When you make a social faux pas—like running into an old friend and momentarily forgetting his name—are you quick to feel embarrassed?

An awkward display—looking down at your feet, nervously touching your face or blushing—might make you feel publicly humiliated.

But there’s a silver lining.

A recent study suggests that people who feel and look embarrassed tend to be more “prosocial” (meaning that they’re caring, compassionate, empathetic and concerned about the feelings of others) and more generous. To top it all off, they’re also viewed as more trustworthy by others!

BEING EMBARRASSED ISN’T A BAD THING

The next time you commit a “party foul,” so to speak, here’s why it’s OK to look embarrassed—and not overanalyze the incident in your head for the next three days (or for the rest of your life!).

In one experiment, adults were asked to imagine themselves in situations that might elicit embarrassment (such as being naked in a bedroom and discovering that the shades are open) and to indicate how embarrassed they would feel in such situations. They also completed questionnaires that helped researchers estimate how prosocial and generous they tended to be.

Researchers found that people who reported a greater tendency to be embarrassed were more likely to be prosocial and generous.

In another experiment, adults were shown videos of two highly embarrassed people and two minimally embarrassed people. They were then asked to rate how trustworthy each person was. Observers expressed more willingness to trust subjects who were highly embarrassed.

DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP

I asked Matthew Feinberg, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University in California, and lead author of the study while he was a PhD candidate at University of California, Berkeley, why people who tend to become embarrassed might be considered more trustworthy by others. His hypothesis is that embarrassment is seen as a nonverbal apology or a gesture of appeasement.

In other words, if you feel regretful enough about something you’ve done to feel embarrassed, you must be a caring person, right?

So if you’re in an embarrassing social situation, what should you do? Dr. Feinberg said, “Let yourself react the way that you normally react when you’re embarrassed—you’re going to feel uneasy in that moment no matter what, and that’s OK.” It’s perfectly fine to look at the ground or touch your face, for example. Dr. Feinberg added that it’s also OK to blush—not that you could stop it!—because, he suspects, that will also make you look like one of the good guys.

What you might want to change, however, is how you feel about the incident in the minutes, hours, days and weeks that follow, he advised. If you’re anything like me, then you stress about embarrassing events long after they’re over. This study shows that rather than beat yourself up, you should instead pat yourself on the back…because if anything, your embarrassment will have made people perceive you in a more positive light.

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