GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EXPERIENCING AND COPING WITH A SENSE OF GUILT IN INTERPERSONAL AND INTERGROUP RELATION

The article deals with the results of the study aimed at evaluation of both genders representatives’ sense of guilt that arises at different levels of communication. Gender peculiarities of experiencing and coping with the sense of guilt in interpersonal and intergroup relationships were detected on the basis of three surveys of Ukrainian students (582, 63, and 34 persons). It is shown that majority of differences between women and men are consistent with existing stereotypes in the mass consciousness. Women are more clearly oriented on guilt that occur in the narrow circle of communication and more often emphasize its emotional and communicative content. Instead, men are more interested in superpersonal contexts and prefer instrumental positions. At the same time, the differences were recorded that contradict gender stereotypes. In assessments of students’ guilt women more frequently pay attention to effectiveness/inefficiency, while men emphasize the importance of such negative moral trait as dishonesty. In the sphere of broad social contacts women relatively more actively accuse the government authorities and insist on the need to increase effectiveness of all Ukrainians.


INTRODUCTION
In the constructionist discourse of modern psychology, little space is left for such basic human emotion as guilt. A lack of attention is paid as well to gender differences in its occurrence and coping with it.
Research descriptions mainly reflect the traditional (and in most cases statistically valid) view of gender differences in experience and attribution of guilt. As usual, women are attributed a relatively greater tendency to feel guilty.
The aspects of women's and men's attitudes towards guilt are highlighted in our three studies, aimed at evaluation of such feelings by the representatives of both genders in communication that arise at different levels of interpersonal and intergroup relationships. The first of them was devoted to the consideration of sense of guilt in the narrow and broad social context. The second was about the possibility and ways to get rid of guilt. In the third one we investigated evaluations of collective guilt.

LITERATURE REVIEW
J. Bybee brought over a wide range of such differences. In her opinion, males and females differ in the intensity of guilt feelings, as well as in what and who causes them to feel guilty. Males are more likely to feel guilt about aggressive behaviors and in the presence of strangers. Aggressiveness is seen as normative for males, and parents and peers alike may tolerate this type of behavior. Males are more likely than females to deny culpability for their actions and are less likely to experience feelings of guilt. In contrast, females are more likely to feel guilt about inconsiderate behavior and around family members. Parents and peers are less tolerant of misbehavior among females than males and are more likely to use discipline techniques with them that lead to guilt. Females are more willing to concede responsibility for misdeeds and have more difficulty expelling feelings of guilt (Bybee, 1998).
According to J. Shiffler's results, females, more than males, acknowledged experiencing guilt and shame: women were clearly more prone than men to shame-proneness, adaptive guilt-proneness, and maladaptive guilt-proneness (Shiffler, 1993). Latvian psychologists revealed statistically significant differences between men and women in collective guilt and in the importance of religion: in general, women felt collective guilt more and attached more importance to religion (Solomatina & Austers, 2014). Online survey participants' reports on their levels of guilt proneness, frequency of prosocial behaviour, and related cognitions such as empathy showed that women are more influenced by the effects of guilt proneness on prosocial behaviour than men (Torstveit et al, 2016).
Many studies were carried out, that identified the connection between guilt feeling and notable social events. Among differ demographic variables in Brazilian consumer boycott gender was a single one that was significant on the perception of guilt factor. The difference between men and women just appeared on it: women felt guiltier than men (Cruz, 2017). Females were more likely than males to display a high degree of identity transcendence, which may be connected to the role of gender roles in the conflict and in Israeli and Palestinian societies more generally (Hammack, 2006). Having studied collective guilt and leniency toward war-veteran transgressors, A. Ch. Jay drawn conclusion of different effect of guilt perception on the women and men tendency to accuse. Inducing women to feel both personal guilt and collective guilt lead to less punitive judgments for a veteran defendant. Yet, men were similarly lenient towards the veteran defendant regardless of whether they read a guilt induction or not (Jay, 2015: p. 19-21). Man attitudes in respect of accusation were more resilient to inducing guilt.
On the contrary, in a similar study (to the last one) of trust, individual guilt, collective guilt and dispositions toward reconciliation among Rwandan survivors and prisoners before and after their participation in postgenocide gacaca courts in Rwanda no gender differences were found in data analyses (Kanyangara et al, 2014).
In general, situational contextual interpretations seem to be more relevant inversely to dispositional ones. For example, T. Ferguson and H. Eyre deny that women are generally more prone to guilt and shame then men. Their context-dependency argument and data partly explain failures to find gender differences in guilt or shame frequency, since these measures allow males and females to freely recall the different contexts in which they have felt either emotion. Guilt or shame feelings of men and women depend on the context of situation, which differently affects their identity (Ferguson & Eyre, 2000). Therefore, women and men are more responsive to certain aspects of the situation that resonate with their feminine or masculine identity. It's a different matter that gender identity does not necessarily coincide with gender, and it substantially differentiates possible contexts for experiencing guilt or shame.
One such context is referred to in the article written by a group of Belgian researchers whose findings confirm those of earlier research indicating that females experience a considerably higher threat of shame-guilt for engaging in delinquency than males. Factors explaining males' and females' anticipated shame-guilt feelings are similar in the case of shoplifting, but different in the case of violence. Among males, endorsement of traditional masculinity predicts lower levels of shame-guilt for engaging in shoplifting and violence. Among females, endorsement of traditional femininity predicts lower levels of shame-guilt for engaging in shoplifting, but has no effect on shame-guilt for engaging in violence (De Boeck et al, 2018).
Finally, mass perceptions of women's and men's leadership traits are perhaps the most popular gender stereotypes. V. L. Brescoll states that gender stereotypes of emotion present a fundamental barrier to women's ability to ascend to and succeed in leadership roles (Brescoll, 2016).

