I have done research and published articles on the distinctions between shame and guilt, as well as responses / coping / emotion-regulation.  I think people make too much of the distinction.  I view shame as an evolutionary adaptation.  I view guilt as a human-defined state that may be accompanied by a variety of emotions: distress/empathy (over consequences to others); fear (of punishment); joy/excitement (guilty pleasures); and usually shame (if I did a "bad thing", you probably view me as less worthy).  As an evolutionary adaptation, I don't believe shame requires any sense of responsibility, for example shame over some bodily feature (weight, hair, defects).  Shame only requires the perception that others "devalue" you, meaning think of you as less than how you would like to be perceived.

Guilt or shame if any if it touches with our conscious mind , our mind & brain may not prefer to remain silence in this regards.Both are certainly negative traits & elements which quite good human beings have to undergo .

In the above line your mind & brain my not tune with the feeling of sense of responsibility ,In the said negative traits it is desirable that human beings should carry out their own introspection in right mode so as to avoid .Such traits of our mind for a happy worthy life.

This is my personal opinion 

I think that guilt recognizes they have done something wrong and wants to put it right.

Shame just wants to hide and ignore what went wrong or what did not go as expected..or what was mocked, disappear...

So in my view guilt is more active.

I hope this helps, warm regards

I was researching the question from a different angle. For someone to commit horrible acts and be confronted with them, accept them  and progress more positively  requires tremendous  effort...or they  will reject the guilt, harden and look away, because it is too much to handle and they  prefer to "forget". I found an interesting article by Bas  Von Stokkom on this subject.  http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/136248060200600306

Food for thought,  

Shame and guilt are social emotions. You can be aware of being judged but not understand why or for what. Shame and guilt are very different emotions, guilt being behavior oriented, while shame is person oriented. A person can feel shame but no guilt and vice versa, or they can feel both. 

Also I don't think its so black and white. You can carry the guilt  for years and then address it in therapy one day. I am not sure it is an entirely conscious choice either. Someone who is sensitive to shame and guilt might automatically react with denial, versus the other person who is capable of being more clear headed. Moreover, people who experience pathological shame (like people with narcissistic personality disorder) live with it every day and because of such sensitivity to judgement can come off as cold harsh and selfish. I think its a spectrum and accountability is a separate action. 

Guilt would seem more related to a sense of responsibility for one's actions. You might feel ashamed in a situation where you believed you had responsibility, and guilt and shame often occur together, but you can also feel shame simply for feeling (or thinking that others perceive you as) different, inferior, or inadequate, or in some other way rejecting you.

Guilt and shame are different though they often occur together. They serve different evolutionary functions.

Guilt makes you feel uneasy about what you did (or didn't do) and makes you want to do it differently, if you were in a similar situation again. A person may realize that his excessive drinking in the past led to the neglect of his children. He would feel guilty about it. You could feel guilty even if no one was ever going to find out what you did. As an example, if you damaged someone's car while pulling into a parking space but decided not to leave a note. No one saw you but you might still feel guilty about it. 

Shame is more other oriented. It makes you feel uneasy about how others perceive you, if you are found by them to be unreliable, unfair, incompetent etc.  The examples above could make you feel ashamed if others found out.

But shame can arise, even when we don't feel guilty. A former addict is proud of his decade long sobriety but does not talk about this at his workplace because he feels ashamed. I might move to California and make friends with supporters of Golden State Warriors who challenge my loyalties if I support Cavs. Now I would never feel guilty about supporting the Cavs, but repeatedly having my loyalties questioned might make me hide this fact from new people because it feels shameful to support the Cavs while living in CA. 

I have done research and published articles on the distinctions between shame and guilt, as well as responses / coping / emotion-regulation.  I think people make too much of the distinction.  I view shame as an evolutionary adaptation.  I view guilt as a human-defined state that may be accompanied by a variety of emotions: distress/empathy (over consequences to others); fear (of punishment); joy/excitement (guilty pleasures); and usually shame (if I did a "bad thing", you probably view me as less worthy).  As an evolutionary adaptation, I don't believe shame requires any sense of responsibility, for example shame over some bodily feature (weight, hair, defects).  Shame only requires the perception that others "devalue" you, meaning think of you as less than how you would like to be perceived.

I agree with prof. Elison that people make too much of the distinction between shame and guilt.

Prof. Elison writes that "Shame only requires the perception that others "devalue" you, meaning think of you as less than how you would like to be perceived."

I would add that this condition may be necessary, but not sufficient for shame. The perceived opinion of 'others' (in whatever form they come: real or imagined, concrete or generalized) needs to have some epistemic weight as well. In other words, we will not feel ashamed unless the (real or imagined) devaluation by others also impacts the way we see ourselves (that is, our own private self-evaluation). We may have little control over this process. Some people have the power to influence the way we see ourselves (and thus to induce shame in us), whether we want it or not.

In sum, while many authors emphasize either the 'social' element (perceived devaluation) or the 'private' element (a negative self-evaluation), I strongly believe that both elements are intrinsically connected in shame.

Thanks Arne.  Sounds like we are largely in agreement.  I agree that one must *care* about others evaluations and that is included in my statement "Shame only requires the perception that others 'devalue' you, meaning think of you as less than how you would like to be perceived."  So, I want you to like me, but I don't agree with your reason for devaluing me (e.g., eating meat, swearing), should still result in shame.  However, I don't believe I have to accept your devaluation, again think of eating meat.  If I do agree, then the shame should be more intense. 

Thank you for your response Jeff. Our disagreement may be a matter of degree, and it may also result from the different underlying emotion theories we use.

For me it is not sufficient to simply "care" about others' evaluations. They also need to impact my self-assessment. More specifically, in shame, I am forced to "accept" the devaluation of the other (I cannot escape it, as Levinas so beautifully described), although I would of course prefer to have it otherwise. In case I care about the devaluation of the other, while refusing to accept it, the resulting emotion may be humiliation, but not shame.

However, I suspect that you, as an affect theorist, may answer that I am talking about one specific cognitive-affective variant of shame (one in which I accept the devaluation), whereas you are talking about shame as a single affect underlying different cognitive-affective variants (including those in which I accept the devaluation, but also others in which I do not such as humiliation).  

Curious to hear your thoughts !