En se démarquant de la signification traditionnelle du concept de pardon – i.e. « actionmorale » – cette thèse appréhende le pardon en tant que source du temps éthique.Comme renonciation à l'effacement (Tilgung) de la culpabilité, la notion du pardondépasse les schémas conceptuels du discours phénoménologique sur le don. Signifiantune abstention du jugement moral, son sens est davantage celui de l'étymologie destermes allemands Verzeihen (pardon) et Verzicht (renonciation), et se distinguenotamment de la réconciliation synthétique. La difficulté d'une telle approche tient à lanécessité d'une reformulation du concept de temps : alors que le temps de la culpabilitérelève de la structure économique et chronologique de la succession continue des unitésde temps, le pardon temporalise l'intervention éthique en interrompant cet enchaînementcausal. Ainsi, il rend possible des actions éthiques originales et indépendantes d'uneculpabilité précédente.Il s'agit alors de repenser la temporalité du pardon à travers trois figures temporellesreconstruites à partir des auteurs suivants: 1. la critique du concept d’anticipation (F. Nietzsche) et le mouvement conceptuelde l’anticipation au sursis (H. Cohen, W. Benjamin)2. l’instant de l'indécision (M. Heidegger) et l’événement (V. Jankélévitch, J.Derrida)3. la simultanéité de la répétition et de l’altérité comme recommencement (E.Levinas)Enfin, cette recherche sur la temporalité du pardon révélera la difficulté d'unerenonciation au pardon en tant qu’action morale. Elle exigera une redéfinition du vivreensemble au-delà de l'exigence des jugements moraux et de la réconciliationsynthétique. / Departing from the traditional conception of forgiveness as moral action, this thesisconceives of forgiveness as a renunciation of the effacement of guilt and thus as thesource of ethical time.The idea of forgiveness as renunciation exceeds the conceptual schemes of thephenomenological discourse concerning the gift. Based on the etymology of theGerman words Verzeihen (“forgiveness”) and Verzicht (“renunciation”), forgiveness isdistinguished from synthetic reconciliation; it involves an abstention from moraljudgements. The challenge posed by this approach is the need to formulate a newconcept of time. The time of guilt and punishment is economic and chronological,structured as a linear succession of quantifiable units. Forgiveness, in contrast, can beseen as an ethical intervention within the structural unfolding of this causal chain,making it the prerequisite for original ethical acts that are independent from previousguilt.Therefore, this study examines the temporality of forgiveness, identifying three differenttemporal models based on works by the following authors: 1. the criticism of the concept of anticipation (F. Nietzsche) and the shift fromanticipation to postponement (H. Cohen, W. Benjamin);2. the instant of indecision (M. Heidegger) and the event (V. Jankélévitch, J.Derrida);3. the simultaneity of repetition and alterity, i.e. recommencement (E. Levinas).Finally, this study of the temporality of forgiveness leads to the challenge of renouncingforgiveness as a moral act. It necessitates a redefinition of living together asindependent of moral judgments and synthetic reconciliation.

abstract: Protectors who do harm are often punished more severely because their crime is perceived as a betrayal of trust. Two experiments test whether this will generalize to protectors who incur harm while serving in their protective role, and if not, whether collective guilt for the harm they suffered provides an explanation. Study 1 tested competing hypotheses that a veteran (versus civilian) with PTSD would be punished either more harshly because of the trust betrayal, or more leniently because of increased guilt about the harm the veteran suffered during war. Men and women were both more lenient toward a veteran (versus civilian) but this effect was mediated by collective guilt only among men. In Study 2, guilt inductions increased leniency among participants less likely to classify the veteran as an in-group member (women, low national identifiers), but not in those who are more likely to classify the veteran as an in-group member (men, high national identifiers), who were lenient without any guilt inductions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

