People Who Often Struggle With This Uncomfortable Emotion Are More Trustworthy Than Everyone Else, Says Study
These are the people you want to share all your secrets with.
Liza Summer | Pexels When we think of certain emotions like feeling embarrassed, uneasy, or even awkward, they're sometimes associated with insecurity. The same can be said for taking on feelings of guilt when you aren't actually guilty of doing anything wrong. Most people try to avoid these uncomfortable emotions, and while the feelings themselves might be unpleasant, a study actually found that when it comes to guilt, specifically, it might actually be the best judge of a person's character.
A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who often feel guilt may actually have a pretty good moral compass. Researchers deduced that to determine someone's trustworthiness, pay attention to how they handle feelings of guilt or regret.
People who often struggle with feeling guilt are more trustworthy.
Researchers set out to gauge what exactly makes one person more trustworthy than the next. In their 2018 paper, "Who is trustworthy? Predicting Trustworthy intentions and behavior," they found that the number one indicator of a person's trustworthiness was how often they are guilt-prone about something.
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"Guilt-proneness predicts trustworthiness better than a variety of other personality measures, and we identify sense of interpersonal responsibility as the underlying mechanism by both measuring it and manipulating it directly," the researchers wrote. "People who are high in guilt-proneness are more likely to be trustworthy than are individuals who are low in guilt-proneness, but they are not universally more generous."
Researchers explained that there's a difference between being guilt-prone and feeling guilty.
Emma Levine, researcher for the study and an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, explained, "Guilt is a discrete, negative, self-conscious emotion that is evoked in response to wrongdoing. People experience guilt as a result of committing a transgression, and that emotional experience elicits reparative behavior."
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She explained that guilt-proneness is the anticipation of guilt over doing something wrong, meaning most people try to avoid even doing that transgression in the first place because they don't want to have that feeling of guilt. When we think of guilt, it's usually associated with someone doing something wrong and feeling remorse over it, but feeling guilty about doing something wrong is a good thing.
It usually means that you won't be committing that transgression ever again. Levine pointed out that it's the people who never feel guilt over their actions that we should be wary of. Those who feel guilt-prone are usually the most trustworthy because they will try to avoid doing anything that would be seen as disrespectful to something or someone else.
Emotions that make us feel uncomfortable serve a purpose.
Sure, it would be great to feel happy and carefree all the time, but that's just not feasible. Instead, when negative emotions and feelings sneak up on us, we should remember that they serve a greater purpose than just, well, making us feel bad.
Emotions like guilt, shame, and embarrassment are there to really make us think about our actions. It might feel very uncomfortable to confront the whys when it comes to those feelings, but that's true growth.
Guilt makes us realize that we've done something wrong, and anticipating that guilt means that we don't want to hurt someone because of our actions. Guilt-prone people are just more likely to be empathetic and understanding, meaning that you would want them in your corner.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
