In the popular imagination, of course, guilt still gets a bad rap. It is deeply uncomfortable — it’s the emotional equivalent of wearing a jacket weighted with stones. Yet this understanding is outdated. “There has been a kind of revival or a rethinking about what guilt is and what role guilt can serve,” says Amrisha Vaish, a psychology researcher at the University of Virginia, adding that this revival is part of a larger recognition that emotions aren’t binary — feelings that may be advantageous in one context may be harmful in another. Jealousy and anger, for example, may have evolved to alert us to important inequalities. Too much happiness can be destructive.
当然，在大众的想象中，负罪感仍然是个坏名声。这让人非常不舒服——这在情感上相当于穿着一件镶满石头的夹克。但这种理解已经过时。”弗吉尼亚大学的心理学研究人员阿姆利莎·瓦伊什说：“人们已经开始重新思考什么是负罪感，负罪感能起到什么样的作用。”他补充说，这种重新思考是人们更广泛认识到情绪不是二元的一部分——在一种情况下可能有利的情绪在另一种情况下可能有害。例如，嫉妒和愤怒可能已经演变成提醒我们注意重要的不平衡。太多的快乐可能是毁灭性的。
Unlike so-called basic emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger, guilt emerges a little later, in conjunction with a child’s growing grasp of social and moral norms. Children aren’t born knowing how to say “I’m sorry”; rather, they learn over time that such statements appease parents and friends — and their own consciences. This is why researchers generally regard so-called moral guilt, in the right amount, to be a good thing.
与悲伤、恐惧和愤怒等所谓的基本情绪不同，负罪感在孩子逐渐掌握社会和道德规范的同时出现得稍晚。孩子并不是天生就知道如何说“对不起”；相反，随着时间的推移，他们学会了这样的话安抚父母和朋友——以及他们自己的良心。这就是为什么研究人员普遍认为所谓的道德内疚，在适当的数额，是一件好事。
And quilt, by prompting us to think more deeply about our goodness, can encourage humans to make up for errors and fix relationships. Guilt, in other words, can help hold a cooperative species together. It is a kind of social glue.
通过促使我们更深入地思考我们的善良，可以鼓励人类弥补错误，修复关系。换句话说，负罪感可以帮助一个合作物种团结在一起。它是一种社会粘合剂。
Viewed in this light, guilt is an opportunity. Work by Tina Malti, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, suggests that guilt may compensate for an emotional deficiency. In a number of studies, Malti and others have shown that guilt and sympathy may represent different pathways to cooperation and sharing. Some Kids who are low in sympathy may make up for that shortfall by experiencing more guilt, which can rein in their nastier impulses. And vice versa : High sympathy can substitute for low guilt.
从这个角度来看，内疚是一个机会。多伦多大学心理学教授蒂娜·马尔蒂（Tina Malti）的研究表明，负罪感可以弥补情感上的缺陷。在一些研究中，马尔蒂和其他人已经表明，内疚和同情可能代表着不同的合作和分享途径。一些缺乏同情心的孩子可能会经历更多的内疚感来弥补这一不足，内疚感可以控制他们更坏的冲动。反之亦然：高同情可以代替低内疚。
In a 2014 study, for example, Malti looked at 244 children. Using caregiver assessments and the children’s self-observations, she rated each child’s overall sympathy level and his or her tendency to feel negative emotions after moral transgressions. Then the kids were handed chocolate coins, and given a chance to share them with an anonymous child. For the low-sympathy kids, how much they shared appeared to turn on how inclined they were to feel guilty. The guilt-prone ones share more, even though they hadn’t magically become more sympathetic to the other child’s deprivation.
例如，在2014年的一项研究中，马尔蒂观察了244名儿童。利用照顾者的评估和孩子的自我观察，她评估了每个孩子的整体同情水平，以及他或她在道德违规后感到负面情绪的倾向。然后孩子们拿到巧克力硬币，有机会和一个匿名的孩子分享。对于那些缺乏同情心的孩子来说，他们的分享程度似乎会影响他们感到内疚的倾向。那些容易内疚的孩子分享更多，尽管他们并没有神奇地对另一个孩子的剥夺变得更加同情。
“That’s good news,” Malti says, “We can be prosocial because we caused harm and we feel regret.”
“这是个好消息，”马尔蒂说，“我们可以亲社会，因为我们造成了伤害，我们感到后悔。”
0 条评论