Certain mental disorders are characterized by atypical patterns of guilt (e.g., excesses of guilt in depression and deficiencies in sociopathy). Few data are available to indicate why some individuals develop the capacity to maintain healthy, appropriate levels of responsibility, while others experience excesses or deficiencies in guilt at levels that seriously compromise their well-being. Three samples of children have been studied. In studies 1 and 2, two- to three-year-old children are observed in structured situations in which a problem or mishap is staged and the child's tendency to assume responsibility is assessed. Findings from both studies indicate that a majority of children engage in reparative behaviors by age two. Many children with a depressed mother assume disproportionate levels of responsibility. In study 3, guilt is assessed in children between the ages of 5 and 8 (Z01MH02155 LDP) in a semi-structured projective test situation and in a psychiatric interview. Here too, the younger children of depressed mothers shown high levels of guilt and involvement in others' problems. But these same children fail to show the increases with age in adaptive expressions of guilt that are expected and found in children of well mothers. Proband children also show more distorted (e.g., extreme, bizarre, violent, disguised) forms of guilt.
