Guilty feelings.

It's negative reinforcement.

My bad. I bungled my terminology. Positive punishment, apparently, is the right term.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.

Although, come to think, of it. Negative reinforcement probably also comes into it, as you can relieve guilt by making things right.

Yes. Why do you think that matters?

Guilt is aversive, like other aversive mental states, because that is its functional purpose. Hunger is unpleasant because it exists to make us eat, ditto thirst and drinking, ditto tiredness and sleep, ditto pain and avoiding harm. Guilt, if I'm right, serves the same purpose for social and moral enforcement.

But it's bullshit! The brain absolutely, categorically, does not work like that. There is not software running on hardware in the brain; you cannot pull apart an analysis of how things work like that.Or, at least, there is absolutely no sign of it. Everything we know about the function of the brain shows no differentiation between physiology and mental process. For example, patients with OCD show characteristic pathology of the brain. You can solve their symptoms by giving them prozac and, if you do, their brains return to normal. However, you can also solve their problems by given them Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and, sure enough, the physiology of the brain changes. If you are happy, you can see it in the brain; if you are sad, you can see it in the brain, and so on, and so forth. Right down to the functional physics and chemistry of the neurons, and the wash of brain chemicals, none of them show any hardware/software divide.

The computer analogy is useful in understanding some features of how the brain works but don't take it too literally. I defy you to find a single case where you can do that; or someone has successfully done that. One.In the brain, there isn't any such distinction, when you think, the biology changes, when you remember, it rewires the neurons. Even when you see, you change your brain (not much, these days, but it happens), your visual system remolds itself learning from what you see. This is fundamentally different from how a computer works; in a computer you have hardware which is distinguished by being fixed and immalleable, and software that runs on top of the hardware. It the brain you don't.