Deontological and altruistic guilt: Evidence for distinct neurobiological substrates

Abstract

The feeling of guilt is a complex mental state underlying several human behaviors in both private and social life. From a psychological and evolutionary viewpoint, guilt is an emotional and cognitive function, characterized by prosocial sentiments, entailing specific moral believes, which can be predominantly driven by inner values (deontological guilt) or by more interpersonal situations (altruistic guilt). The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a distinct neurobiological substrate for these two expressions of guilt in healthy individuals. We first run two behavioral studies, recruiting a sample of 72 healthy volunteers, to validate a set of stimuli selectively evoking deontological and altruistic guilt, or basic control emotions (i.e., anger and sadness). Similar stimuli were reproduced in a event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm, to investigate the neural correlates of the same emotions, in a new sample of 22 healthy volunteers. We show that guilty emotions, compared to anger and sadness, activate specific brain areas (i.e., cingulate gyrus and medial frontal cortex) and that different neuronal networks are involved in each specific kind of guilt, with the insula selectively responding to deontological guilt stimuli. This study provides evidence for the existence of distinct neural circuits involved in different guilty feelings. This complex emotion might account for normal individual attitudes and deviant social behaviors. Moreover, an abnormal processing of specific guilt feelings might account for some psychopathological manifestation, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.

Anterior Insula Volume and Guilt

“…69,70 In adults, deontological guilt and altruistic guilt activate different neural systems. 42,71 Altruistic guilt is often related to depression in adolescents and adults, 31,72 whereas deontological guilt is thought to have a stronger role in other disorders such as obsessive-compulsive, eating, and anxiety disorders. 66 …”

Comprehensive neural networks for guilty feelings in young adults

“…Functional neuroimaging studies have focused on imagining the event in which they felt the most guilt that they had ever experienced (Shin et al, 2000), intentionally or accidentally (Berthoz et al, 2006), gender difference (Michl et al, 2014), interpersonal (altruistic) guilt (Yu et al, 2014) or deontological guilt (Basile et al, 2011), compensation that might be stimulated by guilt (Yu et al, 2014), differences between guilty and embarrassment (Takahashi et al, 2004), compassion (Zahn et al, 2009a), pride (Zahn et al, 2009b), shame (Wagner et al, 2011) (Michl et al, 2014), and sadness (Wagner et al, 2011). In these functional studies, feelings of guilt were related to activation of the superior temporal/ inferior parietal lobule (IPL) including the superior temporal sulcus (STS) (Takahashi et al, 2004;Michl et al, 2014), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) (Zahn et al, 2009b;Morey et al, 2012), insula (Shin et al, 2000;Yu et al, 2014;Michl et al, 2014), amygdala, and subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) (Zahn et al, 2009a(Zahn et al, ,b, 2013.…”

Neural Foundation of Morality

“…The subgenual cingulate cortex (including the posteriorly adjacent septal area in some studies) was found to be selectively activated for guilt compared with indignation toward others, but only when modeling individual variability in empathic concern (Zahn et al, 2009a), or guilt-proneness (Zahn et al, 2009c;Green et al, 2012). Interestingly, subgenual cingulate activations for guilt were independently reproduced (Morey et al, 2012;Basile et al, 2011). In contrast, another fMRI study found right lateral orbitofrontal and posterior dorsomedial prefrontal activations to be selective for guilt compared with shame and sadness (Wagner et al, 2011).…”

“…The experience of guilt has been associated with activations of the dorsal cingulate in an early study (Shin et al, 2000), but this did not use an emotional control condition and does therefore not allow conclusions about guilt selectivity. Frontopolar activations were found most reproducibly for guilt while using different control conditions (other-critical feelings such as indignation Zahn et al, 2009c); anger toward self (Kedia et al, 2008); embarrassment (Takahashi et al, 2004); regret with no consequences for others (Morey et al, 2012); and sadness (Basile et al, 2011)). The subgenual cingulate cortex (including the posteriorly adjacent septal area in some studies) was found to be selectively activated for guilt compared with indignation toward others, but only when modeling individual variability in empathic concern (Zahn et al, 2009a), or guilt-proneness (Zahn et al, 2009c;Green et al, 2012).…”