Embarrassment

Definition

Embarrassment is the emotion that results when social predicaments increase the threat of unwanted evaluations from real or imagined audiences. It occurs when people realize that they are making undesired impressions on others, and it usually strikes without warning [Page 284]when some misstep or abrupt change in fortune puts people in awkward situations. It is characterized by feelings of startled surprise, ungainly awkwardness, and sheepish abashment and chagrin. Embarrassed people typically feel painfully conspicuous and clumsy; they rue their circumstances and may be mortified or even humiliated by the unwelcome judgments they presume from others.

Context and Importance

Embarrassment is clearly an emotion: When it occurs, it strikes quickly and automatically in a manner that people cannot control, but it lasts only a short time. Moreover, embarrassment is a distinctive emotion that is unlike any other: It has unique antecedents and physiological effects, it elicits singular feelings and behaviors, and it has particular effects on people's interactions with others.

The events that cause embarrassment range from individual blunders—in which people rip their pants, spill their drinks, or forget others' names—to more complex circumstances in which interactions take awkward turns or innocent victims are made the butt of practical jokes. The common element in these events is that they all convey to other people unexpected, unwelcome information that threatens to make an unwanted impression. Because embarrassment arises from acute concerns about what others are thinking, it is unlikely to occur if one genuinely does not care what one's present audience thinks.

When it occurs, embarrassment engenders a notable physical reaction, blushing, which is caused by dilation of veins in the neck and face that brings blood closer to the surface of the skin. A distinctive pattern of nonverbal behavior also occurs: When embarrassment strikes, people avert their gazes and try not to smile, but they usually break into sheepish grins that are recognizably different from smiles of real amusement. They may bring their hands to their faces, bow their heads, gesture broadly, and stammer, and when this sequence of behavior is accompanied by a blush, embarrassment is easy to detect.

The feelings that result from embarrassment are less painful than those that result from shame. Embarrassment causes sheepish discombobulation, whereas shame (which follows darker, weightier wrongdoing) is characterized by spiteful disgust and disdain for one's flaws. Embarrassment is also quite different from shyness, the state of fretful trepidation over potential disapproval that has not yet occurred.

Shyness operates as a mood that may persist for long periods of time, whereas embarrassment strikes suddenly in response to actual predicaments but then quickly fades.

Abashed and chagrined, people who are embarrassed are usually contrite and eager to please. Their behavior is typically helpful and conciliatory as they try to repair any insult or damage they may have caused. Perhaps for that reason, embarrassment usually elicits positive reactions from those who witness it. Audiences routinely respond to someone's obvious embarrassment with expressions of sympathy and support, and when some public transgression occurs, observers like people who become embarrassed more than those who remain unruffled and calm. Embarrassment that is proportional to one's predicament actually elicits more favorable evaluations after some misbehavior than poised imperturbability does.

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