abstract: As the world's resources face increasing pressure from a growing population, it is critical that psychologists understand the motivational processes that lead to cooperation or defection in the context of social dilemmas. Research has uncovered several key strategies for encouraging maintenance of these resources, however, one area that remains understudied is the effect various emotions may have on cooperation. Furthermore, it is important to consider the specific type of desired behavior: reduction of consumption of a shared resource, or increased contribution to a shared resource. The current study takes a step in this direction, examining the effects of two self-conscious emotions, guilt and pride, on behavior in two different kinds of social dilemmas. Guilt, a prosocial emotion that has been described as a "behavioral interrupt mechanism," is predicted to increase cooperation in both a social trap game and a public goods dilemma game. However, its effects should be strongest in the social trap game, in which the desired behavior is reduced consumption. Pride, an emotion that is conceptually related to the constructs of status and power, is predicted to motivate action in both domains, by increasing both consumption in the social trap game and contribution in the public goods dilemma game. Results partially support these predictions: Whereas guilt and pride both had the predicted effects on consumption in the social trap game, neither had a significant effect on contribution in the public goods dilemma game. Individual differences are examined, as are the results of a Game Feedback Sheet, which yielded insight as to how participants understood the rules of the games, and why they chose the strategies they did. Results support the idea that emotions represent a potentially fruitful avenue of research in social dilemma cooperation, and possible future directions for this research are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2012

Esta pesquisa tem, por hipótese, a morte da culpa na responsabilidade contratual e, por objeto, aferir se o aludido elemento subjetivo pode (ou não) ser suprimido da arquitetura jurídica da responsabilidade contratual. Vale resgatar que, se é certo não sem vozes em sentido oposto que, em muitos momentos, o direito contratual não reservou papel algum à culpa, em outros tantos instantes, na visão da doutrina majoritária, ela continua a brilhar como em seus momentos de maior esplendor. A tese estrutura-se em quatro capítulos, metodologicamente alinhados às correntes pós-positivistas do Direito e projetados a partir de uma matriz teórica-crítica em busca da compreensão do fenômeno jurídico recortado para fins de investigação. Em um primeiro momento, explora-se a travessia da responsabilidade civil para o direito de danos. Nesse percurso, (a) analisa-se o contexto em que exsurgem as primeiras codificações; (b) identificam-se as balizas utilizadas pelo Estado Liberal na configuração do dever de reparar; e (c) demonstra-se que os mitos erigidos no Liberalismo perderam sua utilidade no processo de conformação da responsabilidade contratual contemporânea. O caminho conduziu também (d) à compreensão sobre o papel dos princípios constitucionais na intelecção do fenômeno obrigacional; (e) à percepção das razões pelas quais a Modernidade fora deixada para trás; (f) à identificação das principais características da contemporaneidade; e (g) à percepção das consequências mais visíveis da ruptura do paradigma Moderno na conformação da responsabilidade contratual. No capítulo subsequente, identifica-se que a existência de um contrato, a presença de uma conduta antijurídica e de um dano a ela atado por uma relação de causa e efeito são os pressupostos do dever de reparar. Nesse mesmo capítulo, a relação obrigacional é explorada tanto em perspectiva estática, como em perspectiva dinâmica. Em um terceiro momento, promove-se a análise da ascensão e declínio da culpa na conformação do dever de reparar. Demonstra-se ainda que a noção de culpa é uma só e que não há razão que justifique classificar as obrigações como de meio ou de resultado. No último capítulo, restando provado que a culpa perdeu sua razão de ser, demonstra-se por que seu lugar há de ser ocupado pela confiança. Demonstra-se, enfim, por que o contrato que hoje obriga é o contrato justo. A conclusão da morte da culpa na responsabilidade contratual encerra mesmo que provisoriamente esta tese de doutoramento. / This research considers the hypothesis of guilt death within the contract responsibility and it aims at assessing if the mentioned subjective element may (or may not) be abolished from the legal architecture of the contract responsibility. It is worth rescuing that, if it is right not without opposite voices that, in many moments, the contract law did not reserve any role to guilt, upon several other moments, under the view of the majority doctrine, it continues to glow like in its moments of highest splendor. The thesis structure comprises four chapters. Grounded on a post-positivist theoretical matrix, at the first moment, one exploits the transition from civil responsibility onto the right to claim damages. Along this course, (a) one analyzes the context where the first code applications ex-surge; (b) one identifies the markers utilized by the Liberal State in the configuration of the repair duty; and (c) one demonstrates that the myths raised in the Liberalism have lost their utility within the conformation process of the contemporaneous contract responsibility. The path also led (d) to the understanding about the role of the constitution principles in the intellectual seizure of the duty phenomenon; (e) to the perception of the roots whereby Modernity has been left behind; (f) to the identification of the main features of contemporaneousness; and (g) to the perception of the most visible consequences deriving from the rupture of the Modern paradigm upon the conformation of the contract responsibility. In the subsequent chapter, one identifies that the existence of a contract as well as the presence of an anti-juridical conduct and of a damage attached to it by a causeeffect relation are the presuppositions of the repair duty. In this same chapter, the duty relation is exploited both under the static perspective and the dynamic one. At a third moment, one promotes the analysis of the guilt rise and decline upon the conformation of the repair duty. One evidences, yet, that the notion of guilt is just one. Thus, there is no reason that justifies classifying the duties into those of care and of outcome. Having proved that guilt has lost its rationale, in the last chapter, one demonstrates why its place ought to be taken by confidence. Finally, one demonstrates why the contract that nowadays obliges is the fair one. The conclusion drawn as to the guilt death in the contract responsibility closes although provisionally this PhD thesis.

