that thesis proposal thing
This was written almost a year ago, and it will happen. Eventually.
Empathic Embarrassment While Viewing
Romantic Rejection and General-type Embarrassment Situations
Empathic embarrassment is the phenomenon of an observer empathetically sharing the uncomfortable feelings of embarrassment with an individual in an embarrassing situation even though the observer is neither directly experiencing nor threatened by the embarrassing situation (Miller, 1987). That is, by merely watching someone become embarrassed in an embarrassing situation, observers may become embarrassed themselves. Further, observers may experience empathic embarrassment even when the person in the embarrassment situation is not overtly embarrassed. This may be the result of observers imagining themselves in the observed situation; thus, the resulting empathic embarrassment is the product of the embarrassment they would feel if they themselves were in the situation. In this instance, it is the observed situation and not the observed person that leads to an embarrassment response. Therefore, empathic embarrassment may often be more related to the individual observing the situation than the observed person's true level of embarrassment (Marcus & Miller, 1999).
Empathic embarrassment is a complex and intriguing socio-emotional response that has received only limited attention in the literature. The goal of the following research proposal is to both build upon and expand beyond what has been previously accomplished. I will now provide a brief overview of the previous research and theoretical framework from which this proposal stems.
First, a distinction between empathy and sympathy must be made. Sympathy is characterized by a feeling of compassion for a troubled individual; empathy, on the other hand, is characterized by the sharing of an emotional state with another (Gruen & Mendelsohn, 1986). Therefore, in the case of empathic embarrassment, rather than feeling "sorry" for the embarrassed, the observer actually experiences the feelings of embarrassment. While empathy and sympathy are distinct concepts, they are often seen together. However, while situations that produce empathetic responses often produce sympathetic responses as well, the opposite is not always true. That is, not all situations that produce sympathy also produce empathy. Therefore, while both sympathy and empathy appear to be idiosyncratic responses, empathetic responses appear to be more variable amongst individuals. Previous studies have shown that individuals differ in their empathy responses and all experience empathy to varying degrees (e.g., Davis, 1983). It appears that both personality factors (e.g., an observer's capability to take on other points of view) and situational factors (e.g., the observed individual's reactions during the situation) affect empathetic responses. Furthermore, observers are more likely to experience empathetic responses, both negative and positive, when similar to the observed individual (Krebs, 1975). Perceived similarity may lead to an observer identifying more with the observed individual, and thus, may facilitate an observer's capability to imagine him or herself in the perceived situation.
In regards to empathic embarrassment, an observer's own embarrassability also influences his or her empathetic response. Research has consistently found that individuals who are easily embarrassed themselves are the most likely to experience empathic embarrassment (e.g., Miller, 1987; Marcus, Wilson, & Miller, 1996; Marcus & Miller, 1999). As younger individuals and women report stronger embarrassment than older individuals and men (Miller, 1992; Miller, 1995), it can be surmised that both will also experience stronger empathic embarrassment. While there is no empirical evidence supporting stronger empathic embarrassment in young individuals, it has been found that women are more prone to empathic embarrassment than men are (Miller, 1987). In the same study, it was also found that prior exposure/interaction with the embarrassed further increases empathetic response.
As stated earlier, research focusing directly on empathic embarrassment has been very limited. In fact, only three empirical studies can be found in the literature. Two of these studies assessed an observer's empathic embarrassment while viewing another perform either an embarrassing task (e.g., dancing to recorded pop music) or an innocuous task (e.g., counting the number of words sung during the same recorded music) (Miller, 1987; Marcus et al., 1996). A third study looked at college students' empathic embarrassment responses while viewing their peers' class presentations (Marcus & Miller, 1999). These prior studies have all assumed that all highly embarrassing situations will produce the same level of empathic embarrassment in susceptible observers. However, as empathic embarrassment has been shown to be idiosyncratic, it is unlikely that all observers who are susceptible to empathic embarrassment would become so in all situations in which an individual is embarrassed. That is, some embarrassment situations may lead to an observer becoming more empathetically embarrassed than other situations.
