考研阅读精选：你的尴尬为何让我如此痛苦

『他人身体上的痛苦会触发我们痛苦的感受，然而，看到他人处于某一尴尬情景，也会使我们产生类似的感受。其原因何在呢？』

Why Your Embarrassment Causes Me So Much Pain

你的尴尬为何让我如此痛苦

May 5, 2011 | From Time

Ever find yourself physically cringing  as you watch those hopeful contestants  on American Idol  who have no clue  that they can't sing? If so, you're probably a highly empathetic  person, according to new study published in the journal PloS One.

In fact, the study finds, the experience of vicarious  embarrassment affects the same brain regions that light up when you empathize with  someone's physical pain. The study adds to a growing body of literature  suggesting that physical and emotional pain are processed in the same brain regions, which is probably why we describe ourselves as "hurt" whether we've just been dumped by a lover or broken a leg.

Now add watching someone walk around with toilet paper on their shoe to the list of shared emotional trauma .

The new research suggests not only that we empathize with other people's embarrassment as we do their pain, but that we also experience this vicarious emotion whether or not the person being embarrassed is aware of their social predicament .

In the study, which was led by Soren Krach of Phillipps University in Marburg, Germany, 480 women and 139 men were asked to rate how they would feel if they themselves experienced certain embarrassing scenarios  or observed others in the same situation. The vignettes  included experiences like stumbling  during a speech or slipping in the mud — some were accidental faux pas , and others were situations where the person deliberately violated social rules, like belching  loudly. In these examples, both the embarrassed person and the audience were aware of the humiliation .

Alternatively situations were described in which the people being embarrassed were unaware of their humiliation, such as walking around unknowingly with their fly  unzipped .

When imagining themselves as the embarrassed party, the study participants  felt most uncomfortable when putting themselves in accidentally humiliating situations that everyone knew about. However, when asked to imagine observing other people in similar situations, the participants' vicarious embarrassment was even greater — especially in those cases of people who were blind to their own humiliation.

The higher the participants' ratings on a scale of empathy , the greater the discomfort they felt relating to other people's embarrassment. The fact that this was true even when the people in the situation were unaware that they were being embarrassed suggested that the participants' empathy was anticipatory  — being projected  forward to the moment at which people would discover, for example, having given a speech with their pants open.

Since the more empathetic people did not rate their own embarrassment as higher when they imagined themselves getting humiliated, their discomfort with others' experiences seems to be related to actual empathy, rather than with simply being more likely to feel embarrassed.

A second experiment involved imaging the brains of 32 participants, 17 of whom were women. Again, people who rated higher on empathy showed greater vicarious embarrassment. They also showed higher levels of activation  in a brain region called the anterior insula , which is the part of a brain involved in processing the unpleasant emotions associated with pain (as opposed to the location or type of pain). Interestingly, this region is also activated during the experience of disgust.

The study helps explain why we may literally cringe from either pain or embarrassment, whether it's our own or that of someone who doesn't even know they're being humiliated. (552 words)

cringe /krIndV/ v.（因恐惧而）退缩，蜷缩，畏缩。如：The dog cringed at the sight of the whip. （那只狗见到鞭子就退缩了。）
contestant /kEn5testEnt/ n. 比赛者；竞争者
American Idol：《美国偶像》，福斯广播公司从2002年起主办的美国大众歌手选秀赛。
have no clue：不知道；一无所知
empathetic /5empE9WetIk/ adj. 移情的；有同感的；产生共鸣的
vicarious /vI5keErIEs/ adj. 设身处地的；间接感受到的；有同感的
empathize with：（与……）有同感，产生共鸣
literature /5lItrEtFE(r)/ n. 某学科的著述或文献
trauma /5trR:mE/ n. 痛苦；创伤
predicament /prI5dIkEmEnt/ n.（困难的或为难的）处境，窘况
scenario /sI5nB:rIEU/ n.（艺术或文学作品中的）场景
vignette /vI5njet/ n.（文章或影片的）小片段，小插曲
stumble /5stQmbl/ v. 结结巴巴地说话，一再出错地说话
faux pas /9fEU 5pB:/ n.（社交场合中的）失态，失言，失礼
belch /beltF/ v. 打嗝
humiliation /hju:9mIlI5eIFn/ n. 羞辱；丢脸
fly /flaI/ n.（裤子）前裆开口
unzip /Qn5zIp/ v. 拉开拉链
participant /pB:5tIsIpEnt/ n. 参加者；参与者
empathy /5empEWI/ n. 感情移入；同感（对他人的感情、经历等的想像力和感受力）
anticipatory /An5tIsIpeItErI/ adj. 事情尚未发生前就发生（或完成、感觉到）的。如：an anticipatory flash of excitement（事情还未发生就突如其来的一阵激动）
project /5prCdVekt/ v.（尤指无意识地）投射（自己的感觉给别人），设想别人的感受与自己一样。如：His mother had projected her anxieties onto him.（他母亲以为他也和自己一样感到焦虑。）
调查参与者对他人越同情（等级越高），对于他人的尴尬，他们就会感觉越不舒服。即使他人没有意识到自己正处于尴尬的情境中，上述结论也是正确的。这一事实表明，调查参与者的同情是预先存在的。也就是说，这种同情先于当事人意识到自身的尴尬处境而产生，比如，看到他人演讲时裤子档口是开着的。