New Delhi, Dec 19 (PTI) A study has found that the harm one causes another individual could have a stronger impact on guilt, while one’s sense of responsibility for causing the harm might more strongly
impact their feelings of shame.
The study, published in the journal eLife, also found that distinct brain regions were involved in guilt and shame-driven compensatory behaviour.
“Extensive studies have documented the psychological processes and neural activities related to our experiences of guilt and shame, but the cognitive antecedents — or preceding triggers — of these emotions and the neural mechanisms behind them remain unclear,” first author Ruida Zhu, an associate professor at the Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, China, said.
The researchers devised a ‘dots estimation game’ to look at how harm and responsibility evoke feelings of guilt and shame, and how the emotions drive compensatory behaviour.
In the game, there were five players: four deciders and one receiver. A picture of dots was presented on each decider’s computer screen. Each decider indicated whether the number of dots was more than or less than 20 based on their own estimation by pressing a corresponding button and was unaware of the estimations made by other deciders.
If a decider made an incorrect estimate, they would not receive a shock, but the ‘receiver’ would, whose intensity was randomly determined. Unknown to the participants, the deciders were accomplices, and the receiver was fictitious, the researchers said.
After each outcome, the participant decided how much financial compensation to give to the receiver.
The participant’s perception of harm caused on a scale of one to four was manipulated through the intensity of the electric shock, while the level of responsibility for causing that harm was manipulated by changing how many of the other deciders also estimated incorrectly, the team explained.
The participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning while engaging in the compensatory decision-making part of the game and also responded to a questionnaire on feelings of guilt and shame experienced, along with their perceived responsibility.
“Behaviorally, we found that harm had a stronger impact on guilt, whereas responsibility had a stronger impact on shame,” the authors wrote.
“Moreover, compared to shame, guilt exerted a greater effect on compensation,” they said.
Insights from the study also indicated that harm and responsibility are integrated in people in a manner that is consistent with responsibility diffusion, where one feels less responsibility in making a decision in a group setting, compared to when on their own, the researchers said.
The brain region ‘posterior insula’ — known to be involved in processing bodily sensations — was found to help process inequity in the game, and the ‘striatum’ in computing value.
An analysis of fMRI recordings showed guilt and shame-driven compensatory decisions recruited distinct neural activity. Shame-driven decisions in particular were more strongly linked to activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, a region known to help in cognitive control, the researchers said. PTI KRS KRS APL APL
