SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Well, this is awkward. And you know what? Many things are. It is a painful part of life, especially when our most mortifying moments can come back to haunt us. But Life Kit reporter Andee Tagle says there's a lot of power to be found in embracing your awkwardness.
ANDEE TAGLE, BYLINE: If you're often visited by the ghosts of humiliations past, maybe when you're just trying to sleep or when a familiar song comes on, it might help to know that there's an actual term people use for these mental intruders - cringe attacks. These flashbacks might feel random. But...
MELISSA DAHL: A time that you were really, really afraid or really angry - anything that's, like, emotionally heightened is going to stick in our brains.
TAGLE: Melissa Dahl is a writer and the author of "Cringeworthy: A Theory Of Awkwardness." The thing about embarrassment, she says, it's not universal. It's relative - uniquely formed by our culture, our social context and our sense of self to help guide us back to the safety of our clans. So you might look at these memories as alarm bells. Remember, stick with the group. Don't stray too far from the cave.
DAHL: And if you were cast out, you would be like, you know, eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or something like that. And it's always treated as if that doesn't apply to today.
TAGLE: But we all know there can still be real consequences when we don't follow social norms.
DAHL: Isolation and loneliness is incredibly damaging. We still depend on social connection for our health and well-being and just general happiness.
TAGLE: So embarrassment is a pro-social tendency that can be positive in a lot of ways. For example, one study out of UC Berkeley from 2011 suggested that people who are more easily embarrassed were seen as more trustworthy and more generous than their less easily embarrassed counterparts. But of course, that doesn't help how much embarrassment can sting in the moment. So what can you do about it? One thing to remember is that your self-conscious feelings aren't always accurate. Take this famous study out of Cornell that Dahl told me about on something called the spotlight effect.
DAHL: And it's basically, like, we assume more people are paying attention to our faults and our embarrassing missteps than they are.
TAGLE: So in this study, researchers put a bunch of participants in a room, and then had one person show up five minutes later.
DAHL: And they made them wear a really silly T-shirt.
TAGLE: Really silly - it featured a large picture of Barry Manilow.
DAHL: Afterwards, they asked them, OK, how many people do you think will remember that you're wearing this ridiculous T-shirt?
TAGLE: T-shirt-wearing participants guessed that number would be about half. In reality, less than a quarter remembered who was on the shirt.
DAHL: Which kind of cracks me up because the advice typically goes, like, oh, like, no one's paying attention to you anyway - and, like, that's not actually what the study found. Like, some people are - just not as many people as we think.
TAGLE: So relax. Even if you showed up to that meeting with a rip in your pants, chances are, most of the people in the room didn't notice or didn't mind. If you're frequented by the same intense, embarrassing memories, there are some other things you can try to soften the edges a bit. One study showed that if you can shift your focus to other details surrounding a cringe attack, like what furniture was in the room at the time, you might be able to lessen the strength of the emotion tied to that memory. But you could also just, you know, try giving yourself a break or maybe even a pat on the back.
DAHL: Thank God I'm cringing over my past self because that suggests some personal growth, hopefully.
TAGLE: Dahl says the more you can lighten up and laugh it off, the better because embarrassment can be isolating, but it doesn't have to be.
DAHL: These feelings are just so wrapped up in empathy and connectedness. Even if it's horrible in the moment, you just have to remember that, like, it's going to make a really good story eventually (laughter).
TAGLE: For NPR's Life Kit, I'm Andee Tagle.
DETROW: For more tips, check out Life Kit at npr.org/lifekit.
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