Guilt
The self-conscious pang over a specific wrong you've done.
What it means
Guilt is a self-conscious moral emotion arising from the belief that one has committed a transgression or harmed someone, focused on the specific behavior rather than the whole self. This behavioral focus, captured in the thought 'I did a bad thing,' makes guilt comparatively adaptive: it motivates reparation, apology, and changed conduct without crippling self-worth. It is contrasted with shame, which targets the global self ('I am bad') and tends to prompt hiding, defensiveness, or aggression instead of repair. Guilt-proneness is associated with empathy, responsibility, and better relationship and ethical outcomes, whereas excessive or chronic guilt can become maladaptive. The guilt-shame distinction is one of the most consequential findings in the study of moral emotions.
Examples
Realizing you snapped unfairly at a colleague, you feel guilt focused on the outburst and go back to apologize.
Forgetting a friend's birthday, you feel guilt about the lapse rather than about being a bad friend, so you ring them that evening instead of avoiding the conversation.
A driver who scratches a parked car and leaves a note is moved by guilt over the act itself; the one who drives off is usually protecting a self-image instead.
First described in June Price Tangney; Helen Block Lewis (1971).