Showing remorse or guilt

It's not enough to acknowledge error or fault and to correct it. That should be enough but it doesn't seem to be. When I was a small child and had done something wrong, I remember my grandmother turning to my mother and saying, "Well, at least he has the grace to be sorry".

I'm also remembering how I dealt with such issues with my own children, many years ago. I had learned that being sorry was not enough, that the expression of regret or remorse was frequently a "cop-out" that stood in place of actually changing one's behavior. But while being "sorry" isn't enough, neither is just changing one's behavior, which ought to be enough in a rational world.

Judges come down hard on offenders who don't show remorse. As adults, when harmed by someone's behavior, we need to hear from them that not only will they change their behavior, they feel badly about what they have done. We seem to need both parts.

It's easy to see what the rational plan for behavioral change does for us. So why do we need so much to hear the expression of regret? It occurs to me that from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology, we NEED to hear regret or remorse from the young ones. Their ability to feel and show remorse signals us that they have genuinely internalized the "rules" and their importance, that they are not simply opportunists who have been caught, but people just like us, with the "right" rules.

A child of 6 who shows no remorse for bad actions is potentially a danger to us all. We fear the presence in our midst of a "psychopath", one who, to us sheep, is like a wolf, one who does NOT adhere to our group values and boundaries. When someone breaks a rule AND IS SORRY, we are reassured that they are not psychopaths. Judges look for exactly the same thing. Our little tribes cannot tolerate a psychopath within our group; they present a danger against which we have little protection.

What my grandmother probably meant was that when she was convinced I genuinely felt regret for my mistake, she was greatly reassured that my heart was "in the right place", that I had indeed internalized the values of our little tribe and did not present a danger to our survival.

When people don't express the "proper emotions", we become uneasy at the prospect that they may not share important human boundaries and values; the unease we feel goes directly to survival issues.