『他人身體上的痛苦會觸發(fā)我們痛苦的感受，然而，看到他人處于某一尷尬情景，也會使我們產(chǎn)生類似的感受。其原因何在呢？』

　　Why Your Embarrassment Causes Me So Much Pain

　　你的尷尬為何讓我如此痛苦

　　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.（因恐懼而）退縮，蜷縮，畏縮。如：The dog cringed at the sight of the whip. （那只狗見到鞭子就退縮了。）
  contestant /kEn5testEnt/ n. 比賽者；競爭者
  American Idol：《美國偶像》，福斯廣播公司從2002年起主辦的美國大眾歌手選秀賽。
  have no clue：不知道；一無所知
  empathetic /5empE9WetIk/ adj. 移情的；有同感的；產(chǎn)生共鳴的
  vicarious /vI5keErIEs/ adj. 設(shè)身處地的；間接感受到的；有同感的
  empathize with：（與……）有同感，產(chǎn)生共鳴
  literature /5lItrEtFE(r)/ n. 某學(xué)科的著述或文獻
  trauma /5trR:mE/ n. 痛苦；創(chuàng)傷
  predicament /prI5dIkEmEnt/ n.（困難的或為難的）處境，窘?jīng)r
  scenario /sI5nB:rIEU/ n.（藝術(shù)或文學(xué)作品中的）場景
  vignette /vI5njet/ n.（文章或影片的）小片段，小插曲
  stumble /5stQmbl/ v. 結(jié)結(jié)巴巴地說話，一再出錯地說話
  faux pas /9fEU 5pB:/ n.（社交場合中的）失態(tài)，失言，失禮
  belch /beltF/ v. 打嗝
  humiliation /hju:9mIlI5eIFn/ n. 羞辱；丟臉
  fly /flaI/ n.（褲子）前襠開口
  unzip /Qn5zIp/ v. 拉開拉鏈
  participant /pB:5tIsIpEnt/ n. 參加者；參與者
  empathy /5empEWI/ n. 感情移入；同感（對他人的感情、經(jīng)歷等的想像力和感受力）
  anticipatory /An5tIsIpeItErI/ adj. 事情尚未發(fā)生前就發(fā)生（或完成、感覺到）的。如：an anticipatory flash of excitement（事情還未發(fā)生就突如其來的一陣激動）
  project /5prCdVekt/ v.（尤指無意識地）投射（自己的感覺給別人），設(shè)想別人的感受與自己一樣。如：His mother had projected her anxieties onto him.（他母親以為他也和自己一樣感到焦慮。）
  調(diào)查參與者對他人越同情（等級越高），對于他人的尷尬，他們就會感覺越不舒服。即使他人沒有意識到自己正處于尷尬的情境中，上述結(jié)論也是正確的。這一事實表明，調(diào)查參與者的同情是預(yù)先存在的。也就是說，這種同情先于當(dāng)事人意識到自身的尷尬處境而產(chǎn)生，比如，看到他人演講時褲子檔口是開著的。