I propose that an emotionally laden, highly embarrassing situation -- in this proposed study's case, a romantic rejection situation -- may be such an instance where empathic embarrassment would be greater than in a highly embarrassing situation without this basis. The emotional basis and possible prior familiarity of the embarrassment situation may facilitate observers'identification with the observed individual and situation. This increased identification may in turn lead to a greater empathetic response. Furthermore, due to the possible personal history factors influencing empathic embarrassment responses while watching emotionally laden embarrassment situations, prior exposure may not be as crucial for strong empathetic responses. Therefore, while this proposed study is largely exploratory, I hypothesize that the empathetic response to embarrassing romantic rejection situations will be greater than the empathetic response to embarrassing general-type situations, despite whether the observer has had prior exposure to the embarrassed.
Method
Participants
In order to obtain sufficient statistical power to detect an existing medium effect size for a four group Analysis of Variance, power analysis dictates a minimal total sample size of 180 (45 participants for each group). Therefore, 180 female San Jose State University students will be recruited for this study. An exclusively female sample was chosen because prior findings indicate that women experience greater empathic embarrassment than men (Miller, 1995). Therefore, if there is a greater empathic embarrassment response to emotionally laden embarrassment than embarrassment without this basis, it is more likely to be found using an all-female sample than a male- or mixed-sample. With the exception of gender, there will be no exclusion criteria for participants. As participants will be obtained through the Psychology 1 subjects pool, the sample will be a convenience sample. However, there is no reason to believe that those who choose to participate will be different in their empathic embarrassment responses from those who do not. Demographic information (i.e., age, ethnicity, sexual orientation) will be collected for post-analysis comparisons. Participants will sign a form consenting to the study and will be assured their anonymity.
Materials
Through the pretesting of a pool of video clips, two video clips will be chosen -- one representing a romantic rejection situation and the other representing a general-type embarrassment situation. Both embarrassment situations will occur in the presence of one or more individuals. The clips will come from film and/or television and will feature a female as the embarrassed protagonist. A small group of participants similar to the target population (i.e., female college students) will rate the embarrassing nature of the situation and what kind of situation it represents (romantic rejection or general-type). Participants will use a Likert-type scale for their responses. It must be stressed that participants will be rating the embarrassing nature of the situation itself and not rating their empathic embarrassment response to the situation. Participants will also be asked to indicate whether they had previously seen the video clip. Any clip that has been seen by more than 50% of the participants will be excluded from the study, as this familiarity may confound the results. The final clips will be chosen because they were rated as containing a highly embarrassing situation (i.e., a mean score greater than 3.50 on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 = not embarrassing and 5 = very highly embarrassing). Further, the chosen clips will have equivalent ratings of embarrassment (i.e., mean ratings not significantly different from each other).
After choosing the embarrassing situation clips, two versions of each will be made. One version will focus on the embarrassed protagonist (great prior exposure) and the other will mostly focus on characters not directly involved in the embarrassing situation (limited prior exposure). The protagonist's embarrassing situation will occur at the end of both versions. Both versions will be approximately 10 minutes in length and again tested by another group of participants similar to the target population. Again using a Likert-type scale, participants will be asked to rate the amount of exposure to the protagonist prior to the embarrassing situation (e.g., In comparison to the other characters featured, how exposed were you to Character X?). For the great prior exposure condition, a mean rating indicating high exposure is desired. For the limited prior exposure condition, a mean rating indicating low exposure is desired. If there is not a discrepancy between the different versions or the ratings are not equivalent across the type of embarrassment situation, the video clips will be re-edited and retested until the desired discrepancy/equivalence is achieved. The final versions will be equivalent for exposure across type of embarrassment situation, but discrepant between the amount of prior exposure to embarrassed. That is, great prior exposure-romantic rejection will be equivalent to great prior exposure-general-type (as will limited prior exposure-romantic rejection and limited prior exposure-general-type), but great prior exposure-romantic rejection will not be equivalent to limited prior exposure-romantic rejection.
