.206.240 (talk) 04:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

- This is mostly incorrect. The term "Psychopath" and "Psychopathy" are still widely used in academic literature. Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) shares overlapping characteristics with psychopathy, but in both forensic and clinical psychology the two are still regarded as distinct constructs. Think of it in a 'All medicines are drugs, but not all drugs are medicines' kind of way. Sociopath is an outdated term, however it also cannot be subsumed into APD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:3D5C:3500:A13B:F0F:E8D1:701D (talk) 10:22, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

wouldn't that apply to just about anything
"a concept used in various ways in various contexts"...wouldn't that apply to just about anything? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.41.228 (talk • contribs)

Guilt has such a negative connotation
Guilt has such a negative connotation that it's often hard to accept it has a very necessary advisory role. Of course being guilty and feeling guilty are two different pebbles of the same colour. In the same manner we have an oil light on the dash of our car that comes on to warn us of possible damage if ignored, the feeling of guilt that can come over us is only a warning light and is as practical and necessary as, say, the feeling of hunger, which is to let us know it's time to take in sustenance. The feeling of guilt comes about when we wish to advise ourselves that there is a problem with integrating ideas, in other words, we've just compromised our values. The feeling of guilt will persist until the problem is addressed through change. It is not meant to indicate right or wrong, its role is only to advise a conflict of values has been introduced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.202.155 (talk • contribs)

This needs two articles
This needs two articles. It appears there are at least a couple of very different kinds of guilt, psychological and legal. Are there any others? 2 August 2005 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mneumisi (talk • contribs)


 * I concur. The section on legal guilt should be divorced from the psycology. The second paragraph in the "legal" section should also be eliminated or moved. 19 June 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mneumisi (talk • contribs)


 * Beautiful Mneumisi is responding to his own message, intentional or unintentional? Travb (talk) 10:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well if you can't agree with yourself, you probably shouldn't make comments. I would have to say "unintentional," since they were a year apart and unsigned at that. I wonder if I am conducting conversations with myself on any other talk pages? Still, Once again I have to agree with myself. Manney 13:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Rather, a better discussion of the scope of 'types of guilt' should replace this section. Many educational institutions discuss guilt as "collective" (sometimes called shared), "private," and "public." This is merely an observation from the discourse I've had on the topic relating to literature and film examples. Lepercon (talk) 05:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that this article could be split into more sections than just "guilt" as a general topic. Subsections would be a terrific idea for this topic.  I think another guilt type could be "moral guilt."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.169.160.114 (talk) 02:05, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Who writes the emotions articles?
Has anyone else noticed that people writing the emotions articles seem to exhibit the emotions they are writing about? For example, check out the ranting in the discussion group for hate, as opposed to say the joy people or the guilt people. 26 August 2005; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.17.226 (talk • contribs)
 * Hey, editors are human too! Jacobisq (talk) 10:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Guilt's regret link ... to the race horse?
Guilt links to regret -- which is about a horse. I doubt this was intended. 27 November 2005; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.68.140.70 (talk • contribs)

Link to Regret/Section on Criminal Guilt
re: the above anonymous comment: Apparently, this has been corrected. However, someone knowledgeable needs to edit the section regarding criminal law in this article on Guilt. It begins with a incoherent sentence. soverman 21:06 16 Feb 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.205.69 (talk • contribs)

Added weasel words template
I added the weasel words template. "Some people..." etc. is not up to encyclopedic standards. Whenever I see "some people" the obvious question is who?

The more I read this article the less I like it. It needs a lot of work, but I am not interested enough in the subject to spend my time doing it.

I also added the tag.

ALSO: PLEASE SIGN YOUR POSTS using ~ Travb (talk) 10:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Guilt Trip
Guilt trip is the act of making someone feel guily, not guilt itself; so I don't think the entry's should have been merged. --Spooony 20:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

criminal law guilt
I punched up a major revision of that section. I also considered a wholsale deleting of "causes of guilt" section since it is all weasel words without citation, but it is a start. Perhaps later. I used legal sources, for which there are very few, to define a concept which is taken for granted by just about everyone. I wanted to avoid philosophy, but I wanted more than a circular argument which required mentioning the idea of free will. Manney 15:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Bag of fucking bricks
I'd love to include the line "guilt is like a bag of fucking bricks -- all you gotta do it set it down" from The Devil's Advocate movie. I think it's somewhere in between the psychopath and "dealing" section, but I can't find a place to put it. I think it represents a prominent, current view despite opinion.

May-be Guilty by association should be a disambiguation page
Guilty by association currently redirects here, but I think it could as well redirect to collective guilt. Maybe it needs a disambiguation page with links to both these articles.80.235.69.196 11:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, this was meant for another discussion page (Association fallacy).80.235.69.196 11:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Why does it redirect here? "Guilt by association" is a logical fallacy, and belongs within that catagory. 68.209.235.149 15:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Distinction Between Guilt and Shame
There doesn't seem to a distinction between guilt and shame. If you read and compare the wikipedia articles on "guilt society" and "shame society" you will notice that there is a clear distinction drawn. It is almost revealed here on the "guilt" page:

"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."

