Women Feel Guilty About Feeling Guilty – Men? Not So Much

It doesn't matter how much women multi-task, they always feel they're never doing enough – with the laundry, their housework, their hubbies, their friends, their work, their workouts, their kids' schools or even their kids. They're never pretty enough, sexy enough, caring enough, successful enough, mothering enough. It's a never-ending battle of women vs. their guilt. Men, on the other hand are, ahem, "guilt-deficient"  or at least that's the word coming down from a team of Spanish psychological researchers as reported on MSNBC.

The study, lead by Dr. Itziar Extebarria of the University of the Basque Country in Spain, observed 360 men and women in three age groups from adolescent to elderly and asked them to describe how they would feel about situations, such as, forgetting that today is one of your friends' or relations' birthday. The women in the adolescent, 25 to 33 age group and older group all felt intensely more guilty about how their actions impact the happiness of others. In other words, they beat themselves up over not buying the perfect birthday gift, planning a fab party or, at the very least, getting a well-chosen card in the mail. Researchers defined this so-called "habitual guilt" as an ongoing internalized feeling of guilt that many women often share.

So how did the men fare when it comes to the guilt-o-meter? They weren't bothered so much. It wasn't until the researchers compared the older set of men and women that the men reached guilt-parity with women. But don't judge. Men have different strengths, psychologists say. Their testosterone (sort of the anti-empathy hormone) gives men the aggressive edge when it comes to taking risks and taking action. They're not so bogged down worrying about the impact of their choices, which makes them perfect take-chargers – in other words, detached and able to act immediately, as needed.

So why do men get more empathetic as they age? Some researchers believe that as they bond with women, their testosterone levels drop, their oxytocin (bonding) levels increase and they're more guilt-prone. So that's a good thing, right? I think. Maybe. I don't know.

You decide.

Photo by Jaap Steinvoorte via Flickr.