While guilt is associated with morality, shame is not. You feel guilt for murdering a nasty money-lender with an ax, at least if you’re in a novel by Dostoevsky.

Guilt and shame are two rather different negative emotions, which are often confused. In both cases, people feel bad about themselves—but that is where the similarity ends.

Although shame and guilt may seem similar, shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, and aggression. In contrast, guilt is linked to empathy and understanding other perspectives.

While guilt is acknowledging and feeling bad that you did something you should not have, shame is internalizing guilt and believing that you, yourself are bad because of the bad things you have done.

In ‘A Philosophy of Shame,’ Frédéric Gros contends that the reviled emotion can drive political change.

More information: Rikke Sigmer Nielsen et al, Eco-guilt and eco-shame in everyday life: an exploratory study of the ...

Shame, Guilt Pose Significant Hurdles For Those Recovering From Addiction For some, recovering from addiction is only half the battle. The other half is getting over the guilt, ...

The trick is to leverage things like guilt and shame to keep you focused on the end goal and lose that weight. Tim Grahl runs Out:think, a firm that helps authors sell a lot of books.

Overall, expressions of guilt and shame were associated with recidivism rates, but in different ways. "Proneness to guilt predicts less recidivism — a lower likelihood of re-offense," Tangney says.