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Sketchpad Series

Embarrassment as a Model for Socio-Affective Prediction Error—A Pilot Study

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Nicole Serino¹ (tut38747@temple.edu), Linda J. Hoffman¹, Lily Prendergast¹, Steven Martinez¹, Maya Kilcullen¹, Johanna Jarcho¹, Vishnu Murty², Ingrid R. Olson¹; ¹Temple University, ²University of Oregon

Social emotions, such as embarrassment, provide information to conspecifics that one understands and accepts social norms of the tribe. Embarrassment is a critical component of human affect that arises in response to threats to one’s social integrity. Induction of embarrassment requires there to be a prediction error wherein the brain’s self-monitoring system detects deviations from social decorum and norms. In the laboratory, induction of embarrassment is difficult. To overcome this, we devised a novel embarrassment induction task. In a pilot study (N=14), we asked naïve participants to perform in various creative modalities (i.e., singing, dancing, storytelling) while being video recorded. They were asked to rate their performance on a 1-7 scale, with 7 being the best, after each trial. One week later, they returned for a surprise self-observation task in which their videos were played back to them. They were again asked to rate their performance. We predicted that participants’ ratings would decrease due to the embarrassment evoked upon self-viewing. Results showed that subjects rated themselves as higher at Session 2 than at Session 1 (t=2.2, p<.05*). This was surprising, since 9 of 11 participants who completed the end-of-study questionnaire at Session 2 endorsed feelings of embarrassment. A larger sample size plus analysis of psychophysiological data (collected but not analyzed) will help to illuminate whether this surprising finding is due to sample characteristics or how we ascertained their emotional state. Later, we will use this embarrassment manipulation to study neural circuits underlying socio-affective prediction error.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotional responding