Guilt and Shame: Living Apologetically Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Shame is a feeling you experience when you feel disgraced or dishonored. It is an emotion that afflicts. Guilt is an emotion you experience when you violate your own values. It belongs to the perpetrator of the action. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that participants – who related personal experiences of shame, guilt and embarrassment – were their own “harshest critics” when evaluating such events, judging themselves more negatively than others. Shame, while it often occurred in social settings, also occurred when participants were alone. Furthermore, researchers found that shame, guilt and embarrassment are distinct emotions, with embarrassment on the distant periphery. Research in frontotemporal dementia shows that the origins of shame may be in the right pregenual anterior cingulate, which is damaged in this type of dementia. Other research suggests this brain region may play some role in embarrassment and possibly shame as well. Learn how these two destructive emotions can run and ruin your life!