Study 1. Sense of guilt in the narrow and broad social context
The task was assigned to find out the structure of young respondents' perceptions of guilt that occur in their interpersonal relationships and in their reference groups' relations with other social-political communities and groups.
By expert evaluation of our previous studies data it was identified 12 categories of persons from the inner circle, communication with whom may be meaningful to respondents; 24 social groups, which interrelations essentially determine the social-communicative space of student community; and 12 nations neighboring with Ukrainians, relations with whom were or are of particular importance in history.
Further, 41 pairs of intercommunication subjects were drawn from these categories in the form of 5-point semantic differential. The respondents evaluated who in each pair of interacting entities was guiltier towards problems that arose in their relationship. According to the scale, the respondent her/himself or her/his group was presented leftward, which meant a score of 1 or 2 points for her/his or her/his group's guilt. Instead, the guilt of another person or group was rated at 4 or 5 points.

MAIN RESULTS
In the first (interpersonal) part, the respondents most willingly chose a mean grade point of 3, which may be evidence of both an adequate assessment of the social and psychological content of the relationship with close people, and protective effort to avoid the analysis of mutual guilts. The least accusations were addressed to the mother (x = 2.59) and the most to the political opponent (x = 3.35).
In the second (inter-group) part, choosing an average "compromise" rating was preferable, but not in all cases. In particular, the shift in assessments occurred towards more substantiative accusation of Russian authorities headed by Putin, Soviet power, various representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, oligarchs and mafia. Teachers were the least accused (x = 2.92), while the Russian authorities and Putin were the most accused (x = 4.38).
In the third (interethnic) part, the average score 3 dominated again, even in the estimation of the most accused Russians (x = 3.76), and the least guilt was attributed to Slovaks/Czechs and Crimean Tatars (x = 3.04).
Gender differences were observed in 16 cases out of 41, based on the Student's t-test (Table 1). Table 1 Estimation of mutual guilts on scales with differences between women and men (x ) The generalized analysis of data presented allows drawing four conclusions that reflect the gender specificity of the guilt feeling attribution.
The first conclusion is that women more often than men resort to accusatory assessments in the matter of close interpersonal relations. This was demonstrated in the attitudes toward father, family, relatives, friend / female friend in childhood, girlfriend/boyfriend, most influential teacher, lecturer with whom the respondent most communicates.
The increased emotional reactivity of women in the communication process may be a probable reason for this, as reported, e.g., by Lungu et al. They note that subjective ratings of negative emotional images were higher in women than in men; however, men have a more evaluative, rather than purely affective, brain response during negative emotion processing (Lungu et al, 2015).
The second conclusion relates to intersexual mutual relations, where men accuse women more than women accuse men. The male accusatory position in this case can be partly explained by the compensatory tendency to prevent possible female empowering, described by L. Hay in line with the Jungian concept of coexistence of genders (Hay, 1997).
The third conclusion affects the sphere of broad social contacts: here women are relatively more actively accusing the Ukrainian state authorities. It can be assumed that they have been more easily exposed to the general negative attitude towards political authorities that has taken place over the last few years in Ukraine. As shown in the study by group of American sociologists, gender roles are especially laden with emotional expectations, as women are expected to do more and different kinds of "emotion work" in most societies. Therefore, women's political claims are more frequently dismissed as "merely emotional" than men's (Goodwin, 2001). In the same context, female politicians' emotions can be seen more frequently on television than male politicians' emotions (Renner & Masch, 2019).
The fourth conclusion may be that in assessment of transnational guilts, women tend to pay more attention to emotionally stereotyped attitudes towards persons guilty in tragic events in the past (the image of Germans as instigators of the World War II); and men react faster to initiators of current political conflicts (like, for example, current language disagreements between Ukrainians and Hungarians).

