Shyness and Embarrassment: Perspectives from Social Psychology

by Edited by W. Ray Crozier

• ISBN13: 9780521172196
• ISBN10: 0521172195
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-04-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The contributors to this volume conceive of shyness and embarrassment as widely shared everyday experiences where social interaction is inhibited by self-consciousness and feelings of discomfort or foolishness. The dominant position within social psychology that these are aspects of social anxiety is attacked and defended. The role of unwelcome self-referential thoughts in the experience of the social emotions is a recurring theme throughout the book. This intuitively compelling notion is critically evaluated in terms of objective self-awareness, social anxiety, and impression management theories. A psychological account of these experiences is important for both theoretical and practical reasons: it advances the study of social processes and contributes to the remediation of extreme shyness and social anxiety. This is the first book that treats shyness and embarrassment together. Previous studies dealt with these experiences in isolation, even though they can be difficult to distinguish both in ordinary language and in psychological theory. The central assumption of this book is that understanding the "social emotions" will only be possible if they are considered together, if they are located within their social context, and if conceptual and empirical inquiries are closely related.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Contributors	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Theoretical issues in the study of shyness and embarrassment
Social psychological perspectives on shyness embarrassment, and shame	p. 19
Shyness and embarrassment in psychological theory and ordinary language	p. 59
The expression of shyness and embarrassment	p. 87
The impact of focus of attention and affect on social behaviour	p. 119
The evolution and manifestation of social anxiety	p. 144
An emphasis upon embarrassment
Embarrassment: A conceptual analysis	p. 181
Embarrassment and blushing: A component-process model, some initial descriptive and cross-cultural data	p. 205
Blushing as a discourse: Was Darwin wrong?	p. 230
An emphasis upon shyness
A definition of shyness and its implications for clinical practice	p. 255
Shyness and self-presentation	p. 286
Shyness as a personality trait	p. 315
Social anxiety, personality, and the self: Clinical research and practice	p. 338
Name index	p. 357
Subject index	p. 361
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.