The aim of this essay is first and foremost to clarify which kind of different answers there are to identify within an evangelical-lutheran tradition considering what a person should confess and take responsibility for as their sin and guilt. Secondly this essay aims to suggest the most plausible one. This essay thematically present four different figures of ideas that answers to the question of what a person should confess as their sin and guilt. These figures are: 1) To confess the ontological state of guilt 2) To confess the subjective sin and guilt 3) To confess the objective sin and guilt 4) To confess participation in the structural sin and guilt. These four different views of what to confess have been tested through three different criterias: a criteria of theology - by testing the coherence with an evangelical-lutheran tradition, a criteria of pastoral psychology - by testing the correspondence with theories in pastoral psychology and a criteria of good consequences - to see if the views of what to confess have a liberating effect on an individual and collective level. After testing these different views of what to confess my conclusion is that the most valid one is “ to confess our objective sin and guilt” because it expresses the violation of the “relation”. Some of the other views may serve as a good explanation for the human “situation”, but are not appropriate to confess as guilt.

The article analyses the psychosocial impact of the apologies about the role of the Catholic Church in the Spanish Civil war along two studies. The relational study showed that Blazquez’s apology was perceived with limited impact, being more important at a societal level than at a micro-social level, both, on direct or indirect victims. The experimental study showed that self-criticism reinforced guilt as well as the need for reparation, whereas glorification diminished them. / Se analiza el impacto de las disculpas sobre el rol de la Iglesia Católica en la guerra civil española. Un estudio correlacional mostró que el impacto de las disculpas del obispo Blázquez fue limitado y los encuestados percibieron un impacto mayor sobre la sociedad en general que sobre las víctimas o sus descendientes. Un estudio experimental comparó las opiniones de una condición control donde los participantes leían sobre el rol de la Iglesia en la guerra civil española, con una donde los participantes además leían la autocrítica y con otra donde además leían sobre una beatificación de mártires de la Iglesia durante la guerra civil. La autocrítica reforzaba la culpa y la necesidad de reparación, mientras que la beatificación las disminuía.

The purpose of this study was to examine the potentially unique roles that parental use of two psychological control dimensions, shame and disappointment, play in predicting children's relational and physical aggression. It was additionally of interest to investigate whether warm/involved parenting would moderate the effects of these forms of psychological control on both types of childhood aggression. Based on a review of literature, it was hypothesized that parental use of shame would positively predict aggression in children, whereas parental use of disappointment would not be significantly associated with childhood aggression. Additionally, it was hypothesized that warm, involved parenting would have varied interactions with shaming and disappointment. Specifically, it was expected that warmth and involvement would exacerbate the aversive affects of shaming (leading to more child relational aggression), but that warmth and involvement would enhance the effect of disappointment to curtail relationally aggressive behavior. The participants were 217 fourth grade children (100 boys, 117 girls) and their parents (184 fathers, 216 mothers) from two school districts in an urban, moderate-sized community in the Western United States. Separate regression models were conducted for pairs of psychologically controlling and positive parenting dimensions in order to test for the main effects of the variables and also potential interaction effects. Additionally, this study explored the interactions between warm/involved parenting and shame and disappointment as they affected childhood aggression. To a large extent, the hypotheses were confirmed. In line with expectations, parental use of shame was significantly and positively associated with both physical and relational aggression, whereas disappointment was not. Interestingly, mothers' use of shaming significantly predicted relational aggression in all models for both boys and girls, whereas physical aggression was predicted only twice, once in the mother-son dyad and once in the father-daughter dyad. Two forms of warmth and involvement emerged in exploratory factor analysis: expressive warmth and supportive involvement. These positive parenting dimensions demonstrated very few main effects and only one significant moderating effect, which was on the relationship between shame and physical aggression. Specifically, post hoc analysis showed that fathers' use of shaming significantly and positively predicted boys' physical aggression only when supportive involvement was low. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This creative thesis is comprised of stories that present characters who deal with guilt and betrayal and explores various points of view. My work is informed by Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which contains these themes and investigates narration. “Surviving Fog” centers around survivor’s guilt, while “Coming Full Circle, No Detour in Sight” demonstrates how a person can exert expectations on herself due to a religious background and personal values. Perhaps my most provocative story, “Beyond the Apple Orchard” delves into the emotional and physical betrayal of a father and the daughter’s struggles to overcome it. “Photographic Memories” embraces the surreal with a woman who can “read” photographs, whose story blends past transgressions that bleed into current ones, while “Send in the Clowns, Send in the Mob” explores herd mentality that stems from fear. Ultimately, each story contains kernels of truth that readers can grasp.

