![]() ![]() ![]() Sabini and colleagues had subjects rate how embarrassing they would find various situations. Recent research suggests that a single theory probably is not adequate to account for all incidents of embarrassment and that there are at least two, and perhaps three, somewhat distinct subtypes of embarrassment. How do you respond? Do you give the person a compliment back? Tell her that you know you look great? According to the dramaturgic account, it is the uncertainty of not knowing how to proceed that gives rise to embarrassment in such cases. Another example is receiving lavish compliments on your appearance. The negative evaluations would seem to apply only to the friend, not the self. For example, Sabini notes, people invariably say that they would feel embarrassed to have to remind a friend of a debt that the friend had failed to repay. According to the awkward-interaction or dramaturgic account, it is not that the person is worried about making a bad impression per se, but rather that he or she does not know what to do next.Ī variety of examples seem to fit this account. The late John Sabini of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues proposed that embarrassment is likely to arise when a person anticipates a disruption of smooth social interaction and faces a situation without a clear sense of the social expectations governing behavior. Here, others' attentions are entirely positive and do not reflect negatively on the self in any way. For example, most people feel embarrassed when their friends sing "Happy Birthday to You" to them in a restaurant. It seems not to provide a complete story, however. There is no doubt that many situations seem to fit this account quite well. In short, we become embarrassed when we perceive that the social image we want to project has been undermined and that others are forming negative impressions of us. According to this account, what lies at the root of embarrassment is the anticipation of negative evaluation by others. Miller at Sam Houston State University and others, seems closest to ordinary intuition. ![]() The social evaluation model, championed by Rowland S. So, what appraisals trigger embarrassment? Over the years, several investigators have tried to answer this question. No simpler or more "objective" theory will possibly work. What all the different states of the world that lead people to experience fear have in common is that they all trigger the perception that their well-being is threatened. The list would have no end, and it would depend on a complex web of beliefs and desires. One cannot make any finite list of the events that might cause a person to feel fear. Of course, it has had no such effect on the patrons-or the lion. Why? The conversation, not the lion, has triggered in the trainer's mind the recognition that his vital interests are in peril. If the lion tamer experiences fear, what does the fear relate to? Not the lion, most likely, but rather the overheard conversation. ![]() However, pause to consider a lion tamer who-while at work with a lion in a cage-just so happens to overhear a passing circus patron mention to another patron that he just read that the circus is going bankrupt. At first glance, one might assume that fear is simply how people respond to danger-fire, guns, lions and so forth. Embarrassment is a highly individual experience and is often intensified by the fear that everyone is watching (and judging) when most of the time, almost no one will even notice.Why such a complex formulation? Must we pile mental events upon other mental events? To see why this has struck most theorists as unavoidable, it is useful to start with a simpler, and not necessarily social, emotion: fear. A person can feel embarrassed for themselves or on behalf of someone else (if they are particularly empathic, or if they are secretly concerned that the other person’s supposed failings will also reflect negatively on them). For example, someone may feel just as embarrassed by being called beautiful in front of a group of people as they are by forgetting someone’s name or falling in public. It’s notable that the inciting event may be either positive or negative. The ensuing embarrassment may be accompanied by feelings of awkwardness, exposure, shame, guilt, or regret. The embarrassed individual becomes conscious of a real (or imagined) failure to comply with social norms and fears that others won’t view them as highly as a result. Frequently grouped with shame and guilt, embarrassment is considered a “self-conscious emotion,” and it can have a profoundly negative impact on a person’s thoughts or behavior. ![]()
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