The words "guilt" and "conscience" are common words in everyday vocabulary, yet they still pose definition problems in psychology. Often the literature uses these words inter-changeably, or without adequate definition. A lay-man's definition of guilt could be an accountability to curb hedonistic impulses (Ausbel, 1955). Conscience is seen as a moral regulator, of which guilt is a consequence. All proposed theorists postulate conscience (guilt being a part thereof) as important social moderators. It is an internalised authority figure, which replaces a constant external authority. As Ausbel (1955) discusses, social stability relies on the conscience to regulate human behaviour. Conversely, not only does it serve society, but is acquired from society. An example where we can appreciate the role of society on conscience is the differences in moral standards across cultures (Bandura, 1963). This report will try to analyse the treatment of conscience and guilt through three major models of personality ; Freud's psychoanalytic model, Kelly's personal construct and cognitive social learning theory.

Common knowledge of conscience and guilt are most easily translated into Freud's tri-partite model of personality. Conscience is seen as the super ego, which is the internalised authority which represent the values that are enforced by parents. Guilt is the tension that occurs between the instinctual desires that stem from the ego and the values held in the super ego (Freud, 1961). The development of the super ego occurs during early childhood. The behaviour of a child is formulated by the external influence of the parents, and this behaviour is motivated by a fear of loss of love (Freud, 1961). In this way, the process is not unlike the cognitive learning theory. But as the child matures, a super ego is created, not just by values of parents, but other relevant social figures. For Freud, it is only when this super ego is created that we can start talking of the conscience and guilt (Freud, 1916). The super ego is "powered" by the same feelings of aggression that it creates a tension with in the ego. Guilt therefore is the internal substitute for the external punishment from a parent or society.

One of the strengths in Freud's theory is that it accounts for not only behaviour that leads to guilt, but also thoughts. While behaviourists are mainly concerned with behaviour that contradicts internal values, Freud accounts for "sinful" thoughts that may lead to guilt. Since the super ego is unconscious, it can act on unconscious instinctual drives that may not surface to the conscience. Therefore the intention of a behaviour that is not compatible with the authority of the super ego also causes tension (ie guilt).

The theory isn't as successful in explaining individual differences in amounts of guilt experienced by people. An anecdotal example proposed is a very "saintly" man, who although doesn't act on his impulses, he experiences more guilt. This is explained with frustration, noting "as is well known, temptations are merely increased by constant frustration, whereas an occasional satisfaction of them causes them to diminish, at least for the time being" (Freud, 1916). Though he deals with this problem, this "well known" anecdotal evidence must be questioned.

Kelly's personality construct theory can be simplified as man's need "look at his world through transparent patterns or templates which he creates and ten attempts to fit over the realities of which the world is composed" (Kelly, 1955, pg.7). These constructs are driven by the human innate desire to predict events to act accordingly (Monte, 1977). To quote Kelly's fundamental postulate "A person's processes are psychologically channelled by the ways in which he anticipates events (Monte, 1999, pg.526). Kelly deals with the concept of guilt by proposing a model in which humans not only make constructs to apply to others, but also to the self. This core role structure is the construct we believe ourselves to be, and what people think we should be. Obviously, to fully understand this idea we must come to grips with the concept of the self. But this definition problem would deter too much to the task at hand. To economise we'll take Kelly's notion of the self as similar to Roger's (Rogers, 1951).. So for Kelly guilt is when we deviate from our core role construct (Bannister, 1971). To put it in other words, it is when our actions are contrasting to those of how we see ourselves to be, or how we think others see us. The concept of conscience is not treated as accurately. For Kelly, conscience is formed in the exact same way as a super ego, through parental reinforcement (Kelly, 1969). But this only serves to build yet another template, that of parental view of the self.

