Be Smart

(quirky piano music) - Let's go this way.

Oh God, (quirky piano music) just caught my reflection, I look ridiculous.

Hey guys.

I feel like people keep avoiding me, giving me a lot of space on the sidewalk, I can't imagine why.

(quirky piano music) You might be wondering how I got myself in this pickle.

It's pretty embarrassing, I gotta be honest, but that's the point.

I'm trying to feel embarrassed for science.

Embarrassment, awkwardness, cringe, no matter what you call it, it's one of the most unique human emotions and one that's particularly hard to figure out.

But if a feeling exists and it's lasted through evolution, it probably has a purpose.

So why do we feel embarrassment?

It may not be something we relish, it's a feeling and experience most of us do whatever we can to avoid.

But what if embarrassment is actually a good thing?

(quirky music) How would you define embarrassment?

- That's a good question.

- Feeling like you wanna hide, feeling shame for who you are.

- This awful feeling where you just kind of in your head scream, "No, stop.

No, don't talk.

Shut your mouth."

- Farting in public and want nobody to hear it.

- Look that up in the dictionary.

- Feeling extremely uncomfortable.

- Ooh, that was a good one.

Or a feeling of, now I'm nervous, there's cameras rolling.

- Whatever this is.

- Right?

I'm like, how do I describe what I'm feeling right now in this moment?

- Hey, smart people, Joe here.

Embarrassment is a unique emotion, but what are emotions?

Scientists love categorizing things, but emotions have been surprisingly difficult to fit into neat little boxes.

In fact, scientists have been struggling to settle on a universal definition of what an emotion is since the 1800s.

But researchers generally agree that emotions fall into one of a few different bins.

Basic emotions like happiness, sadness, fear and anger pop up quickly without much conscious thought.

That's because they evolve to ensure our survival, like, we don't have time to consciously think about being afraid when we see a creepy clown peeking out of the gutter, we just run.

But embarrassment is different, it falls into another category of emotion known as self-conscious emotion.

Self-conscious emotions require more brain power than basic emotions 'cause you have to think before you feel.

Embarrassment also falls into the category of social emotion, because whether or not we feel embarrassed depends on social rules.

So let's say you just ordered pad Thai from your favorite restaurant, but can you trip and spill it all over the floor on your way to the kitchen?

If you're home alone, when you drop your dinner you might feel frustrated, but probably not embarrassed.

That's because no one was there to see your klutzy moment.

I mean, maybe your dogs saw you but they aren't judging you, they're thanking you.

Now, if you spilled food all over the floor in a restaurant and everybody does that thing where they stop talking and stare right at you, well, in that case, you might feel like dying of embarrassment.

So what makes the "Home Alone" scenario frustrating, but the crowded restaurant embarrassing?

Social context.

The social evaluation model of embarrassment says embarrassment comes from anticipating other people's negative judgment.

Even though in reality most people aren't paying as much attention to us as we think they are, our fear of social judgment can create real pain.

We work hard to cultivate the image of ourselves that we share with the world, so when we accidentally show the world a version of ourself that doesn't match what we wish, that can feel pretty terrible.

Psychologists, John Sabini, identified three social situations that trigger embarrassment.

The first is a faux pas.

These happen when someone commits a social gaffe.

Do you have an embarrassing moment that you'd be willing to share with the world?

- I was in math class, I dropped my book, immediately went to pick it up and farted super loud.

No one said anything, and then I, like, moved my chair to, like, make another sound so people thought it was a chair, that did not help.

- I have fallen into a pool before with the tarp on it in a party.

- How many people saw you do that?

- 20.

- You know, you count them exactly?

- I remember this vividly.

- I was in my backyard growing up, and I'm with, like, my sisters, their friends, the neighbors and we're having a good time, and one of the guys pantsed me.

I was, like, 10 years old and I was super embarrassed.

This is why to this day I wear underwear whenever I'm wearing a swim trunk.

- I remember there was this guy, he pushed me down a flight of stairs.

Yeah, it was bad.

Kids don't bully, it was horrible.

And then I got a big knot in my head and I was embarrassed because everybody was laughing.

I was so mad, I was sad, I was crying.

- Being the center of attention can also trigger embarrassment.

For example, the whole restaurant staff singing "Happy Birthday" to you can make you want to hide under the table, and you thought those people at the party were your real friends.

And finally, there's the sticky situation.

This is when we ask someone to perform a task that we know that they can't or won't successfully complete.

- I went on a date, it was our third date just to be very specific, and the bill came and I was like, "I'm a strong, independent woman, let's at least split the bill," because, you know, so he was like, "Fine, whatever."

We split the bill and the waitress comes back and she goes, "Ma'am, your card was declined."

And I was like, and he goes, "You should have just let me pay for the bill."

And I was like, "Okay, well do you think you can get this one because I don't have the money for it apparently."

- Was there a fourth date?

That's what everybody wants to know.

- There was a fourth date and he did pay from there on out, so.

- I was at a dive bar backlot, I was a little tipsy and I saw a guy and I was like, "Oh my god, he's TikTok famous."

So I walk up with my phone with the TikTok and I was like, "Is this you?"

And he turns on, he's like, "No."

And I was like, "No, no, you look just like him."

I show him, like, six TikToks, he's like, "No, that's not me."

