Guilt enhances the sense of control and drives risky judgments.

Abstract

In the present studies, we investigate the hypothesis that guilt influences risk taking by enhancing one's sense of control. Across multiple inductions of guilt, we demonstrate that experimentally induced guilt enhances optimism about risks for the self (Study 1), preferences for gambles versus guaranteed payoffs (Studies 2, 4, and 6), and the likelihood that one will engage in risk-taking behaviors (Study 5). In addition, we demonstrate that guilt enhances the sense of control over uncontrollable events, an illusory control (Studies 3, 4, and 5), and found that a model with illusory control as a mediator is consistent with the data (Studies 5 and 6). We also found that a model with feelings of guilt as a mediator but not generalized negative affect fits the data (Study 4). Finally, we examined the relative explanatory power of different appraisals and found that appraisals of illusory control best explain the influence of guilt on risk taking (Study 6). These results provide the first empirical demonstration of the influence of guilt on sense of control and risk taking, extend previous theorizing on guilt, and more generally contribute to the understanding of how specific emotions influence cognition and behavior.

Guilt Dynamics: Consequences of Temporally Separating Decisions and Actions

“…Thus, guilt is a "self-caused" emotion resulting from a cognitive appraisal regarding one's own actions, and is similar in this respect to pride or shame (Roseman 1984). In fact, the link between guilt and personal responsibility is so strong that merely activating the emotion of guilt can enhance feelings of personal control over unrelated, uncontrollable events (Kouchaki, Oveis, and Gino 2014). Guilt is also different in this manner from other-caused emotions, such as anger, which arise following attributions about the actions of other people (Neumann 2000), and from externally caused emotions, such as fear (Roseman 1984), which arise when a focal event is caused by circumstances outside one's control (though certainly, fear may also follow the actions of other people).…”

Negative incidental emotions augment fairness sensitivity

“…Notably, to our knowledge, previous studies to date have all adopted a between-subjects design to study the impact of incidental emotion on decision-making. That is, participants are first induced to immerse in a specific enduring mood by watching film clips, reading autobiographical stories, or even observing other’s feelings, and then conduct different cognitive tasks 18 22 23 . However, it is not clear whether transient displayed by emotional cues (i.e., emotional faces) could modulate decision processes during completion of cognitive tasks.…”

<p>The Cost of Impression Management to Life Satisfaction: Sense of Control and Loneliness as Mediators</p>

“…So we add to the literature documenting the antecedents and consequences of sense of control. 80,81 Third, loneliness is regarded as the passive influence of social events, such as social exclusion. 54 But we propose that impression management, as a proactive behavior, can also make one lonely.…”