Study 2. Is it possible and how to get rid of the sense of guilt?
In order to clarify the psychological content of the sense of guilt and possible ways to get rid of it, we interviewed 63 students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (mean age 19.1; 68.3% were female).
Respondents were asked to fill in a questionnaire that contained the following points: "I feel guilty towards __ for __. To get rid of guilt, I need to __"; "I think that __ feel/s guilty for me for __. To get rid of guilt, he/she/they need to __"; "We, __, feel guilty towards __ for __. To get rid of guilt, we need to__" and "I think that __ feel guilty towards us, __ for __. To get rid of guilt, they need to__".
The purpose of filling in the relevant blank spaces was to find out: first, the circle of persons in relation of which the problematics of guilt, in the respondent's opinion, is relevant to the subjects of guilt (when s/he personally, s/he and other person(s), s/he and her/his group, other person(s), another group feel guilty); secondly, who is the object of guilt (the guilt experiencing to her/himself, to her/him and other person(s), to her/him and her/his group, to other person(s), to another group); fourthly, what can a way of solving the guilt situation to get rid of that sense.
Each of the above statements was presented three times in the questionnaire. The respondent could answer both three points or one or two of them.

MAIN RESULTS
The respondents most willingly spoke about their own guilts, and least about other's guilts towards them.
According to the results of the content analysis of answers received, it was determined the following indicators: 26 categories of guilt agents, 25 semantic units describing the objects of guilt, 17 units related to the content of guilts, and 14 units containing suggestions for guilt elimination (what to do).
Distribution of answers received from respondents of two genders, was compared by z-test. The difference was determined in percentage of responses that contained corresponding semantic units from the total number of answers given by respondents of a certain gender.
By majority of indicators, the differences were statistically insignificant. The female friend category was the only one category which revealed a difference between women and men in recognition of own guilt: women respondents wrote more frequently about it, than men (Table 2). The difference in reasons for the respondents' own guilt was manifested in the fact that women more frequently recognized their conflict as the reason, and men -bad behavior.
Talking about possible ways to get rid of one's guilt, women insisted on understanding each other, changing attitudes, or forgetting guilt, while men offered material compensation.
In the description of guilt of other persons regarding to the respondent, only one significant difference was found: men placed more emphasis on bad behavior as the reason of such guilt.
The recorded differences were related to the list of persons towards whom respondents shared a common guilt with other people. Women more frequently mentioned guilt towards grandfather/grandmother and teacher/lecturer, while men -just towards other people in general. The next differences were determined in how to get rid of guilt: women preferred to communicate more or change attitudes; while men more actively offered material compensation.
One significant difference was identified only with regards to the guilt of other people towards the respondent and her/his close circle as "children", which was more frequently mentioned by men.
Summarizing the above description, it can be noted that most of the gender differences were recorded in the respondents' own guilt estimates -by themselves or with their environment. The differences identified here fit into the well-known gender-role stereotypes. Determining own guilt towards their close environment, women respondents more frequently than men talked about guilt towards those persons communication with whom is entirely or largely personal.
Men talked more actively, firstly, about their own guilt towards more abstract communication partners, such as "other people"; secondly, about guilt of older persons or persons of higher status towards themselves and their group as "children".
Description of reasons that originate the sense of guilt quite clearly correlates with existing gender stereotypes: women blame themselves for conflict and men blame themselves for bad behavior. Therefore women are more focused on the evaluation of emotional sphere, and men -of the instrumental one.
When recognizing the correctness of gender stereotypes, then such differences seem quite reliable. If we deny the validity of such stereotypes, then we can assume that the respondents' answers reflect the presence of these "wrong stereotypes" in the respondents' minds. If reject both the first and second explanations, there is opportunity for further study of this issue.
The situation is similar with the proposals on getting rid of the sense of guilt. Women's proposals are more diverse and more psychological: communicate more, understand each other, and change attitudes. However, men prefer to take a less psychological way such as material compensation. This position may reflect, firstly, more instrumental attitude of men towards the content of interpersonal relations; and secondly, their tendency to assert themselves and increase self-esteem through the use of material advantages (obviously, as more status ones).

