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Someone can feel guilty about what they have done or failed to do, whether their choice harmed someone or not.

Guilt can help prevent harm to others but can be counterproductive when undeserved, obsessive, or excessive.

Coping with guilt can motivate personal growth, prosocial behavior, and the search for meaning and purpose.

Guilt may be the most unpopular emotion. If you feel guilty from time to time, you’re not alone. It is not limited to criminal, cruel, or extreme behaviors. Guilt is felt in some way and to some degree by people throughout the world and throughout the lifespan.

A core element in human experience, guilt is a surprisingly complicated emotion. Theorists have distinguished among types of guilt. Guilt can be objective when a person violates an accepted rule or law or subjective when someone violates their own personal moral code. One can feel guilty about something they have done or failed to do, whether their behavior harmed another or not. Survivor’s guilt, for example, can be directed inward toward oneself, in contrast to situations in which action or inaction resulted in another’s suffering. Someone can feel guilty over a false memory or an event they remember inaccurately.

What if there were no guilt?

One of the most important distinctions is between adaptive and maladaptive guilt. Is guilt useless at best and harmful at worst? Can any good come from guilt? Thinking about the helpful or harmful consequences of guilt raises the question of whether guilt serves a psychological, emotional, or social purpose.

Imagine if guilt did not exist? Does the absence of guilt necessarily indicate innocence? Imagine a perfect world where there would be no need for guilt. But we are not in a perfect world. In our imperfect world, imagine a person who never feels guilt, not because they are perfectly innocent, but because they do not, will not, or cannot feel guilt. They may not be capable or willing to feel remorse.

Research suggests that only a very small portion of the population possesses such a trait—individuals who display behaviors and traits characteristic of antisocial........

© Psychology Today