Experiencing guilt in individuals with different types of attachmen

• Малахова Варвара Романовна

  Varvara R. Malakhova.Vladivostok State University. Vladivostok. Russia

• Vyacheslav O. Krasnoshchekov

  Vyacheslav O. Krasnoshchekov. Vladivostok State University. Vladivostok. Russia

According to J. Bowlby, attachment type is formed from infancy through the relation-ship with the mother (or a close adult) and undergoes qualitative transformation throughout life. Guilt is a feeling inherent to humans and developed in a social context. Guilt and attachment type, as experiences of relationships with parents, acquire individual traits and characteristics during upbringing and childhood relationships. The purpose of this study is to identify the features of guilt experiences in students with different attachment types. The study involved 56
university students. Psychodiagnostic methods were used: the guilt questionnaire adapted by I.A. Belik and T. Gibson's attachment type test. Spearman correlation criterion was used to prove the relationships between guilt dimensions and attachment types in the student sample. It
was found that guilt as a stable personality trait is positively associated with avoidant-dismissive and anxious attachment types, while state guilt is associated with anxious-avoidant and anxious attachment types. Students with a secure attachment type are less prone to guilt as
a personality trait; they tend to be more balanced, adaptive, and exhibit more flexible and creative behavior. A comparative analysis using the Mann-Whitney criterion showed that students with an anxious-avoidant attachment type experience guilt based on adherence to moral norms,
while students with an anxious attachment type are characterized by pronounced state guilt and trait guilt. No differences were found in the degree of guilt experienced by students with secure and avoidant-dismissive attachment types.
Keywords: guilt, experience of guilt, attachment type, parent-child relationships.