Design and Procedure
The design of this study is a 2x2 Between-Subjects Factorial Design. The independent variables are type of embarrassment situation (romantic rejection, general-type) and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed (great prior exposure, limited prior exposure). A romantic rejection situation is defined as an emotionally laden, highly embarrassing situation with a romantic rejection aspect (e.g., an individual being harshly rejected by a potential romantic interest). On the other hand, a general-type embarrassment situation is defined as a highly embarrassing situation that lacks both a romantic rejection aspect and an emotionally laden basis (e.g., an individual dancing about freely and unusually without knowing he or she is being watched until significant time has passed). Further, great prior exposure is defined as prior exposure deemed as leading to familiarity with the embarrassed protagonist while limited prior is defined as prior exposure deemed as not leading to familiarity with the embarrassed. As stated earlier, the embarrassing nature, situation type, and prior exposure to the embarrassed will be assessed by participants using Likert-type scales in the pretesting phase of the proposed study. The dependent variable is level of empathic embarrassment experienced by the observer. This will be measured using four, 8-point bipolar adjective scales (i.e., ease-self-conscious, calm-flustered, poised-awkward, unembarrassed-embarrassed). A combined mean score of these scales can range from 1 to 8, with a low mean score indicating no/low empathic embarrassment and high mean score indicating high/very high empathic embarrassment. These adjective scales have been used in previous studies that assessed empathic embarrassment (e.g., Apsler, 1975; Miller, 1987; Marcus et al., 1996) and the mean score on these scales have been comparable to scores on items that explicitly ask for observers to rate their empathic embarrassment (Miller, 1987). Further, internal consistency for this scale has been shown to be adequate for assessing both observers' empathic embarrassment (α = .87) and observers' perceived embarrassment of a protagonist (α = .90) (Marcus et al.,1996).
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. The participants will watch each condition's respective 10-minute video clip alone. Prior to viewing, a post-viewing questionnaire will be administered face down to participants. Participants will be instructed to turn over the questionnaire immediately upon the completion of the video clip and to follow the directions printed. The directions will ask participants to truthfully assess their current state using nine 8-point bipolar adjective scales. As mentioned previously, four of these scales will be those used assess empathic embarrassment (i.e., ease-self-conscious, calm-flustered, poised-awkward, unembarrassed-embarrassed). Further, five additional 8-point bipolar scales will also be included in the questionnaire (i.e., soothed-distressed, composed-rattled, collected-unnerved, relaxed-agitated, unruffled-disconcerted). These scales, however, will not be included in data analysis because of their unproven reliability and validity. The purpose of their inclusion is to provide more substance to the questionnaire. Participants will also be asked to assess their perception of the emotional state of the embarrassed protagonist using the same 8-point bipolar adjective scales. These means will later be correlated with observers' own empathic embarrassment responses. Further, participants will be asked to volunteer demographic information (i.e., age, ethnicity, sexual orientation). Upon the completion of the post-viewing questionnaire, participants will be debriefed and excused from the lab.
Analysis
Prior to analysis, empathic embarrassment scale means will be calculated for each participant by averaging the participant's responses on the four, 8-point bipolar adjective scales use to measure empathic embarrassment. In addition to using these calculated means in analyses to test the hypothesis, they will be correlated with the participants' ratings of the perceived emotional state of the embarrassed. A strong correlation is expected. In addition, internal consistency will be calculated for both set of ratings. Further, the overall means and standard deviations for each condition will be conducted and presented. Possible correlations using demographic information may also be performed (e.g., Latina participants' mean empathic embarrassment response for the romantic rejection-no prior exposure condition).