This dissertation consists of a novel, The Buddha on Page 13 and a dissertation of limited extent, "Buddhist symbolism and metaphoric, and the perception of sin, guilt and punishment in The Buddha on Page 13." In the dissertation of limited extent the role that guilt plays in the motivation of an individual's actions is investigated. The Christian and Buddhist views of sin are compared, and the conclusion is made that neither Christianity nor Buddhism can explain why mankind experiences the feeling of guilt. The central character, Toit Brink, finally accepts this "so-ness" of things: "thathatha". The dissertation explains how the style of the text wishes to be neutral, and how this neutrality is harnessed for Buddhist reasons. The Buddhist element in the novel's symbolism and metaphoric is illuminated, as well as the apparent contradiction of some of the metaphors. / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)

In the aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa J.M.Coetzee writes of the "system" of guilt and shame, debt and retribution which operates throughout society. He and writers like Doris Lessing and Barbara Kingsolver tell stories which traverse and explore the paths tracked by society's quest for healing and restitution. (White) women too, Coetzee's protagonist (in Disgrace) muses, must have a place, a "niche" in this system. What is this "niche" and what role do the women in these texts play in the reparation of colonial wrong? How is their position dictated by discourses which acknowledge the agency of the (female) body in epistemologies of guilt and power? This mini-dissertation attempts to trace the figure of the white woman in three late 201h-/early 21 51-century postcolonial literary texts, in order to read the phrases of meaning that have been inscribed on her body. The novels read are J.M.Coetzee's Disgrace, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing. / English Studies / M. Eng. (Gender, Identity and Embodiment)

In a confessional, first person narrative, the concept of truth and how it is constructed and perceived is important. Truth in fiction can be created and interpreted in a number of different ways, and when the narrative that portrays it in addition is unreliable and ambiguous, discerning truth becomes a decidedly complex process. This essay interprets the confessional testimony of the narrator in John Banville’s The Book of Evidence, in order to examine the function of these narrative devices and how they affect the understanding of what is true in Banville’s unreliably narrated novel. It does so by following literary theories regarding unreliable narration by Tamar Yacobi and others, as well as theories of truth in fiction as first presented by David Lewis and expanded upon by Ben Levinstein and others. The different types of ambiguity suggested by William Empson are also considered. The novel’s narrative is analyzed specifically in relation to the understanding of how the protagonist eludes to his feelings of guilt and shame. These emotions are chosen for their prevalence in conventional confessions. The essay claims that the narcissistic narrator harbors neither of these feelings pertaining to the crime he has committed, but rather that he admits to being guilty and is ashamed of being caught, and that this is portrayed through the structure of the narrative rather than its content.

This study began testing the Sewell and Williams (in press) model that differing trauma types yield differing presentations in social versus event processing domains. Other hypotheses explored trauma type with levels of guilt, and shame-proneness with anxiety. Volunteers were 44 male combat veterans being treated for PTSD. Data analyses determined whether trauma type related to guilt and perceived social support and whether shame-proneness related to levels of anxiety. High shame persons may process anxiety and social support differently than low shame persons. Results can assist professionals understand how a person's functioning is affected by certain types of trauma. Future research should focus on increasing social support for persons who have experienced trauma.

Guilt theoretically functions to motivate reparative behaviors, which, in turn, theoretically function to alleviate guilt and prevent psychopathology. Although several empirical studies in adults have demonstrated that guilt and reparative behaviors function as theorized, research has not investigated causal relations between guilt and reparative behaviors in children. Thus, this study examined whether guilt motivates children’s reparative behaviors, and whether their reparative behaviors successfully alleviate guilty feelings. Six-to ten-year olds (N = 97) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the experimental condition, children were led to believe that they had transgressed to cause a peer’s distress. Children self-reported their guilt feelings following the pretend transgression, and then had the opportunity to repair the transgression by giving stickers and writing a note to the victimized peer. Following the repair opportunity, children self-reported their guilt a second time. Children in the experimental condition (i.e., children who felt guilty) engaged in greater reparative behavior relative to children in a no-guilt condition who were led to believe that they had caused a peer’s positive emotions. Further, children in the experimental condition reported reduced guilt at the second measurement, whereas children in the no-repair condition (who were led to believe that they had transgressed but were not be given a repair opportunity) did not report reduced guilt over time. Results demonstrate that guilt and reparative behaviors function as theorized in children and may begin to inform reparative interventions aimed at preventing unalleviated, maladaptive guilt and psychopathology.

A plethora of interdisciplinary research has highlighted the increase of global mobility and diasporic communities. While talent emigration has shown to have a multiplicity of benefits, particularly as gaining diversified sets of skills is essential in the face of globalization. However, widely researched concepts such as the ‘brain drain’ have conveyed the dark side of talent emigration and the ramification of countries’ desiccation for scarce skills. With a history fraught with tensions and immense loss of talent, South Africa is a country in continuous transformation, but is on the cusp of another significant ‘brain drain’. Hence, this study aimed to explore the micro-diffusions and conditions in the South African context which proliferate the emigration of talented potential leaders. The research design was qualitative, with specific use of the actors approach as methodology to gain insight into perspectives of South Africans living, working and studying in Sweden. Twenty-one participants from five cities were involved in the focus group dialogues, namely; Gothenburg, Kalmar, Lund, Linköping and Stockholm. As a participant-observer, I too was involved in the sense-making of how talent delineated their identities and relation to South Africa. Certain aspects of the findings were expected regarding the conditions which serve as push factors for emigration, such as participants’ frustrations and despondency with increasing rates of crime, unemployment and corruption. However, the most accentuated and poignant micro-diffusion which perpetuates talent’s emigration derives from conflicts of identity and belongingness, deep-seated inherited guilt and helplessness. Whilst there is a desire to ameliorate the social ills which plague the country, there also seems to be a palpable need for escapism away from the persistent historical complexities of South Africa.