Understanding the Psychology of Guilt – Anticipated Guilt and Going Against One's Self-interest – Chapter 4

To lend money to someone and to later ask this same person to
pay the money back should be relatively unproblematic in modern,
monetized societies. Still, some people find it difficult to ask for
lent money to be paid back, even though it is in their own interest
that this happens and they have the legitimate right to ask their
money back. In this article, we examine one reason why people
might experience such difficulties: the anticipation of guilt. In Study
4.1, the majority of participants from 3 different countries indicated
that they sometimes did not ask money back because doing so
would make them feel guilty. Study 4.2 found that the more people
anticipated guilt about asking their money back, the less willing
they were to do this. Study 4.3 found that the effect of guilt
became less strong when more money was at stake. Study 4.4
found that people anticipated more guilt and were less likely to ask
money back when the other person was poor compared to rich.
Studies 4.5 and 4.6 found that the amount of harm people
anticipated by asking the money back mediated the effect. Taken
together, we interpret these studies (Ntotal = 2988) to showcase
the social nature of guilt, in that it can motivate people to sacrifice
their (financial) self-interest in order to protect relationships with
others.