In a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Taya Cohen and Nazli Turan of Carnegie Mellon University and A.T. Panter of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examine the existing research on guilt proneness, exploring how it might influence our behavior in the workplace and beyond.
According to Cohen, Panter, and Turan, guilt proneness isn't the same thing as feeling guilty after you've done something wrong -- people who are guilt prone actually anticipate having negative feelings before they ever commit a moral transgression. Importantly, these people don't need their mother, their boss, or their significant other looking over their shoulder to prevent them from committing moral transgressions because their conscience does it for them.
MORE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010141452.htm
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