As the design of this proposed study is a 2x2 Between-Subjects Factorial, a two-factor between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be conducted with type of embarrassment situation (romantic rejection, general-type) and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed (great prior exposure, limited prior exposure) as the independent variables and the mean empathic embarrassment experienced by participants as the dependent variable. A main effect for type of embarrassment situation is predicted, with romantic rejection situations eliciting higher empathic embarrassment responses than general-type embarrassment situations. Further, a main effect for amount of prior exposure to embarrassed is predicted, with great prior exposure eliciting higher empathic embarrassment responses than limited prior exposure. Moreover, a significant interaction between type of embarrassment situation and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed is predicted. If this interaction is indeed significant, the simple effects of type of embarrassment situation at amount of prior exposure will be analyzed. It is predicted that both simple effects will be significant, with the romantic rejection situation eliciting greater empathic embarrassment than the general-type embarrassment situation across both levels of prior exposure to the embarrassed.
References
Apsler, R. (1975). Effects of embarrassment on behavior toward others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 145-153.
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 752-766.
Gruen, R. J., & Mendelsohn, G. (1986). Emotional responses to affective displays of others: The distinction between empathy and sympathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 609-614.
Krebs, D. (1975). Empathy and altruism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 845-857.
Marcus, D. K., & Miller, R. S. (1999). The perception of "live" embarrassment: A social relations analysis of class presentations. Cognition and Emotion, 13(1), 105-117.
Marcus, D. K., Wilson, J. R., Miller, R. S. (1996). Are perceptions of emotion in the eye of the beholder? A social relations analysis of judgments of embarrassment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(12), 1220-1228.
Miller, R. S. (1987). Empathic embarrassment: Situational and personal determinants of reactions to the embarrassment of another. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1061-1069.
Miller, R. S. (1992). The nature and severity of self-reported embarrassing circumstances. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(2), 190-198.
Miller, R. S. (1995). On nature of embarrassability: Shyness, social evaluation, and social skill. Journal of Personality, 63(2), 315-339.
btw: I have everyone who used to attend Buffy-night at eruthros and m_shell's to thank for the inspiration.
Empathic Embarrassment While Viewing
Romantic Rejection and General-type Embarrassment Situations
Empathic embarrassment is the phenomenon of an observer empathetically sharing the uncomfortable feelings of embarrassment with an individual in an embarrassing situation even though the observer is neither directly experiencing nor threatened by the embarrassing situation (Miller, 1987). That is, by merely watching someone become embarrassed in an embarrassing situation, observers may become embarrassed themselves. Further, observers may experience empathic embarrassment even when the person in the embarrassment situation is not overtly embarrassed. This may be the result of observers imagining themselves in the observed situation; thus, the resulting empathic embarrassment is the product of the embarrassment they would feel if they themselves were in the situation. In this instance, it is the observed situation and not the observed person that leads to an embarrassment response. Therefore, empathic embarrassment may often be more related to the individual observing the situation than the observed person's true level of embarrassment (Marcus & Miller, 1999).
Empathic embarrassment is a complex and intriguing socio-emotional response that has received only limited attention in the literature. The goal of the following research proposal is to both build upon and expand beyond what has been previously accomplished. I will now provide a brief overview of the previous research and theoretical framework from which this proposal stems.
First, a distinction between empathy and sympathy must be made. Sympathy is characterized by a feeling of compassion for a troubled individual; empathy, on the other hand, is characterized by the sharing of an emotional state with another (Gruen & Mendelsohn, 1986). Therefore, in the case of empathic embarrassment, rather than feeling "sorry" for the embarrassed, the observer actually experiences the feelings of embarrassment. While empathy and sympathy are distinct concepts, they are often seen together. However, while situations that produce empathetic responses often produce sympathetic responses as well, the opposite is not always true. That is, not all situations that produce sympathy also produce empathy. Therefore, while both sympathy and empathy appear to be idiosyncratic responses, empathetic responses appear to be more variable amongst individuals. Previous studies have shown that individuals differ in their empathy responses and all experience empathy to varying degrees (e.g., Davis, 1983). It appears that both personality factors (e.g., an observer's capability to take on other points of view) and situational factors (e.g., the observed individual's reactions during the situation) affect empathetic responses. Furthermore, observers are more likely to experience empathetic responses, both negative and positive, when similar to the observed individual (Krebs, 1975). Perceived similarity may lead to an observer identifying more with the observed individual, and thus, may facilitate an observer's capability to imagine him or herself in the perceived situation.
