Relationship Closeness and Embarrassment

Author(s): Kendell C. Thornton

DOI: https://doi.org/10.65030/idr.05006

Abstract: Participants read a scenario describing the potentially embarrassing situation of a couple dancing in a club, surrounded by people, where one member of the couple is dancing awkwardly and attracting the attention of the others in the club. The scenario was written so that participants imagined that their partner was the one dancing awkwardly. Participants (N = 118) were then asked about their perceptions and emotional reactions. Results indicate that the Inclusion of Other in Self (IOS; Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991) scale, a cognitive measure of relationship closeness, predicted participant's reported embarrassment. These findings are discussed in light of past research (Thornton, 2003), which did not find the Relationship Closeness Inventory (RCI; Berscheid, Snyder, & Omoto, 1989), a behavioral measure of relationship closeness, to be predictive of embarrassment.

Keywords: Interpersonal relations; Embarrassment; Self-consciousness (Sensitivity); Emotions; Human behavior; Psychological research

Pages: 81-85

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