ABSTRACT
Guilt is a moral and self-conscious emotion experienced when individuals or their social groups violate moral standards. In this chapter, we focus on four tasks. First, we describe the emotional experience of guilt. By doing so, we discuss the distinction between personal guilt and collective guilt. People are more likely to experience guilt when they accept responsibility for illegitimate harms caused by themselves as individuals (personal guilt) or caused by their social groups (collective guilt). Second, we explore the motivational and behavioural consequences of personal and collective guilt for environmentally sustainable behaviours. Throughout the chapter, we examine how both personal and collective guilt are related to climate change mitigation behaviours. We also contrast these results with other emotions such as shame, anger, and pride and discuss how these emotions are related to different kinds of behaviours. Third, we consider four factors that moderate levels of guilt feelings: ingroup identification, responsibility acceptance, justification, and efficacy. As these factors are traditionally addressed in intragroup and intergroup contexts, we reflect how they may also affect guilt and sustainable behaviour relationships. Fourth, and finally, we outline the limitations of existing work on personal and collective guilt and consider possible directions for future research. We offer five recommendations to strengthen future guilt research.
