Embarrassment a sign of virtue

Researchers at the University of California have carried out the study and found that embarrassment is a good thing — in fact, embarrassment is one emotional signature of a person to whom you can entrust valuable resources.

Not only are the findings useful for people seeking cooperative and reliable team members and business partners, but they also make for helpful dating advice. Subjects who were more easily embarrassed reported higher levels of monogamy, according to the study.
“Moderate levels of embarrassment are signs of virtue. Our data suggests embarrassment is a good thing, not something you should fight,” said Matthew Feinberg, who led the study. The researchers point out that the moderate type of embarrassment they examined should not be confused with debilitating social anxiety or with “shame”, that’s associated in the psychology literature with such moral transgressions as being caught cheating.

The results were gleaned from a series of experiments that to gauge relationship between embarrassment and pro-sociality.