Individual differences in embarrassment: Self-consciousness,self-monitoring and embarrassibility

Embarrassment has been conceptualized as a self-presentational difficulty resulting from a concern with our observable behaviour and a desire to conform and to please others. Thus, individuals particularly concerned with these aspects of their behaviour (i.e. publicly self-conscious and other-directed) are likely to be particularly susceptible to embarrassment. This experiment was designed to investigate this possibility. The Self-consciousness Scale (SCS), Self-monitoring Scale (SMS) and the Embarrassibility Scale (ES) were administered to over 100 Ss. The factor structures obtained in the present study were compared with those obtained in previous studies and revealed an almost exact correspondence for the SCS, a close correspondence for the SMS and little correspondence for the ES. There was a predicted significant positive correlation between the ES and the Public Self-consciousness subscale of the SCS (i.e. a concern for observable behaviour) and the Other-directedness subscale of the SMS (i.e. a desire to conform and please others). Two aspects of the results are discussed: the possibility that the ES is unidimensional and implications of individual differences in the process of embarrassment for investigating coping strategies.