The Impact of Guilt on Interpersonal Relationships

Abstract

People feel guilt when they harm others. Research on guilt has found its mixed effects on interpersonal relationships. The current dyadic study investigates the primary hypothesis that two facets of guilt expression: sharing repair motivations and elaborating on transgression details, have offsetting effects on outcomes through their influence on victim’s perceptions. Perpetrators described an incident in which they expressed guilt to a partner (victims), and both parties completed measures regarding the incident. Results suggest that perpetrators who feel guilty expressed more repair motivations and more wrongdoing, and victims’ perceptions of the incident were connected to personal and relational outcomes. However, victims and perpetrators did not agree on perpetrators’ expressions of wrongdoing or repair motivation, suggesting that guilt may often have weak or mixed effects because it is not always accurately detected. In addition, several moderators of the links between guilt, guilt expression, and victims’ perceptions of the conflict were identified.