Guilt Proneness and Prosocial Behaviour Intentions across University Students: A Predictive Study

Abstract

“A dispositional tendency to experience negative self-conscious emotions following transgressions or failures to live up to one's own or others' standards is termed as guilt proneness” (Tangney et al., 2007). Guilt is usually seen in negative light and often labelled as uncomfortable and guilt proneness is labelled undesirable, but a common motivation for individuals to engage in prosocial behaviours is to manage the guilt in their lives. The deliberate actions individuals engage in, to benefit others or society as a whole, sometimes even at a cost to themselves are termed as prosocial behaviour intentions. These actions can include acts of kindness, cooperation, volunteering, sharing, donating, and helping others in need (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989). It was hypothesized that guilt proneness acts as a predictive factor for prosocial behaviour intentions in an individual. Guilt and Shame Proneness (GASP), developed by Cohen et al. (2011), and Prosocial Behavioural Intentions Scale (PBIS), developed by Baumsteiger & Siegel (2018) were used to measure guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour intentions, on a data set of 155 university students, and this study explored the relationship between these variables through simple linear regression and further, a fitted regression model was formulated. Inferential and descriptive statistical tests were used to study guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour intentions across various demographic variables. The findings of this study indicate that guilt proneness acts as significant predictor of prosocial behaviour intentions and there were statistically significant differences in the mean scores of guilt proneness across age groups and annual household incomes. These results are discussed along with limitations of the study and the scope for future research.