Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Feb 13;10(2):e0118243.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118243. eCollection 2015.

Intrapersonal and interpersonal concomitants of facial blushing during everyday social encounters

Marije aan het Rot, D S Moskowitz  1 , Peter J de Jong  2
Affiliations

Intrapersonal and interpersonal concomitants of facial blushing during everyday social encounters

Marije aan het Rot et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Facial blushing may usually be undesirable but may have an ameliorative function for some individuals under some circumstances. Researchers have studied the blush in laboratory settings, but not in daily life. In the present research, conducted with young adults, we employed for the first time an event-contingent recording method for assessing facial blushing during every-day social encounters. Blushing was associated with feeling embarrassed, ashamed, and exposed. These findings, though based on correlational analyses, are consistent with the idea that blushing is often unpleasant and can be maladaptive, and may contribute to the common belief that blushing is an undesirable response. Frequent blushers generally reported lower levels of dominant behavior, higher levels of submissive behavior, and perceived their social interaction partners as more powerful and less affiliative. This was independent of whether they blushed or not, suggesting that altered social behaviors and perceptions are associated with blushing-associated traits rather than with the blushing state. The experience of the blush varied as a function of the frequency with which a person blushed. Blushing was associated with higher levels of shame in frequent blushers than in infrequent blushers. In infrequent blushers, blushing was associated with higher levels of pleasant affect, suggesting that for infrequent blushers the blush may occur in positive social encounters.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Shame during blushing and non-blushing events in more and less frequent blushers.
Note. ***p < 0.0001; ns = not significant.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Self-consciousness during blushing and non-blushing events in more and less frequent blushers.
Note. **p < 0.01.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Pleasant affect during blushing and non-blushing events in more and less frequent blushers.
Note. *p < 0.05; ns = not significant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Darwin C (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London, UK: John Murray;
    1. Crozier WR, de Jong PJ, editors (2013) The psychological significance of the blush. 1 ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 10.1007/s12070-013-0687-x - DOI
    1. Leary MR, Britt TW, Cutlip WD, Templeton JL (1992) Social blushing. Psychol Bull 112: 446–460. - PubMed
    1. Bögels SM, Alberts M, de Jong PJ (1996) Self-consciousness, self-focused attention, blushing propensity and fear of blushing. Pers Ind Diff 21: 573–581.
    1. Leary MR, Meadows S (1991) Predictors, elicitors, and concomitants of social blushing. J Pers Soc Psychol 60: 254–262.

Publication types