Survivor guilt, submissive behaviour and evolutionary theory: The down‐side of winning in social comparison

O’Connor, Lynn E.; Berry, Jack W.; Weiss, Joseph; Schweitzer, Dina; Sevier, Mia

doi:10.1348/000711200160705

Cited by 51 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…Baumeister et al 26 indicated that the interpersonal nature of guilt was interpretable in the social science frameworks of symbolic interactionism, social learning theory, socialization theory, Sullivanian personality theory, and Heideggerian phenomenology. Similarly, O'Connor and colleagues 36 postulated that altruistic behavior between members of a social group was similar to survivor guilt as it related to concern for others and the promotion of sharing. They further stated that survivor guilt "promotes group cohesion, inhibits anti-social competition, and leads people to engage in altruistic behavior."…”

Section: Survivor Guilt In Social Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…26 Guilt can occur in the presence of isolation, but survivor guilt is always interpersonal in origin and function because it occurs in reference to a victim of some kind and plays an adaptive role in the maintenance of relationships between people. 28,36 The word process was also important to consider because it makes reference to survivor guilt in the form of a trajectory. This idea was implied by Wilson et al, 35 who noted that in an acute trauma model of survivor guilt, a person cycled between anxiety and depression, which subsided over time.…”

Section: Interpersonal Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Survivor Guilt

Hutson

Hall

Pack

2015

Advances in Nursing Science

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Survivor guilt, a concept associated with the interpersonal process of "surviving" harm while others do not, increasingly appears in nursing, medicine, and psychology literature. Paradoxically, the phenomenon is rarely defined and often poorly described. Combining Rodger's evolutionary concept analysis with a comprehensive literature review, we explain the attributes, antecedents, consequences, related concepts, and surrogate terms of survivor guilt. A new definition emerged from the evolving use of the concept in new contexts. Survivor guilt is a valid form of suffering for which effective interventions need to be developed. This analysis extends the concept, laying the foundation for comprehensive treatment strategies.

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Section: Survivor Guilt In Social Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Interpersonal Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survivor Guilt

Hutson

Hall

Pack

2015

Advances in Nursing Science

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“…Although this may be maladaptive for the individual with regard to group competition, altruistic individuals with high empathy-based guilt may have provided survival advantages in the competition between groups in our evolutionary history [19,29,30]. Empathy-based guilt and self-hate as measured on the IGQ-67 were associated with depressive symptoms and this association remained even when controlling for levels of shame [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proneness to Decreased Negative Emotions in Major Depressive Disorder when Blaming Others rather than Oneself

et al. 2012

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Background: One widespread view holds that vulnerability to major depressive disorder (MDD) is linked to overall increases in negative emotionality. In contrast, cognitive attribution theories emphasize the importance of blaming oneself rather than others for negative events. Thus far, the contrasting predictions of these models have not been directly compared. Following the attributional perspective, we tested the hypothesis that people with remitted MDD show no overall bias towards negative emotions, but a selective bias towards self-blaming emotions relative to those emotions associated with blaming others. Sampling and Methods: We compared a remitted MDD and a control group on a novel experimental test that allowed us to directly compare proneness to specific emotions associated with different types of self-blame (guilt, shame, self-contempt/disgust) and blame of others (other-indignation/anger, other-contempt/disgust) whilst controlling for negative valence and medication status, and excluding comorbidity. Results: In agreement with our hypothesis, individuals with remitted MDD exhibited an increased self-contempt bias (difference between contempt/disgust towards self and others) but no increased proneness to any other negative emotion or overall increases in perceived negative valence of stimuli. Moreover, the remitted MDD group exhibited reduced contempt/disgust towards others. Conclusions: Our results corroborate the prediction that vulnerability to MDD is associated with an imbalance of specific self- and other-blaming emotions rather than a general increase in negative emotions. Based on the composition of our sample, we speculate that self-contempt bias may be particularly characteristic of melancholic MDD subtypes and could be useful for stratification of depression in the future.

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“…Conversely, guilt may arise simply by observing one who is luckier than someone else, who has been unjustly penalized by chance (altruistic guilt). A traditional example of altruistic guilt is represented by air crash survivors, where empathy and feelings of sorrow might even lead to sacrifice oneself in the attempt to mitigate victim's suffering, even knowing others bad luck has occurred by chance (Baumeister, 2005;Hoffman, 1981;O'Connor et al, 2000;Weiss et al, 1986]. Altruistic guilt clearly differs from both ''kin selected'' and ''reciprocal'' altruistic behaviors, where individuals intentionally enter into a pact to exchange favours [Humphrey, 1997].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deontological and altruistic guilt: Evidence for distinct neurobiological substrates

Basile¹,

Mancini²,

Macaluso³

et al. 2011

Human Brain Mapping

106

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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.

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Survivor guilt, submissive behaviour and evolutionary theory: The down‐side of winning in social comparison

Cited by 51 publications

References 0 publications

Survivor Guilt

Survivor Guilt

Proneness to Decreased Negative Emotions in Major Depressive Disorder when Blaming Others rather than Oneself

Deontological and altruistic guilt: Evidence for distinct neurobiological substrates

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