Notes

Burden of guilt

Importantly, the way an emotional experience correlates with bodily experience causes us to adopt certain metaphors and not others. Given the associative link between guilt and weight, we propose that the bodily experience of weight facilitates the experience of guilt. In turn, these temporarily heightened feelings of guilt affect subsequent behavior beyond one’s own awareness.

Importantly, the way an emotional experience correlates with bodily experience causes us to adopt certain metaphors and not others. Given the associative link between guilt and weight, we propose that the bodily experience of weight facilitates the experience of guilt. In turn, these temporarily heightened feelings of guilt affect subsequent behavior beyond one’s own awareness.

Relying on the work on embodied simulation, we also explore the mechanism explaining these proposed effects. We argue that the experience of guilt inherently has components that resemble those of weight (i.e., they share a similar embodied basis). As a result, when individuals feel heavy, the congruence between their bodily experience of weight and emotional experience of guilt leads to processing fluency and facilitation of the emotional experience of guilt.

Our main interest is the link between physical weight and feelings of guilt.