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Stewart CA, Mitchell DGV, MacDonald PA, Pasternak SH, Tremblay PF, Finger E. The psychophysiology of guilt in healthy adults. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023:10.3758/s13415-023-01079-3. [PMID: 36964412 PMCID: PMC10400478 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01079-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/15/2023] [Indexed: 03/26/2023]
Abstract
Guilt is a negative emotion, elicited by realizing one has caused actual or perceived harm to another person. Anecdotally, guilt often is described as a visceral and physical experience. However, while the way that the body responds to and contributes to emotions is well known in basic emotions, little is known about the characteristics of guilt as generated by the autonomic nervous system. This study investigated the physiologic signature associated with guilt in adults with no history of psychological or autonomic disorder. Healthy adults completed a novel task, including an initial questionnaire about their habits and attitudes, followed by videos designed to elicit guilt, as well as the comparison emotions of amusement, disgust, sadness, pride, and neutral. During the video task, participants' swallowing rate, electrodermal activity, heart rate, respiration rate, and gastric activity rate were continuously recorded. Guilt was associated with alterations in gastric rhythms, electrodermal activity, and swallowing rate relative to some or all the comparison emotions. These findings suggest that there is a mixed pattern of sympathetic and parasympathetic activation during the experience of guilt. These results highlight potential therapeutic targets for modulation of guilt in neurologic and psychiatric disorders with deficient or elevated levels of guilt, such as frontotemporal dementia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chloe A Stewart
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond St, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada.
| | - Derek G V Mitchell
- Department of Psychiatry, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Penny A MacDonald
- The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Stephen H Pasternak
- Robarts Research Institute, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- Parkwood Institute Research Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, ON, Canada
| | - Paul F Tremblay
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Elizabeth Finger
- Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
- Parkwood Institute Research Program, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, ON, Canada
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Colasante T, Speidel R, Malti T. Kindhearted: Ethical guilt and ethical heart rate reactivity codevelop with aggression across childhood. Int J Psychophysiol 2022; 174:108-118. [PMID: 35182685 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.02.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2021] [Revised: 11/11/2021] [Accepted: 02/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Largely cross-sectional evidence indicates that ethical guilt is a robust predictor of childhood aggression. However, the underlying mechanisms of ethical guilt-in part assessed as ethical heart rate (HR) reactivity in the present study-are less clear, and longitudinal associations between ethical guilt, its underlying mechanisms, and aggression have not been explored. The present study used a multicohort longitudinal design to assess these constructs across early and middle childhood. At the beginning of the study and 2 years later, cohorts of 4- and 8-year-olds (ns = 150; N = 300) reported their guilt in response to an ethical transgression (i.e., pushing) and a nonethical transgression (i.e., breaking a classroom rule), and their HR was measured while they imagined committing these acts. Caregivers reported their child's aggression at each time point via questionnaire. Latent difference score models indicated that, regardless of cohort, children who increased in their ability to prioritize ethical guilt over 2 years were more likely to decrease in aggression over the same period. Moreover, children whose HR reactivity became more sensitive to ethical transgressions over time showed corresponding declines in aggression over time. Overall, these findings highlight the potential protective roles of children's capacities to react affectively and autonomically to the gravity of ethical transgressions across early and middle childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tyler Colasante
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy, University of Toronto, Canada.
| | - Ruth Speidel
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy, University of Toronto, Canada
| | - Tina Malti
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy, University of Toronto, Canada
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A process model linking physiological arousal and fear recognition to aggression via guilt in middle childhood. Dev Psychopathol 2020; 33:109-121. [PMID: 32103788 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579419001627] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Aggression coincides with emotional underarousal in childhood, but we still lack an understanding of how underarousal contributes to aggression. With an ethnically diverse sample of 8-year-olds (N = 150), we tested whether physiological underarousal and lower fear recognition were indirectly associated with heightened aggression through dampened guilt feelings. Caregivers rated children's aggressive behavior. We assessed children's skin conductance (SC) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) while they imagined transgressing norms and measured their fear recognition with a facial morph task. Children reported guilt or lack thereof after hypothetically transgressing. The interaction of decreasing SC and increasing RSA (i.e., physiological underarousal) and poor fear recognition were indirectly associated with higher aggression through their associations with lower guilt. Emotional underarousal may contribute to aggression by disrupting the normative development of guilt. We discuss strategies to improve social-emotional acuity and reduce aggression in children with blunted physiological arousal and fear recognition.
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Davis EL, Brooker RJ, Kahle S. Considering context in the developmental psychobiology of self‐regulation. Dev Psychobiol 2020; 62:423-435. [DOI: 10.1002/dev.21945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2018] [Revised: 11/22/2019] [Accepted: 11/29/2019] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth L. Davis
- Department of Psychology University of California, Riverside Riverside CA USA
| | | | - Sarah Kahle
- University of California, Davis Davis CA USA
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Zaccari V, Aceto M, Mancini F. A Systematic Review of Instruments to Assess Guilt in Children and Adolescents. Front Psychiatry 2020; 11:573488. [PMID: 33362597 PMCID: PMC7755888 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.573488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2020] [Accepted: 10/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Background: Guilt feelings have received considerable attention in past psychological theory and research. Several studies have been conducted that represent a range of views and propose various implications of guilt in children and adolescents. Variations in theoretical definitions of guilt, emphasizing a lack of measurement convergence, make it difficult to derive a comprehensive definition of the construct in childhood and adolescence. Research shows substantial variability in instruments used to measure guilt in children and adolescents. Purpose: The aim is to discuss existing contributions, illustrating the empirical validity of the available instruments used to measure guilt and identifying the nature of their theoretical backgrounds among children and adolescents. Methods: A systematic search was conducted using the following databases: PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed (all years up to February 19, 2020). Search terms were compiled into three concepts for all databases: "measure," "guilt," and "childhood/adolescence." In addition, a search was conducted to detect the gray literature. Results: After removing the duplicates, a total of 1,408 records were screened, resulting in the identification of 166 full-text articles to be further scrutinized. Upon closer examination, there was consensus that 148 of those studies met the study inclusion criteria or were not retrieved. Twenty-five studies were included in the quality assessment. The data were organized on three main categories: (1) interpersonal or prosocial guilt; (2) intrapunitive guilt or that referring to an excessive sense of responsibility; (3) not specifying a theoretical construct. A great heterogeneity in psychometric evaluations and substantial variability in guilt construct emerged. The construct most represented and supported by valid instruments was interpersonal or prosocial guilt. Analysis of the gray literature showed that some instruments were not immediately available to the clinical and scientific communities. Conclusions: The studies analyzed and selected for qualitative review employed various instruments to measure guilt. Results confirmed what is widely documented in the literature about substantial variability in instruments used to measure guilt. We argue the need to develop measures that assess currently overlooked dimensions of guilt and to provide further additional information about the psychometric proprieties of the available developed instruments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vittoria Zaccari
- Associazione Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva (APC - SPC), Rome, Italy.,Department of Human Sciences, Marconi University, Rome, Italy
| | - Marianna Aceto
- Associazione Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva (APC - SPC), Rome, Italy
| | - Francesco Mancini
- Associazione Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva (APC - SPC), Rome, Italy.,Department of Human Sciences, Marconi University, Rome, Italy
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