In regards to empathic embarrassment, an observer's own embarrassability also influences his or her empathetic response. Research has consistently found that individuals who are easily embarrassed themselves are the most likely to experience empathic embarrassment (e.g., Miller, 1987; Marcus, Wilson, & Miller, 1996; Marcus & Miller, 1999). As younger individuals and women report stronger embarrassment than older individuals and men (Miller, 1992; Miller, 1995), it can be surmised that both will also experience stronger empathic embarrassment. While there is no empirical evidence supporting stronger empathic embarrassment in young individuals, it has been found that women are more prone to empathic embarrassment than men are (Miller, 1987). In the same study, it was also found that prior exposure/interaction with the embarrassed further increases empathetic response.
As stated earlier, research focusing directly on empathic embarrassment has been very limited. In fact, only three empirical studies can be found in the literature. Two of these studies assessed an observer's empathic embarrassment while viewing another perform either an embarrassing task (e.g., dancing to recorded pop music) or an innocuous task (e.g., counting the number of words sung during the same recorded music) (Miller, 1987; Marcus et al., 1996). A third study looked at college students' empathic embarrassment responses while viewing their peers' class presentations (Marcus & Miller, 1999). These prior studies have all assumed that all highly embarrassing situations will produce the same level of empathic embarrassment in susceptible observers. However, as empathic embarrassment has been shown to be idiosyncratic, it is unlikely that all observers who are susceptible to empathic embarrassment would become so in all situations in which an individual is embarrassed. That is, some embarrassment situations may lead to an observer becoming more empathetically embarrassed than other situations.
I propose that an emotionally laden, highly embarrassing situation -- in this proposed study's case, a romantic rejection situation -- may be such an instance where empathic embarrassment would be greater than in a highly embarrassing situation without this basis. The emotional basis and possible prior familiarity of the embarrassment situation may facilitate observers'identification with the observed individual and situation. This increased identification may in turn lead to a greater empathetic response. Furthermore, due to the possible personal history factors influencing empathic embarrassment responses while watching emotionally laden embarrassment situations, prior exposure may not be as crucial for strong empathetic responses. Therefore, while this proposed study is largely exploratory, I hypothesize that the empathetic response to embarrassing romantic rejection situations will be greater than the empathetic response to embarrassing general-type situations, despite whether the observer has had prior exposure to the embarrassed.
Method
Participants
In order to obtain sufficient statistical power to detect an existing medium effect size for a four group Analysis of Variance, power analysis dictates a minimal total sample size of 180 (45 participants for each group). Therefore, 180 female San Jose State University students will be recruited for this study. An exclusively female sample was chosen because prior findings indicate that women experience greater empathic embarrassment than men (Miller, 1995). Therefore, if there is a greater empathic embarrassment response to emotionally laden embarrassment than embarrassment without this basis, it is more likely to be found using an all-female sample than a male- or mixed-sample. With the exception of gender, there will be no exclusion criteria for participants. As participants will be obtained through the Psychology 1 subjects pool, the sample will be a convenience sample. However, there is no reason to believe that those who choose to participate will be different in their empathic embarrassment responses from those who do not. Demographic information (i.e., age, ethnicity, sexual orientation) will be collected for post-analysis comparisons. Participants will sign a form consenting to the study and will be assured their anonymity.
