How Guilt and Pride Shape Subsequent Self-Control

Abstract

The present research utilized experience sampling data to investigate how guilt and pride experiences in response to self-control failure versus success affect future self-control when encountering the same type of temptation (thematic self-control). Guilt showed signs of a “mixed blessing” such that previous guilt led to an increase in subsequent self-regulatory goal importance and conflict awareness; however, accounting for these beneficial effects, guilt also had a detrimental residual effect on the successful inhibition of recurring temptation. Pride, in contrast, had uniformly positive effects on subsequent self-control in the form of increased goal importance, increased conflict, and increased likelihood to use self-control to resist temptation. These results contrasted in theoretically important ways from an analysis of short-term spillover effects of incidental guilt and pride on thematically unrelated subsequent self-control. Potential mechanisms and implications of these findings are discussed.