Embarrassment as an Emotion - Assignment Example

Embarrassment as an emotion involves the strong sensation of discomfort, when one’s socially unacceptable thoughts or actions are witnessed by other people or revealed to them. It may be related to loss of dignity, yet the cause of it doesn’t involve wrongdoing in a moral aspect but something that is not accepted by the public. In other words, from the perspective of self-esteem, embarrassment is experienced by an individual, when he/she thinks him/herself to have failed to act or behave in accordance to social standards (Costa et al., 2001).

Being a self-conscious public emotion similar to guilt and shame, embarrassment always relates to other people surrounding an individual. The essence of this emotion is the feeling of being exposed to potential unfavorable evaluation of one’s behavior, thoughts, or errors by people (Lewis, 2010). A person is likely to feel embarrassed when he/she perceives his/her actions or behavior as something putting the social identity on the spot. Therefore, it is important to remember that feelings of embarrassment might depend on the environment. The feeling of embarrassment is affected by social context, so we are unlikely to feel embarrassed in the company of our family members, close friends, or partners, but we are likely to feel embarrassed when being in the company of strangers or people with higher social status. Also, if the situation that is a potential trigger of embarrassment occurs in the presence of people who recognize an individual, embarrassment might be strengthened, as an individual will fear that those people would think negatively about him/her. I would agree with this theory, as the presence of people who recognize me yet are not my immediate surroundings (friends, family) might increase feelings of embarrassment. At the same time, some social contexts can make one feel embarrassed even in the company of close people like family members. For instance, I would feel embarrassed if I went to a movie theater with my parents and unexpectedly saw a downright scene involving nudity.

However, the presence of other people – no matter whether they are strangers or acquaintances – controls and affects our behavior and self-conscious emotions. The experimental study of Costa et al. (2001) indicates that self-reported embarrassment and external expressions of this emotion are greater when a person is surrounded by other people. Moreover, one is very likely to feel more embarrassed, as others might react in some way to his/her unacceptable actions, thoughts or facts revealed about him/her: People might enhance embarrassment by criticizing, teasing, praising, or correcting mistakes. On the other hand, I think I would probably feel less embarrassed in a place or situation where nobody could recognize me. In such a situation where nobody knows you, you feel less concerned with the way you look at other people, as none of them recognizes you. This means that the feeling of anonymity releases us from concern about the impression other people can form about us if we violate certain social standards: being anonymous relieves the feeling of embarrassment.

Theoretical basis in combination with personal experience makes it possible for me to state that embarrassment is an emotion of purely social nature coming from our interaction with other people. Even being among strangers, we are still likely to feel embarrassed to a certain extent in case of violation of primary social standards (for instance, occasional involuntary flatulence in a bus). However, if we lived isolated from the society, we wouldn’t worry about adhering to certain social standards and the way other people would evaluate us in relation to our behavior and thoughts.