I just thought, you know, we were gonna be buds, you know, he was gonna laugh about it, we were gonna be friends, but I just looked really stupid and I had to run away.

- All of these are examples of situations where we're out of step with social expectations, and teaching where the boundaries of social norms and good behavior are, seems to be the key point of embarrassment.

But we can still feel embarrassed when we're following all the rules.

If you've ever been in a sports match and suddenly found yourself on the jumbotron, you probably know what I'm talking about.

I mean, you're just trying to eat your nachos in peace and now your face is on the big screen and you have no idea what to do.

Scientists refer to this as the dramaturgic model of embarrassment.

We feel embarrassed when we can't figure out the socially acceptable thing to do.

So in the case of the jumbotron you feel embarrassed because you're unsure if you should keep eating your nachos or something.

But a situation that embarrasses you may not embarrass someone else.

According to emotion researcher, Rowland S. Miller, people who are susceptible to feeling embarrassment are more concerned with following social norms and more afraid of rejection.

It's normal day in Austin, people dressed as pickles.

Hi.

That kid thought I was cool.

Basically, you're more likely to feel embarrassed if you're less likely to rock the social boat.

So these models of emotion help us understand why we feel embarrassed when something socially awkward happens to us, but why can we feel embarrassed for other people?

That's called vicarious embarrassment.

It happens when we feel awkward thanks to someone else's mistakes.

When you feel vicarious embarrassment, you're imagining what another person is feeling which fires up particular regions of your brain.

Those are also the parts of your brain that help you feel empathy, which is one of the things that makes human relationships so rich and complex.

So when you feel vicarious embarrassment, congratulations, you care, that's a good thing.

And these days, there's a whole industry built around vicariously experiencing embarrassment in the name of entertainment, cringe comedy.

Cringe comedy uses the theory of benign violation, breaking social rules in an environment free from actual real world harm, to take a threatening situation like having to deal with racism at work and make it harmless by ridiculing it in an imaginary world.

So we enjoy cringe comedy because it allows us to experience uncomfortable situations safely.

That way, we can learn from from other social mistakes and laugh about it in the process.

What do you think the point of embarrassment is?

Like, why do we have that emotion?

Like, what's the use of it?

- Probably because we want people to see us in a certain image, and if we don't go with that image then we can embarrassed by it.

- So I'm into neuroscience, so there's definitely something around the brain and how the brain operates, and there are things that we learn that our brain says, "Oh, that should make you feel embarrassed."

- I think our ego's trying to, like, save us, because I think it's very valuable for us to have, like, good social personas, so when those are threatened, we feel like our cultural capital or social capital's threatened.

- From my perspective, I believe embarrassment exists in order for people to curtail their actions.

- I think it's maybe to humble yourself a bit, like, keep you in line, checked.

"Like, you know, 'cause if you're not embarrassed, you're doing some crazy things, I feel like maybe you can't learn from the experience.

- Do I look cute-cumber in this?

As the Guy In the Pickle Suit, I can definitively say that embarrassment feels pretty crummy.

But that heart-racing, stomach churning feeling is also a sign that embarrassment is doing its evolutionary job to help us follow society's rules.

Researchers think that embarrassment evolved as a way for us to maintain bonds with other members of our social group by warning us when we've crossed a boundary.

And today, a social group may be a group of people with shared interests or identities, but imagine back when humans lived in bands of hunter-gatherers, doing something that made you an outcast could literally be a death sentence.

So there's strong evolutionary pressure to go with the flow.

Is there a physical feeling that you associate with embarrassment?

- Definitely get, like, rosy in the cheeks and my ears get really hot.

- Have you ever felt like your face is in a fire pit?

Because that's the physical feeling.

- Sweaty, mild panic attacks.

- My body gets hot, I get the anxiety hives, it's the whole thing.

- Maybe a little bit of the heart-racing when you're flushed.

- I would say it's like shoulders coming down, coming inward, like, physically hiding.

- It's kind of like when you see like a cute girl or you're on a date and you have those butterflies in your stomach, but like the embarrassing part's like, but you have to, like, fart really bad.

- Physiological signs of embarrassment like blushing are a signal to others that we recognize our mistakes, and that we're sorry for them, a way to authentically communicate that we know we messed up.

We're also more likely to feel embarrassment in front of members of our own social group versus outsiders.

So embarrassment shows us where we fit in and where we don't.

Feeling embarrassed can even benefit our social group.

People who show embarrassment are more likely to engage in beneficial or pro-social behaviors like sharing and cooperating.

Because embarrassment follows the rules of society, what counts as embarrassing changes from culture to culture.

For example, if I visit Japan and wear my shoes inside my friend's house, my friend might be embarrassed for me since that's a social no-no, even though it's not a big deal in the United States, and I might become embarrassed because of my faux pas, which reminds me to be a better guest.

Embarrassment's ability to change our behavior explains why we relive our most embarrassing moments, by remembering our mistakes, we learn from them so that we don't make them again.

Embarrassment isn't our only complex social human emotion, we also have empathy, which embarrassment can make us feel.

The empathy we feel from embarrassment motivates us to be better humans and community members.

So while embarrassment feels like the end of the world, it actually brings us together.

Knowing when we're out of line and apologizing strengthens our relationships.

That sense of connection can hopefully help us all feel less alone even when we're walking around in a pickle suit.