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Stumbling on a crack in the sidewalk or forgetting a new acquaintance's name may seem like the longest, most embarrassing encounter. But research suggests there's reason to be proud of those blushing moments of mortification -- they might make you look more trustworthy to others.
Previous work suggests that feeling embarrassed helps mend social relationships. It's a way of apologizing or acknowledging that you've stepped outside your group's social norms. The idea is that acting embarrassed isn't a disruptive outburst but rather a form of social glue that shows a person values the views of people around him.
Similar to submissive behaviors in the nonhuman animal world, signs of embarrassment in humans include avoiding eye contact, looking to the side or downward, grimacing, or even bursting into nervous laughter.
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Adding to what we know about embarrassment, social scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted five experiments to determine if people who are easily embarrassed are also more prosocial or care more about the welfare of others. The team also sought to learn if being embarrassed influenced others' views of that person.
The experiments, which involved more than 1,100 undergraduate participants, started by asking a small group to recall an embarrassing moment. Researchers videotaped the responses as well as asked participants to take a survey designed to measure prosociality. They found that people who showed more signs of embarrassment (both through their speech and body language) scored higher in the prosocial survey.
Next, the team worked with different participants, some of whom viewed videos of students recalling their embarrassing moments, while others just saw photos of embarrassing reactions. In both cases, the observers viewed others who acted embarrassed as more generous and trustworthy than people that acted unscathed by a potentially embarrassing event. The researchers also found that participants trusted others who showed signs of embarrassment in an economic simulation, too.
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Even photos of people looking embarrassed seemed to provoke a response in observers. The finding suggests that people may "create their own contexts" to understand why a person appears to be embarrassed, the authors write.
But the findings may not readily describe what we experience in everyday life, the authors admit, mostly because the experiments put participants in unnatural situations. Conducting more observational and controlled studies will likely show whether results in the lab can be generalized to the outside world.
It's not clear where shame fits into the picture either. Same goes for social anxiety, which sometimes creates a serious fear of embarrassment.
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