This concept of "existential guilt" is shame, and the notion of guilt, based on internal conflict and the premonition of doing something sinful are quite different. In a shame culture, you judge your actions in the eyes of others. In a guilt culture, you judge your desires through the lens of social morality. Guilt has more to do with this internal conflict and psychological morality. (A Thought Surgeon Named Crisis (talk) 16:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC))

Add the phrase 'guilt-tripping'?
From http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing11.html

Guilt-tripping – One thing that aggressive personalities know well is that other types of persons have very different consciences than they do. Manipulators are often skilled at using what they know to be the greater conscientiousness of their victims as a means of keeping them in a self-doubting, anxious, and submissive position. The more conscientious the potential victim, the more effective guilt is as a weapon. Aggressive personalities of all types use guilt-tripping so frequently and effectively as a manipulative tactic, that I believe it illustrates how fundamentally different in character they are compared to other (especially neurotic) personalities. All a manipulator has to do is suggest to the conscientious person that they don't care enough, are too selfish, etc., and that person immediately starts to feel bad. On the contrary, a conscientious person might try until they're blue in the face to get a manipulator (or any other aggressive personality) to feel badly about a hurtful behavior, acknowledge responsibility, or admit wrongdoing, to absolutely no avail.

- Nearfar (talk) 21:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed split section tags, added in July 2007
I Removed the split section tags, added in 13:36, 13 July 2007 over a year and a half ago. travb (talk) 14:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-Human Guilt?
I think this would be an interesting secton to add. There must be some interesting studies of "guilt", or shame, in apes, and there's at least one showing that the "guilty look" a dog gives you is just a response to human cues (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2J-4WGM4JN-D&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f291ef36ea7128512261ffde08ed8ac8)GM Pink Elephant (talk) 21:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed overguilt and underguilt section
Never heard of either. Is this a joke? The terms certainly don't rise to subject heading on this page.

MarkinBoston (talk) 02:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

In Our Time
Rich Farmbrough, 03:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Legality vs. emotion
The lede starts off like it's going to talk about the legal concept, as in Guilt (law). But the rest of the article describes the psychological, i.e., emotional aspect.

I think this article needs more distinction between guilt as a legal concept and the emotional feeling. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Cultural Guilt
A great addition would be the fact that different cultures think of moral guilt differently. For example, some societies think that killing a person is not morally wrong, however others would feel guilty for killing someone, even if it were in self defense.

Status of guilt.
If guilt is not observable in a state of affairs, then it arises by ascription or utterance. Simply ascribing (i.e. writing to) guilt to B doesn't establish the state of affairs where B is guilty and therefore doesn't establish the truth of the sentence 'B is guilty' just as simply saying "The cat is sitting on the mat" doesn't establish the state of affairs where the cat is sitting on the mat and therefore doesn't establish the truth of the sentence 'The cat is sitting on the mat'. The process is one of magical incantation i.e. saying it's so makes it so. Ash138.217.214.135 (talk) 12:19, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Guilt and anticipated punishment of a society
"The end is nigh" was used to communicate the idea that as a society we had transgressed and that we would receive a collective punishment. There were those recently who claimed that the New Orleans disaster was a divine punishment for sodomy in that city. I presume there is a name for this syndrome of anticipated punishment for a perceived collective guilt. It would be useful if this aspect of Guilt were added to this article.FreeFlow99 (talk) 13:48, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

You need better references. Please do your research. Guilt is not a feeling, it is a ethical premise, thus we get statements like, 'innocent until proven guilty.' Also, there is real guilt, the proof of wrongdoing, and there is unearned guilt, the inappropriate feeling of fear associated with the pathological distortion of having done something wrong, which can't be proven. The feeling associated with "guilt" is fear. Guilt is not a feeling, but fear is. We say, I feel guilty, but the psychology behind it is, "I am afraid something bad might happen to me, like God's retribution, or a judge of law will hurt me. Also, this is not a debate. I apologize for not referencing what I said, but I don't have the time. I read this and needed to say, Please DO YOUR RESEARCH! Thank you. David Springer PhD. DD.

Tribe?
It says tribe, but shouldn't it be changed to social circle / family? Or group? Tribe sounds off to me i dont know.

2001:44B8:4137:6200:A5F5:7487:198D:674C (talk) 06:10, 1 September 2018 (UTC) Anon

Other uses: Song by Eminem
Hello,

the search term "Guilty Conscience" redirects to this page. It also is a song by Eminem and Dr. Dre, but is neither mention in the disambugations for "Guilt" or "Guilty". Since the song as an rather comprehensive article I'd like to add it into the "For other uses, see ..." section but I don't know how. Would be great if someone could do that.

SkySilver (talk) 02:48, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Psychodynamic Defence Theory is Being Presented as Fact
I have some issues with the "Defences" section in that it is almost all written from the perspective of the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theorists. These theories (regardless of citation origin) should be prefaced with information stating that they are the view of the aforementioned school of psychotherapy and are contested.

"Lack of guilt in psychopaths" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Lack of guilt in psychopaths. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 November 26 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:59, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

etymology
The Online Etymology Dictionary says that the derivation of gylt from gieldan is suspect. 2605:A601:A73A:7900:300D:B32E:F400:FC63 (talk) 01:39, 13 March 2022 (UTC)