Two studies were conducted to determine how self-forgiveness and other perpetrator reactions influence the perpetrator and the victim after a romantic relationship transgression. Study 1 used a longitudinal design to determine how guilt and shame predicted the trajectory of self-forgiveness, self-excusing, and self-punishing in participants who had recently been the perpetrator of a romantic relationship transgression. Those experiencing higher guilt at baseline had higher self-forgiveness starting out and those lower on guilt starting out had a greater change in self-forgiveness. Those experiencing more guilt at baseline experienced less change in self-forgiveness over time. Shame was not significantly related to self-forgiveness over time. Those experiencing higher shame at baseline were higher in self-excusing starting out. Those lower on shame starting out had a greater increase in self-excusing over time and those experiencing more shame at baseline experienced less increase in self-excusing over time. Guilt was not significantly related to self-excusing over time. Neither guilt nor shame predicted change in self-punishment over time. In Study 2, couples came into the lab and wrote about the same offense. One participant wrote from the perspective of the perpetrator and the other from the perspective of the victim. Victims reported their forgiveness and perception of their partners’ reactions to wrongdoing. Perpetrators reported their perception of their partners’ feelings of forgiveness and their feelings of self-forgiveness, self-excusing, and self-punishing. Both members reported their relationship satisfaction and commitment. Overall, self-forgiveness by the perpetrator was not a strong predictor of perpetrator satisfaction or commitment. Victims were more satisfied and committed when perceiving self-forgiveness from their partner, even though their partners’ self-forgiveness did not have an effect. Self-forgiveness only positively predicted perpetrators’ satisfaction and commitment when participants reported decisional self-forgiveness. Victims’ perceptions of the perpetrators’ self-excusing and perpetrators’ self-punishing negatively predicted victim commitment and satisfaction. Victims’ perceived perpetrator self-punishing positively predicted perpetrators’ commitment. Perpetrator perceived victim forgiveness and victim forgiveness both positively predicted satisfaction for the perpetrator and the victim. This suggests that perpetrators’ perceptions of victim forgiveness may be more important for the perpetrator than the victim actually forgiving them.

The roles of shame and guilt, and their relationships to empathy, have not been modelled adequately as key factors in moral decision-making in the study of violence. This research will test the different roles of empathy, shame, and guilt in violence decision-making using a Situational Action Theory perspective. Qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with a violent offender subsample taken from the longitudinal Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) in order to explore the role of moral emotion in specific real-life violent events. In addition, quantitative questionnaire indices enable comparison of the violent offender subsample with the remaining PADS+ study sample. Persistent offenders report significantly lower levels of empathy, shame and guilt on the quantitative indices, and weak empathy, shame, and guilt in their detailed recollections of specific acts of violence, e.g., “there’s not much guilt involved in the whole situation to be honest” (Sam, interview 39). The primary conclusion is that individuals with weak empathy, shame, and guilt are more likely to commit acts of violence. These study findings give insight into the real world, situational application of empathy, shame, and guilt, and provide strong support for the role of weak morality in violence decision-making.

