Dear Ionut,

I do not think that guilt and regret should be seen as synonyms? When guilt is the case we feel bad and unhappy for doing something wrong, for example, to steal from someone. As I see it, regret does not imply a sense of guilt. When regret is the case one recognizes that one did something wrong, laments for doing it, without feeling bad or unhappy for having done the wrong thing at hand.

In other words, regret involves only or mainly a cognitive component (e.g, " I know that I did something wrong"). In contradistinction, guilt involves a cognitive component (" I know that I did a misdeed"), but also an emotional and moral component ("I feel bad and unhappy for doing something wrong"),

If you perform a Googe search, you will find a huge literature on both guilt and regret.

KInd words,

Orlando

Phenomenologically speaking, there are two states of feeling which possess a large area of their own meaning, but which overlap borderline in the negativity of feeling. Regretting don't need culpable conduct on the part of a person as a precondition, often it hat nothing to do with guilt at all, but certainly one wants to undo guilt if one has caused it through a certain action, because one regrets this action.

Dear Michael,

I do not think that the main difference between guilt and regret is that the former has to do with interpersonal situatons, and the latter with intrapersonal situations. Note that you also say that regret is felt in both situations of interpersonal harm and intrapersonal harm. Guilty can also be felt in situations of interpersonal harm. As I psychologist, I know of people who feel guilty because of intrapersonal harm.The case of people who made failed suicidal attempts is a telling example. They may regret such attempts without feeling guilt, So, I keep on thinking that to feel guilt is to experience a moral emotion or the experience of having done something wrong. On the contrary, I can regret something I did (e.g., to chose a job instead of another), without experiencing guilt.

Kind regards.

Orlando

I think guilt, regret and shame are an interesting triad, and subjectively each exhibits somewhat different cognitive and affective states. These states maybe alien to those with certain personality disorders, such as those in the "wild" cluster. Attached is my take on the value of shame and SUD.

Rich

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

Voltaire

"It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”

Voltaire,

"There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”

Sabaa Tahir

"No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.”

Stefan Zweig,

“I wish I could say I felt guilty for what I did. I don't.”

Veronica Roth,

"I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.”

Rosamund Lupton

"Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.”

Ernest Becker

"Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience."

Tom Hodgkinson

Guilt -- if there was any guilt -- spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything. . . . Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.”

Philip K. Dick

“There was more than one type of guilt. You might do something horrible that you later regretted. But you could also feel guilty for something you'd not done!”

Joseph Delaney,

I regret ....

The phenomenology of regret is also rich in nuances, expressions and emotions. It has - in itself - nothing to do with guilt.

Dear Ellen

How can we feel guilt without having done anything? This seems impossible to be. Guilt is generally the case when we did something wrong and feel guilt because of this. There is amassing evidence in the literature in the so called happy/unhappy victimizer phenomenon that shows that children as young as 4, fell guilt after, for example, their misdeeds. To feel guilt after doing someting wrong is a moral emotion. This does not happen, for example, in psychopaths because they have a very low level of moral development. By its very nature, to feel guilt is to feel guilty of having done something that one's moral conscience jugde it to be wrong.

Why do you say that regret comes from our heart and guilt from our mind? As I see it, it is people as a whole and immersed in a socio-cultural context, not their minds/hearts/brains who feel guilt for having done something they judge to be wrong (e.g., to steal from another) or regret to have followed a certain course of action instead of other one (to have had a holiday in September instead of July) and feel no guilt because of that choice.

Best regards,

Orlando

"If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”

José Saramago,

“We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.”

Pittacus Lore,

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”

Arthur Miller, T

"Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

Katherine Mansfield

Orlando M Lourenço

Dear Orlando, you wrote: "How can we feel guilt without having done anything? This seems impossible to be." But this is the basic statement of the (Catholic and Protestant church): Since the Since the theology of Augustine (going back to Paul - not to Jesus!) man is born guilty, and when the baby or toddler suffers death, it must be baptized before because baptism takes away from man the guilt transmitted by the act of procreation in the fetus. This is the teaching of the Church, even if I do not believe in it myself. All men are guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve - so the Church says. A "normal" situation for believers. Every mass, every service begins with the sentence Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy on you. He is guilty from the beginning, although he has done nothing. This is what the church dogmatic says.

Dear Hein,

The idea that man is born guilty is a strange idea to me. Even so, according to the Bible all men come from Adan and Eve and they did somethind wrong. So, at least implicitly, man is born guilt of the sin of Adam and Even. I do not believe either than a newborn is guilty when s/he is born,

KInd regards,

Orlando

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

Sydney J. Harris

"Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling the present.

Movie Quote

"Hurting people you love is the heaviest kind of regret.”

Charlotte Eriksson

"The critical question about regret is whether experience led to growth and new learning. Some people seem to keep on making the same mistakes, while others at least make new ones. Regret and remorse can be either paralyzing or inspiring"

Mary Catherine Bateson

“I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice...”

China Miéville,

"Any thoughts of guilt, any feelings of regret, had faded. The desert had baked them out.”

Stephen King,

You can endure different forms of guilt, e.g. survival guilt when your fellow mates died, but you still live. Regret is denoted by the color "lila" because it is a mixture of the blue heaven and the red hell. Regret you have when you violated your moral standards. You were in heaven for 5 min, got pregnant, aborted the fetus or you live with the child and regret you five blue minutes and live your red life.

I always find it very fruitful for discussion when such a question is asked. It asks for equality and difference between guilt and regret. Both phenomena are not identical or partially identical.

Guilt occurs much more frequently, without this guilt being regretted.

Regrets can be felt in many life situations without this feeling having anything to do with guilt.

But often guilt and regret in everyday life are in a social context. Who has become guilty towards another (for what reason this happened allows a wealth of possibilities!), expresses one's own regret.

interesting article on guilt and regret

Article Guilt and regret: The determining role of interpersonal and ...

and shame?

Jale_Minibas-Poussard

Thank you for pointing me to the study. I don't think it's very happy to provide a link to any text that examines anything without doing so with your own comment or thesis.

With regard to this study, it must be said that, under very specific circumstances, in a very specific situation, it gives an answer. The question of our RG-discussion is much more open and allows for completely different relationships between guilt and regret, namely that no direct connection is established between the two variables.

Above all, it must be borne in mind: A crucial third parameter of this empirical study is HARM. Without specifying the conditions under which such a study is conducted, the discussion can only be narrowed or confused. Of course, this is an interesting study, but it presupposes a very special constellation of conditions - and only if these conditions are mentioned are the results valid.