Embarrassment Emotion

Why We Feel Embarrassment

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Q: Dear April Masini,

Sometimes I feel like I'm putting myself in embarrassing situations every day. I don't understand why I always feel so embarrassed for minor things when I'm at work, but when I'm at home with my family, I can do the dumbest things and not care at all. What is with embarrassment?

Sincerely,

Embarrassed to Ask

A:

Dear Embarrassed to Ask,

Embarrassment is what I call a secondary emotion. The primary emotions are fear and happiness. As people become more socialized, their feelings are the same, but their display of emotions are more complicated because more people are involved in how they feel. If there were just two people in the world, there would not be embarrassment, because there would be nothing to be embarrassed of. But because we all have so many people in our lives, we learn to react to more than our selves. Babies have no embarrassment. It's a reaction and an emotion that they learn as they become socialized. Watch a baby to see the primary emotions. Watch the baby as it grows to see how emotions become more complicated as they have more people, more manners, more rules, and more situations in their lives.

Embarrassment is a feeling that stems from having done something wrong, and knowing that other people know that you've done something wrong. If you do something wrong and no one else knows, you won't feel embarrassed. The embarrassment comes from other people knowing that you did something wrong.

Who's watching:

The embarrassment is imprinted on us depending on how important the people who know we've done something wrong are, and depending on what we did or how bad it is. For example, a child who has an accident in school is embarrassed because his or her peers are important and they will all know that about the accident. If a child has an accident at home with mom or dad, the child is not embarrassed, usually, because there is less at risk with mom and dad knowing about the accident. Mom and dad's reaction to the child's accident will color the child's feelings about the accident and his or her part in the accident. When an adult screws up at a meeting, he or she is embarrassed because of the peers who see and then hear about the accident or the screw up. Depending on the relationship with the peers and the comfort the person has with their own screw ups, the embarrassment will be severe or fleeting.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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