You're so embarrassing!
As the running with the Fremdschämen
If one is ashamed for other similar areas of the brain are active, as when one mimics the pain of others. This is the result of a recent study on the neural basis of foreign Schämens, scientists at the Philipps University published in the current issue of the online scientific journal "PLoS One". The authors led by Dr Sören Krach and Frieder Paulus including reports on results that they have achieved using behavioral experiments, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Entertainment programs such as "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" or "Stromberg" are very popular - thanks to embarrassing situations, they deliver foreign shame free of charge to the home, even without those affected noticing anything about it themselves. "In social interactions, not losing face is so important that if you mentally put yourself in someone else's shoes that seem embarrassing from the outside, you feel embarrassed," the authors of the current study write.
Numerous fMRI studies have shown the brain regions in which the sympathy felt when observing the physical injury of others is processed: namely the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. For the phenomenon of vicarious shame, on the other hand, there are still no comparable studies that relate empathic behavior to neuronal activity.
To close this gap, the scientists conducted two studies. In a questionnaire study, they confronted more than 600 volunteers with briefly described, embarrassing scenes and registered the reactions. The result: The feeling of shame occurs relatively independently of whether the observed person feels embarrassed or not.
In a second investigation, the study authors used fMRI to identify which areas of the brain are active when observing others intentionally or unintentionally violating social norms in public. The researchers measured the brain activity of 32 subjects while they viewed depictions of embarrassing situations. "In doing so, we found robust activations in the anterior insula and in the anterior cingulate cortex, brainstem, and cerebellum," explains senior author Krach - "a network that is also involved in feeling compassion for physical pain." As expected, one showed up strong neural activity even when the observed person was unaware of the awkwardness of their situation.
Original work:
Sören Krach et al.: Your Flaws Are My Pain: Linking Empathy To Vicarious Embarrassment, PLoS One, April 13, 2011
Source: Marburg [Philipps University]
