A new study published in the Spanish Journal of Psychology indicates that in the West women experience much more guilt than men, and the primary reason is not that women feel too much guilt, but rather that many males feel too little. The authors say more needs to be done to "reduce the trend towards anxious-aggressive guilt among women and to strengthen interpersonal sensitivity among men."

The research was carried out using a sample from three age groups (156 teenagers, 96 young people and 108 adults) equally divided between males and females. The team of psychologists asked them what situations most often caused them to feel guilt. They also carried out interpersonal sensitivity tests – the Davis Empathetic Concern Scale, and a questionnaire on Interpersonal Guilt, created purposely for this study.

When it came to comparing the measurements of intensity of habitual guilt of these groups, the researchers saw that this score was significantly higher for women, in all three age groups. "This difference is particularly stark in the 40-50-year-old age group", lead author Itziar Etxebarria explains.

The data also suggest that female teenagers and young women have higher scores than males of the same age. "This is caused by certain educational practices, which demand more of females, and which are sometimes still in use despite belief to the contrary," the researchers claim.

The study also revealed gender differences – similar to those noted for habitual guilt – in the two indices of interpersonal sensitivity, although in the 40-50 age bracket the men's levels came closer to women's.

The most common forms of guilt are related to situations where we cause harm to others. Stemming from this, it is normal that this arouses feelings of empathy for the people we may have harmed, which tend to turn into feelings of guilt when we recognize that we are responsible for their suffering.

Previous research indicates that people's experiences of guilt can be separated into two components – empathetic (sorrow for the person we have harmed in some way) and anxious-aggressive (unease and contained aggression).

The anxious-aggressive kind of guilt is more common in people who have been raised in a more blame-imposing environment, and who are governed by stricter rules about behavior in general and aggression in particular. "It seems obvious that this component will be more intense among women, and especially in older women", says Etxebarria.

The greater presence of this component among women, above all those aged between 40 and 50, explains the marked differences in the intensity of habitual guilt in this age group, "just at the age when males move towards females in the two indices of interpersonal sensitivity analysed," she explains.









Citation: I. Etxebarria  et al., 'Intensity of habitual guilt in men and women: Differences in interpersonal sensitivity and the tendency towards anxious-aggressive guilt', The Spanish Journal of Psychology, November 2009, 12(2), 540-554