The late Middles Ages saw the development in Europe of increasingly complex, ambitious, and self-conscious forms of creative literature. In the works of poets such as Dante, Petrarch and Chaucer new models of authorship and poetic identity were being explored, new kinds of philosophical and aesthetic value attributed to literary discourse. But these creative developments also brought with them new dangers and tensions, a sense of guilt and uncertainty about the value of creative literature, especially in relation to the dominant religious values of late medieval culture. In this thesis I explore how these doubts and tensions find expression in Chaucer’s poetry, not only as a negative, constraining influence, but also as something which contributes to the shape and meaning of poetry itself. I argue that as Chaucer develops his own expansive, questioning poetics in The House of Fame and The Canterbury Tales, he problematises the principle of allegory on which the legitimacy of literary discourse was primarily based in medieval culture and the final fragments of The Canterbury Tales see Chaucer struggling, increasingly, to reconcile the boldness and independence of his poetic vision with the demands of his faith. This struggle, which emerges most strongly and polemically in the final fragments, I argue, runs in subtle and creative forms throughout the whole of Chaucer’s work. By seeing Chaucer in this light as a poet not of fixed, but of conflicted and vacillating intentions – a poet productively caught drawn between ‘game’ and ‘earnest’, radical ironies and Boethian truths – I attempt to account, in a holistic manner, for the major dichotomies that characterise both his work and its critical reception.

Research on shame and guilt has mainly been conducted in individualistic Western cultures. Some qualitative research, however, examined shame and guilt experiences in Chinese culture. Bedford (2004) identified 7 terms that represent emotional experiences of “shame” and “guilt.” We report 3 studies examining Mandarin Chinese speakers’ recalled experiences of negative self-conscious emotions and their related appraisals and motivations. Results reveal that instead of categorizing negative self-conscious emotion terms into 2 superordinate categories of “shame” and “guilt,” 3 clusters are more suitable based on their correlations and associated characteristics. Implications for cross-cultural studies on self-conscious emotions are discussed.

Suicide is a significant public health concern and ranks as the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. Veterans are at a disproportionately higher risk for suicide, due to risk factors such as exposure to trauma and its negative cognitive-emotional sequalae, such as PTSD, shame, and guilt. However, not all veterans exposed to traumatic events, or who experience shame and guilt, die by suicide, perhaps as a result of the presence of individual-level protective factors such as self-compassion. Conceptualized as self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity, self-compassion is beneficially associated with mental and physical health, including reduced suicide risk. We examined the potential serial mediating effects of shame/guilt, separated into two models, and PTSD in the relation between self-compassion and suicide risk in a sample of U.S. veterans (N = 317). Participants in our IRB-approved study provided informed consent and completed the Self-Compassion Scale - Short Form, Differential Emotions Scale-IV, PTSD Checklist-Military Version (PCL-M) for DSM-IV, and Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire - Revised (SBQ-R). Supporting hypotheses, shame/guilt and PTSD, and PTSD alone, mediated the relation between self-compassion and suicide risk, but shame/guilt alone did not. Our results remained significant when covarying depressive symptoms. Therapeutic interventions such as Mindful Self-Compassion and Compassion-Focused Therapy may increase self-compassion and ameliorate negative cognitive-emotional sequelae, including suicide risk, in veterans.

This research introduces the unique context of immoral inaction—situations in which consumers have the opportunity to engage in virtuous behaviors but opt against doing so. Through five studies I demonstrate that in such contexts, embarrassment—a negatively valenced self-conscious moral emotion evoked by the perception that one's behavior is worthy of judgment by others—interacts with the use of approach-motivated coping strategies to lead consumers to engage in prosocial compensatory behaviors. Though extant literature suggests that marketers seeking to evoke prosocial behaviors should employ communications and promotions framed to elicit consumers' guilt, such studies are based in contexts whereby individuals feel guilty and/or embarrassed because of something they have done, not for something they did not do. This research suggests that that the condition of immoral inaction serves to evoke a contrasting psychological mechanism that reverses these findings, making embarrassment a more effective driver of desired outcomes when marketers seek to promote overcoming past inactions. These findings are discussed in light of their implications for research and application.