Primary emotional systems and interpersonal guilt: an empirical study

Guilt is a complex and distressing emotion that can be experienced in different situations. The majority of psychoanalytic authors focused on the intrapsychic origins of guilt, connecting it with perverse desires and unconscious wishes to hurt others. On the contrary, according to Control-Mastery Theory (CMT), guilt is interpersonal in its origin, its aim is pro-social and its function is adaptive. Guilt, however, can be pathogenic when it derives from pathogenic beliefs, is generalized and leads to distress and symptoms (O'Connor et al. 1997). Both evolutionary and moral psychology researches support the hypothesis of the pro-social origin of guilt and its adaptive function for individual and group evolution (Wilson, Wilson, 2008; Haidt, 2012; Tomasello 2016). The aim of this study is to investigate 1) the relation between guilt, assessed with the Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire-67 (IGQ-67; O'Connor et al. 1997) and the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale 15 self (IGRS-15-s; Gazzillo et al. 2017) and motivational systems assessed with the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale (ANPS; Davis, Panksepp, 2003) and 2) the relation between guilt and well-being assessed with Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI; Grossi et al. 2002) in a sample of 600 subjects. The first step of the study is the Italian validation of IGQ-67 and IGRS-15-s, where the factor structure differentiates interpersonal guilt (survivor, separation and omnipotent) from self-hate guilt. The second step investigates the relation between guilt and the motivational systems. The third step investigates the relation between guilt and well-being. Preliminary analysis show a positive and significant relation between interpersonal guilt and care and attachment system, as well as between self-hate guilt and panic-grief system and a negative and significant relation between guilt and well-being. These results confirm the hypothesis that guilt, as interpersonal emotion, is primarily related to pro-social motivations.