Weighed Down by Guilt: Research Shows It's More Than a Metaphor

"Guilt-inducing memories lead to increased reports of weight."

Lots of people say they do. They're "carrying guilt" or "weighed down by guilt." Are these just expressions, or is there something more to these metaphors?

Princeton researcher Martin Day and Ramona Bobocel, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, recently published the results of a series of studies that begin to offer answers to that question.

In an article titled "The Weight of a Guilty Conscience: Subjective Body Weight as an Embodiment of Guilt" in the journal PLOS ONE, Day and Bobocel find evidence that the emotional experience of guilt can be grounded in subjective bodily sensation.

Day, a postdoctoral research associate at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Bobocel discuss their findings and how they can contribute to the broader understanding of how humans perceive guilt:

"Embodied cognition is an emerging field in psychology that examines how our thoughts and emotions interact with our bodies to guide behavior. Guilt is important because it plays a role in regulating our moral behavior. It can help us correct our mistakes and prevent future wrongdoing. Of course, people know that guilt feels unpleasant and is sometimes associated with feelings of tension and regret. However, we know less about the broad nature of guilt -- such as how it interacts with the body and our beliefs about the body.

"People often say guilt is like a 'weight on one's conscience,' and we examined whether guilt is actually embodied as a sensation of weight.

In a series of studies we asked students and members of the public to recall a time that they did something unethical. People recalled a variety of wrongdoings, such as lying, stealing or cheating. Afterward, in a separate task, we asked them to rate their subjective feeling of their own body weight as compared to their average. That is, did they feel less weight than usual, about the same weight, or more weight? We compared these responses to participants in control conditions who recalled an ethical memory, a memory of someone else's unethical actions or who were not asked to recall a memory.

"We found that recalling personal unethical acts led participants to report increased subjective body weight as compared to recalling ethical acts, unethical acts of others or no recall. We also found that this increased sense of weight was related to participants' heightened feelings of guilt, and not other negative emotions, such as sadness or disgust.  Ethical deeds were rated just as important as unethical actions, but only unethical, guilt-inducing memories led to increased reports of weight.

"In a final study we also explored a perceptual consequence of the weight of guilt. Using the same materials, we tested whether recall of unethical memories would affect perceived effort to complete a variety of helping behaviors as compared to a control condition. Importantly, some of these behaviors involved physical effort, such as carrying groceries upstairs for someone, whereas other behaviors did not, such as giving someone spare change. We found no differences between conditions for the perceived effort of the nonphysical actions.

However, those who recalled unethical memories, which can be accompanied by sensations of weight, perceived the physical behaviors to involve even greater effort to complete compared to ratings provided by those in a control condition.

"Overall, it was exciting to find these patterns of results, which are consistent with an embodied theory of emotion. However, this is still relatively new research, and we are still exploring how to more fully characterize the experience of guilt. There are also very recent and complementary findings on this topic from independent research labs. For example, simulating the experience of the weight of guilt, such as with a heavy backpack, seems to be tied to regulating moral behavior. Such results are encouraging, and hopefully this emerging line of research will lead us to a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of guilt."
*  *  *  *  *
For more on character development, click on the image below:


Story Source: Martin V. Day, D. Ramona Bobocel. The Weight of a Guilty Conscience: Subjective Body Weight as an Embodiment of Guilt. PLoS ONE, 2013

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Workout supplements: An emerging eating disorder in men?

Image
therewontbeanydoves.wordpress.com When developing a fictional character, you may not think about the character using large amounts of over-the-counter dietary supplements.  Especially a man who uses large amounts of workout supplements. While there has been widespread publicity on the dangers of the non-prescribed use of anabolic steroids, not much is said about legal, over-the-counter supplements.  Are there risks?  And if so, what are they?  There are several things the writer should consider. Supplement use is becoming an eating disorder with many men who use them to prepare for and recover from a workout. There is growing evidence of a link between muscle-building supplements and testicular cancer. There is evidence that over-the counter medications and supplements are the most common causes of drug-induced liver failure (a rare event, but still a risk.)  There is even evidence that, “certain popular herbal and dietary supplements can also ...
Read more

Remember faces but not names? You got it wrong.

Image
Source:   Daily Excelsior So, you think you're good at remembering faces, but terrible with names? New research has revealed we are actually better at remembering names than faces The cringe-worthy experience of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name leads many of us to believe we are terrible with names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. With the Christmas party season fast approaching, there will be plenty of opportunity to re-live the familiar, and excruciatingly-awkward, social situation of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name. This cringe-worthy experience leads many of us to believe we are terrible at remembering names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. The authors of the study, from the University of York, suggest that when we castigate ourselves f...
Read more

Children's drawings during abuse investigations

Image
Source:  rutherfordcountytn.gov I llustrations by children can be a critical tool in forensic investigations of child abuse. A recent study compared the results when child abuse victims were offered the opportunity to draw during questioning with results when victims were not offered this opportunity. "The act of drawing was not only an empowering experience for these children," said Dr. Katz. "We also found it to be forensically more effective in eliciting richer testimonies in child abuse cases. We had no idea the gap would be so great between those who drew and those who weren't given this option." A chance to express themselves Some 125 alleged child victims of sexual abuse were randomly selected for the field study. The children, aged 5-14, were questioned by nine well-trained forensic interviewers about a single occurrence of alleged sexual abuse. The children were divided into two sets -- a control group, questioned and allowed to rest during t...
Read more

M.I.T. Research Explains How Will Rogers Observation Works

Image
Finally it appears that MIT has gotten involved in proving Will's syllogism, "There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." Read his statement carefully.   ONE learns by reading.   A FEW who learn by observation. Then there's the rest of us. The reason for this, it turns out, is a special circuit in the brain that you or I need to have a functioning version of to actually learn by observing others.  Based on how we all behave, it is a circuit most of us must be missing.   Or perhaps it shorted out the first time we peed on an electric fence and it has yet to grow back.   *  *  *  *  * Brain circuit helps us learn by watching others Scientists pinpoint neural interactions that are necessary for observational learning Researchers have identified a brain circuit requir...
Read more

Unhappy in a relationship? Why do you stay?

Image
Source:   Power of Positivity A story that may effect the development of your romantic comedies.  Why do people stay in unhappy relationships?  Simply put, it's concern for the partner of the unhappy person. This research doesn't offer solutions to this situation, but does help our understanding of why people behave the way they do. NOTE:  Within five minutes this post had 16 hits, the fastest hit rate of any story I've posted.  Might say something of how people feel. Here's the story: *  *  *  *  * When you are unhappy in a relationship, why do you stay?  The answer may surprise you. Study that finds it's not just the investment of time, resources and emotion Why do people stay in unsatisfying romantic relationships? A new study suggests it may be because they view leaving as bad for their partner. The study, being published in the November 2018 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, e...
Read more