The Nature and Severity of Self-Reported Embarrassing Circumstances

To create a comprehensive catalogue of embarrassing predicaments, descriptions of recent embarrassments were obtained from 350 high school and college student respondents. Four major dimensions of embarrassing circumstances emerged, involving individual, interactive, audience, and bystander behavior The respondents' embarrassability predicted the intensity of their embarrassments; in addition, high school students suffered stronger embarrassments than college students, and women reported stronger embarrassments than men. Altogether the 12 subcategories of social predicaments delineated here appear to fit a social esteem model of embarrassment more parsimoniously than an awkward interaction model.