The most common cause of guilt is lying or not telling the truth. This is especially true up to middle age. From the age of 45, however, the guilt more often revolves around not having spent enough time with family or not being there for them enough. This is reported by Tobias Luck from the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences and Claudia Luck-Sikorski from the SRH University of Applied Sciences in Gera in the specialist journal “BMC Psychology”.
In an online survey, the psychologist and his colleague asked almost 900 adults whether they currently or ever suffered from feelings of guilt. Around one in four said yes. On average, the respondents named two to three reasons – women slightly more than men. The around 1,500 causes named could be grouped into almost 50 categories.
“Most of the reasons seem to be rather specific, for example related to their own mistakes and situations with certain people,” report Luck and Luck-Sikorski. It was mainly about a bad conscience towards other people, for example because of a lie. Less often it was only about oneself, for example laziness or an unhealthy lifestyle (see graphic). Shared responsibility for social or global problems was only rarely mentioned (2 percent), and violations of religious commandments and prohibitions were even rarer (0.4 percent of the reasons given).
More often than men, women had a guilty conscience towards their children, other family members and generally out of a feeling of responsibility for others. Men felt more guilty about mistakes and problems in the partnership. The 60+ age group not only regretted the missed time with the family, but comparatively often also a separation or divorce as well as other forms of failure or failure.