Shyness and Embarrassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology

The contributors to this volume conceive of shyness and embarrassment as widely shared everyday experiences where social interaction is inhibited by self-consciousness and feelings of discomfort or foolishness. The dominant position within social psychology that these are aspects of social anxiety is attacked and defended. The role of unwelcome self-referential thoughts in the experience of the social emotions is a recurring theme throughout the book. This intuitively compelling notion is critically evaluated in terms of objective self-awareness, social anxiety, and impression management theories. A psychological account of these experiences is important for both theoretical and practical reasons: it advances the study of social processes and contributes to the remediation of extreme shyness and social anxiety. This is the first book that treats shyness and embarrassment together. Previous studies dealt with these experiences in isolation, even though they can be difficult to distinguish both in ordinary language and in psychological theory. The central assumption of this book is that understanding the "social emotions" will only be possible if they are considered together, if they are located within their social context, and if conceptual and empirical inquiries are closely related.