Materials
Through the pretesting of a pool of video clips, two video clips will be chosen -- one representing a romantic rejection situation and the other representing a general-type embarrassment situation. Both embarrassment situations will occur in the presence of one or more individuals. The clips will come from film and/or television and will feature a female as the embarrassed protagonist. A small group of participants similar to the target population (i.e., female college students) will rate the embarrassing nature of the situation and what kind of situation it represents (romantic rejection or general-type). Participants will use a Likert-type scale for their responses. It must be stressed that participants will be rating the embarrassing nature of the situation itself and not rating their empathic embarrassment response to the situation. Participants will also be asked to indicate whether they had previously seen the video clip. Any clip that has been seen by more than 50% of the participants will be excluded from the study, as this familiarity may confound the results. The final clips will be chosen because they were rated as containing a highly embarrassing situation (i.e., a mean score greater than 3.50 on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 = not embarrassing and 5 = very highly embarrassing). Further, the chosen clips will have equivalent ratings of embarrassment (i.e., mean ratings not significantly different from each other).
After choosing the embarrassing situation clips, two versions of each will be made. One version will focus on the embarrassed protagonist (great prior exposure) and the other will mostly focus on characters not directly involved in the embarrassing situation (limited prior exposure). The protagonist's embarrassing situation will occur at the end of both versions. Both versions will be approximately 10 minutes in length and again tested by another group of participants similar to the target population. Again using a Likert-type scale, participants will be asked to rate the amount of exposure to the protagonist prior to the embarrassing situation (e.g., In comparison to the other characters featured, how exposed were you to Character X?). For the great prior exposure condition, a mean rating indicating high exposure is desired. For the limited prior exposure condition, a mean rating indicating low exposure is desired. If there is not a discrepancy between the different versions or the ratings are not equivalent across the type of embarrassment situation, the video clips will be re-edited and retested until the desired discrepancy/equivalence is achieved. The final versions will be equivalent for exposure across type of embarrassment situation, but discrepant between the amount of prior exposure to embarrassed. That is, great prior exposure-romantic rejection will be equivalent to great prior exposure-general-type (as will limited prior exposure-romantic rejection and limited prior exposure-general-type), but great prior exposure-romantic rejection will not be equivalent to limited prior exposure-romantic rejection.
Design and Procedure
The design of this study is a 2x2 Between-Subjects Factorial Design. The independent variables are type of embarrassment situation (romantic rejection, general-type) and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed (great prior exposure, limited prior exposure). A romantic rejection situation is defined as an emotionally laden, highly embarrassing situation with a romantic rejection aspect (e.g., an individual being harshly rejected by a potential romantic interest). On the other hand, a general-type embarrassment situation is defined as a highly embarrassing situation that lacks both a romantic rejection aspect and an emotionally laden basis (e.g., an individual dancing about freely and unusually without knowing he or she is being watched until significant time has passed). Further, great prior exposure is defined as prior exposure deemed as leading to familiarity with the embarrassed protagonist while limited prior is defined as prior exposure deemed as not leading to familiarity with the embarrassed. As stated earlier, the embarrassing nature, situation type, and prior exposure to the embarrassed will be assessed by participants using Likert-type scales in the pretesting phase of the proposed study. The dependent variable is level of empathic embarrassment experienced by the observer. This will be measured using four, 8-point bipolar adjective scales (i.e., ease-self-conscious, calm-flustered, poised-awkward, unembarrassed-embarrassed). A combined mean score of these scales can range from 1 to 8, with a low mean score indicating no/low empathic embarrassment and high mean score indicating high/very high empathic embarrassment. These adjective scales have been used in previous studies that assessed empathic embarrassment (e.g., Apsler, 1975; Miller, 1987; Marcus et al., 1996) and the mean score on these scales have been comparable to scores on items that explicitly ask for observers to rate their empathic embarrassment (Miller, 1987). Further, internal consistency for this scale has been shown to be adequate for assessing both observers' empathic embarrassment (α = .87) and observers' perceived embarrassment of a protagonist (α = .90) (Marcus et al.,1996).