Differences in individuals are therefore easily explained in this model, since it doesn't matter whether we do things "right" or "wrong", but whether we do them consistent to our self construct. Another great point of the theory is that the constructs are permeable, and can be changed according to environmental factors (Monte, 1999). This helps explain developmental stages in children. As a child grows up, society views them as having more responsibility. Therefore their personal construct has to change to accommodate new social views.

Motivation for Kelly is through a cognitive learning process. A being is reinforced by its environment to make decisions on the type of construct they design But unlike Freud, Kelly doesn't venture into why we would do things that go against our personal role construct. For, if we have these "templates", which we use to deal with new situations, there is no reason for us to contradict them. In this aspect, Freud's drive are more specific to reason. Freud also provides a driving energy for guilt; aggression from instictual. desires, while Kelly's guilt is just a side effect of the construct system. Another point of mention is that unlike Freud, Kelly he doesn't deal with thoughts, only actions. When one commits an action, he is confronted with the discrepancy in self construct. But what if one thinks of an action that contradicts one’s self construct? Kelly doesn't properly address this point.

Finally we reach cognitive social learning theory, which is often associated with the work of Bandura. It is a model where behaviours are learnt through reinforcements from society (Bandura and Walters, 1960). Central to this theory is that humans follow other human beings. This aspect of the theory is very easily testable, and is subject to a plethora of studies (Bandura 1969, Hill, 1960, Cowan et al, 1969). Bandura proposes a dynamically built "self system", that is part of process of interaction between the person, environment and behaviour. This stems away from the idea of self being an autonomous system "inside" a person, but more of a thing existing both within and externally (Monte, 1999). This permeability is shown through his experiments with children who change their normal moral opinion when they are influenced by a human model (Bandura and Macdonald, cited Cowan et al 1969). Bandura's idea of self-control (or conscience, for our purposes) is not like Freud's where disapproval or approval of behaviours is automatic. Bandura proposes that one can shut this self control off at will (Monte, 1999). He uses this idea to explain how people and justify behaviour that contradicts their self system.

However. the idea of conscience and especially the guilt feeling is not extensively covered by Bandura. Sear et al (cited Hill 1960) are far more comprehensive in their treatment of both these concepts. They form conscience as a cognitively learned behaviour. A child misbehaving is negatively reinforced (loss of love, punishment) and it soon learns to stop behaviour to earn parents love again. After many pairings, the child learns to anticipate the parents reaction to their behaviour, and seize to do it.

In their treatment for guilt, Sears et al notice a curious phenomenon. When a person does something that transgresses his learned behaviour, he often seeks out punishment for the deed. Upon receiving this punishment there is a certain relief. Sears et al write that "where it not for this phenomena of punishment-seeking and self sacrificing restitution, it would be easy to dismiss guilt as merely the kind of fear associated with anticipation of certain sorts of punishment"(cited Hill, 1960).

One of the common threads of all these theories is their social component. All three propose that it is during childhood that we create a conscience. How is this a consideration for children that are brought up in the wild, without social influence? Would these wild children develop a moral inclination? If so, it would suggest the social aspect of the theories wrong.

Ausbel, D. (1955). Relationships between shame and guilt in the socializing process. Psychological Review, 62. 378-390.`

Bandura, A. (1969). Social learning of moral judgements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11, 274-279.

Bannister, D. (1971). Inquiring man. Harmondsworth : Penguin.

Cowan, P; Jonas, L; Heavenrich, J; Nathanson, M. (1969) Social learning and Piaget’s cognitive theory of moral development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 11, No 3, 261-274

Freud, S. (1930 /1961). Civilization and its discontent. In Volume XXI of The Standard Edition. London : Hogarth.

Hill, W. (1960). Learning theory and the acquisition of values. Psychological Review, 67. 317-331.

Kelly, G.A (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. N.Y. : Norton

Kelly, G.A (1969). Clinical psychology and personality. N.Y. :Wiley

Monte, C.F (1999). Beneath the mask : An introduction to theories of personality (6^th ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.

Rogers, C (1951). Client centred therapy. Boston : Houghton Miffin.