In the age of social media, "cringe" content has become a viral sensation. People share their most awkward, embarrassing, and self-conscious moments online, and viewers can't look away. This phenomenon raises a question: why are we so drawn to watching others squirm?

Psychologists describe this as "secondhand" or "vicarious embarrassment." It occurs when we witness someone else's social faux pas. Stefan Hofmann, a clinical psychologist at Marburg University in Germany, compares cringe videos to junk food: "If you eat junk food, you want more of it, or even more outrageous stuff," he says. The more we consume, the more we crave.

Embarrassment is subjective. A bad grade won't embarrass someone who doesn't care about school, but it can deeply embarrass a person for whom academic success is central to their identity. Frieder Paulus, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Lübeck, Germany, explains that if a stranger misbehaves in public, we might feel anger, but if it's our child, we feel embarrassed for them and for ourselves, because their behavior reflects on us.

Embarrassment belongs to a class of emotions called "emotional barometers," which also include shame, pride, and guilt. These emotions signal that a social norm has been broken. To feel embarrassment, one must be aware of social norms, the context, and the presence of an audience. Brain scans show that witnessing embarrassment activates regions associated with arousal and error detection.

Matthew Feinberg, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto, Canada, has found that displays of embarrassment signal prosocial behavior. Observers interpret embarrassment as a sign that the person knows they've done something socially awkward or wrong, which fosters trust. Feinberg notes that witnessing embarrassment "triggers a natural response" of sympathy, and vicarious embarrassment might even be a stronger trust signal than experiencing it oneself.

Embarrassment also reflects our fear of social exclusion, which is psychologically and physically painful for a social species like humans. Hofmann's clinical work includes "social mishap exposures," where patients intentionally embarrass themselves to challenge their fears. However, cringe is an involuntary emotion that develops early in life, and not all of our attraction to it is positive. Some people experience schadenfreude—pleasure in others' misfortunes—which explains why we keep watching, even when it makes us cringe.

Source: www.dw.com