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. The participants will watch each condition's respective 10-minute video clip alone. Prior to viewing, a post-viewing questionnaire will be administered face down to participants. Participants will be instructed to turn over the questionnaire immediately upon the completion of the video clip and to follow the directions printed. The directions will ask participants to truthfully assess their current state using nine 8-point bipolar adjective scales. As mentioned previously, four of these scales will be those used assess empathic embarrassment (i.e., ease-self-conscious, calm-flustered, poised-awkward, unembarrassed-embarrassed). Further, five additional 8-point bipolar scales will also be included in the questionnaire (i.e., soothed-distressed, composed-rattled, collected-unnerved, relaxed-agitated, unruffled-disconcerted). These scales, however, will not be included in data analysis because of their unproven reliability and validity. The purpose of their inclusion is to provide more substance to the questionnaire. Participants will also be asked to assess their perception of the emotional state of the embarrassed protagonist using the same 8-point bipolar adjective scales. These means will later be correlated with observers' own empathic embarrassment responses. Further, participants will be asked to volunteer demographic information (i.e., age, ethnicity, sexual orientation). Upon the completion of the post-viewing questionnaire, participants will be debriefed and excused from the lab.
Analysis
Prior to analysis, empathic embarrassment scale means will be calculated for each participant by averaging the participant's responses on the four, 8-point bipolar adjective scales use to measure empathic embarrassment. In addition to using these calculated means in analyses to test the hypothesis, they will be correlated with the participants' ratings of the perceived emotional state of the embarrassed. A strong correlation is expected. In addition, internal consistency will be calculated for both set of ratings. Further, the overall means and standard deviations for each condition will be conducted and presented. Possible correlations using demographic information may also be performed (e.g., Latina participants' mean empathic embarrassment response for the romantic rejection-no prior exposure condition).
As the design of this proposed study is a 2x2 Between-Subjects Factorial, a two-factor between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be conducted with type of embarrassment situation (romantic rejection, general-type) and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed (great prior exposure, limited prior exposure) as the independent variables and the mean empathic embarrassment experienced by participants as the dependent variable. A main effect for type of embarrassment situation is predicted, with romantic rejection situations eliciting higher empathic embarrassment responses than general-type embarrassment situations. Further, a main effect for amount of prior exposure to embarrassed is predicted, with great prior exposure eliciting higher empathic embarrassment responses than limited prior exposure. Moreover, a significant interaction between type of embarrassment situation and amount of prior exposure to embarrassed is predicted. If this interaction is indeed significant, the simple effects of type of embarrassment situation at amount of prior exposure will be analyzed. It is predicted that both simple effects will be significant, with the romantic rejection situation eliciting greater empathic embarrassment than the general-type embarrassment situation across both levels of prior exposure to the embarrassed.
References
Apsler, R. (1975). Effects of embarrassment on behavior toward others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 145-153.
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 752-766.
Gruen, R. J., & Mendelsohn, G. (1986). Emotional responses to affective displays of others: The distinction between empathy and sympathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 609-614.
Krebs, D. (1975). Empathy and altruism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 845-857.
Marcus, D. K., & Miller, R. S. (1999). The perception of "live" embarrassment: A social relations analysis of class presentations. Cognition and Emotion, 13(1), 105-117.
Marcus, D. K., Wilson, J. R., Miller, R. S. (1996). Are perceptions of emotion in the eye of the beholder? A social relations analysis of judgments of embarrassment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(12), 1220-1228.
Miller, R. S. (1987). Empathic embarrassment: Situational and personal determinants of reactions to the embarrassment of another. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1061-1069.
Miller, R. S. (1992). The nature and severity of self-reported embarrassing circumstances. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(2), 190-198.
Miller, R. S. (1995). On nature of embarrassability: Shyness, social evaluation, and social skill. Journal of Personality, 63(2), 315-339.
btw: I have everyone who used to attend Buffy-night at eruthros and m_shell's to thank for the inspiration.