To meet the need for a situational measure of guilt, the Perceived Guilt Index, a self-report measure of experiential guilt, was developed. The index has two subscales which assess guilt as an affective state of the person at the moment (G-State) and as a generalized self-concept (G-Trait). Comprised of 11 adjectives empirically weighted to represent relatively evenly distributed intensity points along a guilt continuum and chosen because of their common semantic structure, the Perceived Guilt Index represents an attempt to quantify common verbal labels used to communicate the intensity of emotional relations to guilt. Construct validity studies were performed and strong support was found for the theory underlying the development of the instrument. Implications pertaining to future research with the Perceived Guilt Index are discussed.

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