Discussion explores the role of guilt in depression, arguing that "how children come to view themselves as pervasively responsible for bad things that happen" is a key element in the social transmission of affect that involves guilt. "Guilt" basically is an adaptive emotion that involves thoughts of remorse or responsibility for wrongdoing. While adaptive, it is susceptible to dysregulation. In fact, research indicates that some forms of depression may be transmitted socially from parent to child. One mechanism mediating the transmission plausibly might be the early learning of excessive guilt. Until recently, this was not a tenable surmise, because very young children were not believed to have well-internalized feelings of responsibility. Recent research, however, indicates that guilt develops in the second year of life, a time when children increase in their capacity to share with, sympathize with, help, and comfort victims in distress. Since young children exhibit difficulty in distinguishing between problems they cause and those they observe, it is possible that early forms of empathy and guilt may easily become confused. Such young children may be particularly vulnerable to feelings of responsibility for problems not of their own making, and to developing unrealistic guilt, especially if their causal role in distress events is over-emphasized by caregivers. Additional findings are discussed. (RH)