996) suggest that the explanation for this stronger association lies in the difference between the experience of the underlying emotion and the expression of the emotion. Both women and men may experience guilt in a similar way, but women have been taught that they can strongly express the emotion of guilt, whereas men have been taught to control it. Similarly, both women and men may experience pride in a similar way, but men have been taught that they can express the emotion of pride, whereas women have been taught to control it.
             Guilt follows from a failure when a person believes he/she could have avoided a violating act or could have done otherwise. In talking about guilt, let's first distinguish between real guilt and self-imposed guilt (Madzes, 1997). Real guilt means that a person purposefully hurt someone or the possessions of someone and feels sorry for doing that. Real guilt ranges from murder and rape on through various sex acts upon innocents to the various misdemeanors outlined by societies. Self-imposed guilt refers to non-criminal matters where a person has decided that they should have done something but didn't, or did something that may have caused hurt to someone else. Thus, self-imposed guilt means that a person has a measure of mind-reading going on, a mental guess that an action, thought, or even word caused harm to another. This could even range to the point where, as a child, you were playing as a child when someone else got hurt (or maybe even died). As a result, you turned on yourself with blame (Madzes, 1997).
             Guilt serves as both an indicator and inhibitor of wrongdoing (Madzes, 1997). Healthy guilt is an appropriate response to harming another and is resolved through atonement, such as making apologizing, or accepting punishment. Unhealthy guilt, sometimes called neurotic or debilitating guilt, is a pervasive sense of responsibility for others' pain that is not resolved, despite efforts to ato...