Understanding the Psychology of Guilt – Why Do People (not) Share Guilt with Others? – Chapter 5

Do people share their feelings of guilt with others and, if so, what
are the reasons for doing or not doing this? Even though social
sharing of negative emotional experiences, such as regret, has
been extensively studied, not much is known on the sharing of
guilt. We report three studies on the sharing of guilt. In Study 1, we
re-analyzed data about sharing guilt experiences posted on a
social website called “Yahoo Answers,” and found that people
share intrapersonal as well as interpersonal guilt experiences with
others online. Study 2 found that the main motivations of sharing
guilt (compared with the sharing of regret) were “venting”,
“clarification and meaning”, and “gaining advice”. Study 3 found
that people were more likely to share experiences of interpersonal
guilt and more likely to keep experiences of intrapersonal guilt to
themselves. Together, these studies contribute to the
understanding of the social sharing of the emotion guilt.