What is it that makes people want to confess things?

What purpose does guilt serve?

:shrug:

Could be...

I have no idea why they do.

What's the impetus?

I was going to try to write something about most people being decent, but then I started thinking that a lot of people also sometimes feel the need to confess some good things they have done too.

So it seems that people don't like to do things when it concerns another person without people knowing about it. Either good or bad.

Doesn't apply only to guilt, really.

Maybe they're secretly proud of their confessions and choose to air them in this somewhat anonymous forum

I mean just in general... that whole guilty conscience/confession phenomenon.

do"

As for confessing it, I guess it would be a release or something - that some of the guilty feelings might go away (I don't really see how, though)

Why the drive to confess if it doesn't help?

Maybe it does. :shrug:

That's my theory, anyway. To be absolved, to some degree, to hear that what you did (or didn't do, or whatever) isn't as terrible or abnormal as you believe.

Doesn't seem like it would... since the guilt is really someone punishing themselves, they obviously think it is bad, so I don't know why anyone else's opinion would mean more than their own.

I work out problems and guilt by talking about them... having it be something I just try to deal with in my own head without discussing and working through with anyone is almost impossible, for me. Ask ZW, sometime... he talked me through one of the worst nights of my life, emotionally. He's a good dude.

But you're right about it being self-punishment and someone else's opinion... maybe it just helps to hear other opinions and thoughts. Not so much absolution, but other viewpoints? At least in that situation, that's how it was for me. Now, confessing something that no one would think was good or ok, I don't know...

But I think it's simply the feelings of guilt that make people want to confess them. If you do something that didn't feel "right" to you (whatever you base your own morals on) it can be a positive experience to "come clean" about it in one way or another. When something bothers you holding it in seems to only make it worse. At least it's that way for me, and I'm assuming it's that way for most people.

Now, what purpose these feelings of guilt themselves have, I really don't know. I think it is healthy for people to have their own moral code that they follow, as long as it's basically logically-based and not irrationally-based. Someone lacking a moral compass would be frightening. And feelings of guilt just seem to come along with having this moral code. So I guess my view is that feeling guilt is healthy even if it doesn't necessarily serve any real purpose!

I suppose it's helpful after all. :)

God, I'm in a bitchy mood today. :-)

It's not only the bad things that people confess to.

I know that's true in my case, anyway. :blush: :D

you shouldn't be doing it? That is called cognitive dissonance. I guess and I don't have any stats on guilt and confessions by ethnicity, but I believe it has something to do with the way we were socialized and encultured into the group that we belong. For example, in some places around the world, it is perfectly fine for a person to lie to another that doesn't deserve the truth. Here? I don't know.

I do know however that we are still encultured and socialized into our belief systems. Therefore, in the way we were raised, we learn that by accepting accounability and showing guilt, then perhaps we can reconcile ourselves to the larger cultural group. I'm not too sure about that anymore, because I see guilt as a tool to get what one wants. I've seen it often. It's used in politics very much, see GWB's speech on Katrina.

I'm a shame person. :(