Children's apologies and their guilty feelings: Relation to whether the violation had been detected

Abstract

The present study explored whether children's apologies are associated with feeling guilty, and whether the degree of guilt depends on whether the violation had been detected. Participants were second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders (n=87, 86, and 79, respectively). The results were as follows: (a) Feeling guilty enhanced the motivation to apologize to victims. Those students reporting a higher degree of guilt indicated that they express their regret through apologies, whereas students reporting a lower degree of guilt chose the "selfish strategy" (i.e., an "ego trip") on the "taking a victim's property task". The children's apologies were influenced by their feeling guilty, which is similar to previous results on the apologies of preschool children. (b) On the "breaking a promise task", most of the children indicated that they would apologize, regardless of whether or not they had a sense of guilt. (c) On the "cheating task", the group reporting a higher degree of guilt selected the prosocial strategy, whereas those reporting a lower degree of guilt chose the selfish strategy. These results suggest that feeling guilty was viewed as one cause for apologizing when a victim's property had been taken, but it did not promote apologizing when a promise had been broken. In comparison, guilt appeared to play a critical role in motiving prosocial behavior, rather than an apology, in a situation in which no one knew about the perpetrator's transgression (the cheating task).