METHODOLOGY Study 3. What about the collective guilt?
Due to the fact that students gave clearly more answers about individual guilt comparing with collective one, another survey was carried out, which content focused on collective guilt assessments. 34 students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv were interviewed (average age of 19.2 years; 64.7% were females).
Respondents were offered a questionnaire similar to the previous one, which contained the following subjects of guilt: "We, me and my friends", "We students", "We young people", "We women/men", "We Ukrainians" -or the objects of guilt -"towards me and my friends", "towards us young people", "towards us women/men, "towards us Ukrainians". Totally the questionnaire contained 12 items.
According to the content analysis of answers, received semantic units were identified, mostly similar to those ones mentioned in the previous paragraph, and which in some cases had different content.

MAIN RESULTS
Gender differences were determined by the same principle as in the previous study. They were significant between 9 indicators (Table 3). First of all, attention should be paid to the fact that two areas dominate in the assessments of collective guilt that excite the students' consciousness. The first area is gender-role wherein the mutual guilt of men and women towards each other is fixed. The second one is socioprofessional-status area related to students' guilt.
Therefore, male respondents actively realize their guilt towards women. Also, majority of women (however, not dominant, unlike men) admit their guilt towards men. The difference in the ratio of "guilty" men (91.7%) and women (57.1%) was manifested at the trend level (p .1).
The similar situation was observed in the evaluation of guilt of the opposite sex persons towards the respondents' own gender people: all interviewed men and almost all women talked about it.
However, it should be noted that four ratios described were actually triggered by formulation of the questions asked, when for the respondents it was quite natural an answer about the guilt of women towards men and guilt of men towards women.
Evaluation of students' guilt had different content. Evaluations of inefficiency and dishonesty were opposed in the answers of respondents of the two sexes.
When following the existing gender stereotypes, it should be assumed that men complain about inefficiency, since efficiency is one of the most important instrumental features; and women, by the same principle, should talk about dishonesty as a moral and ethical trait, which negatively affects the character of interpersonal relations.
However, the ratios obtained were opposite. Women talked about students' guilt for inefficiency and about the need to increase efficiency, while men more frequently referred to guilt for dishonesty. In other words, if instrumental and emotional differences really occur, it appears that in evaluation of their own "professional" guilts, students of both sexes reflect their gender-role features as a lack of certain positive properties. If such differences are only a product of stereotypes, then, in fact, a false reflection takes place of these features as supposedly actually existing. If no such differences exist, as no corresponding stereotypes exist in the minds of students (which is unlikely), then the differences observed need further study.
Two more differences relate to the broad social context. Men more likely admit their and their friends' guilts towards society, while women more apparently insist on the need for all Ukrainians to increase their effectiveness. Such indicators suggest a slightly stronger identification of men with their reference group, and women with the whole society. However, these two dependencies are not enough for more complete conclusions on the gender specificity of guilt at the societal level.

CONCLUSIONS
Most of the features of women's and men's guilt feelings and coping with it identified in our study correspond to common gender stereotypes.
Women attribute more importance to the evaluation of guilt in close relationships: they more frequently than men accuse themselves and close persons. But men more actively confess their guilt towards abstract persons taking into account the social hierarchy.
Inter-sexual relations show both mutual accusations and mutual confessions of guilt. Men are more actively involved in both these processes.
Conflict is more often the source of guilt for women, and for men, such a source is bad behavior.
In assessment of international guilt, women more frequently pay attention to emotionally stereotyped attitudes, while men more actively respond to current context.
Women's suggestions on how to get rid of guilt feeling are more diverse and communicative. Men attach more importance to material compensation.
Part of the identified gender differences to a different extent contradicts existing stereotypes.
In assessments of students' guilt, women more frequently talk about the instrumental trait (efficiency/inefficiency), while men refer to the negative moral trait (dishonesty).
In the sphere of broad social contacts, women more actively than men accuse state authorities and insist on the need to increase effectiveness of all Ukrainians.
The data described do not refute the validity of gender stereotypes, but basically are coherent with them. However, the presence of features that contradict these stereotypes gives reason of ambiguous correlation between respondents' gender identity and demands of the situation that actualize certain aspects of such identity. Therefore, a multi-faceted picture of determining the sense of guilt and its evaluation by women and men is formed.