Your flaws are my pain: linking empathy to vicarious embarrassment.

ABSTRACT: People vicariously experience embarrassment when observing others' public pratfalls or etiquette violations. In two consecutive studies we investigated the subjective experience and the neural correlates of vicarious embarrassment for others in a broad range of situations. We demonstrated, first, that vicarious embarrassment was experienced regardless of whether the observed protagonist acted accidentally or intentionally and was aware or unaware that he/she was in an embarrassing situation. Second, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we showed that the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula, two cortical structures typically involved in vicarious feelings of others' pain, are also strongly implicated in experiencing the 'social pain' for others' flaws and p

SUBMITTER: Krach S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3076433 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature