Body Image 32 (2020) 14–23 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Body Image journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bodyimage Body-related embarrassment: The overlooked self-conscious emotion Madison F. Vani a , Eva Pila b , Erin Willson a , Catherine M. Sabiston a,∗ a Department of Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2W6, Canada b School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 10 April 2019 Received in revised form 16 October 2019 Accepted 18 October 2019 Keywords: Self-conscious emotions Body image Qualitative Adolescence Young adults a b s t r a c t Embarrassment is an understudied self-conscious emotion both experienced globally and in the context of the body. Drawing from affective body image tenets, this investigation aimed to better understand body-related embarrassment in a final sample of 187 adolescent and young adult males and females. A thematic content analysis was used to analyze self-report narratives from a relived emotion task and participants completed a self-report survey about the social environmental features of the emotional experience. Seven first-order themes and twenty-two second order themes were identified. Contexts for experiences of body-related embarrassment primarily included school, swimming pool/beach, sport and non-sport change rooms, and other sport or physical activity settings. Body-related embarrassment most often occurred when five or more individuals were present. Antecedents included fear of or actual neg- ative evaluation, social comparisons, body exposure, and inadequacy compared to an internal standard. Outcomes included affective states and cognitive (e.g., avoidance) and behavioral (e.g., appearance man- agement) outcomes. Compared to females, males reported less self-consciousness and were less likely to experience embarrassment around the other gender. Understanding the elicitation and experience of different emotions such as body-related embarrassment can guide theory and practice and may help to develop specific and unique interventions to address differing emotions. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Self-conscious emotions are cognitively complex social emo- tions that are experienced in contexts where there is a set of social standards to uphold and there is an opportunity for self- evaluation (Tracy & Robins, 2004, 2007). As such, self-conscious emotions are highly relevant to the body domain (Pila, Brunet, Crocker, Kowalski, & Sabiston, 2016) and can be experienced in ref- erence to appearance and functional aspects of the body (i.e., what the body looks like and how the body performs; e.g., Castonguay, Sabiston, Crocker, & Mack, 2014). Specific to the body, researchers have predominantly focused on studying self-conscious emotions of shame, guilt, pride, and envy, despite embarrassment also being classified as a self-conscious emotion (Pila et al., 2016). Embarrass- ment is particularly relevant to body domains given that one of the most commonly identified antecedents of global embarrassment involves a betrayal of the physical body (e.g., physical fall, losing bodily control, accidental exposure of the body; Keltner & Buswell, ∗ Corresponding author at: Dept. of Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2W6, Canada. E-mail address: catherine.sabiston@utoronto.ca (C.M. Sabiston). 1996). Furthermore, embarrassment occurs in contexts when the physical body is on display (e.g., Evans, 2006; Grieser et al., 2006; Slater & Tiggemann, 2011). The experience of body-related embar- rassment may be particularly relevant in adolescence and young adulthood, given the salience of the body and the importance of positive social evaluation during this developmental stage (Harter, 2012). Further, it has been suggested that a range of discrete emo- tions occur within body-focused experiences, thus measuring a variety of emotions is key to capturing the body-related experi- ence (McHugh et al., 2008). Sabiston et al. (2010) suggested that in addition to other commonly studied emotions (e.g., social physique anxiety, shame, guilt, and pride), embarrassment might also be relevant in body-related emotional experiences. And so, under- standing body-related embarrassment is necessary to describing the entire body-related experience. To date, experiences of body- related embarrassment are not yet well understood. Generally, embarrassment is defined as a negatively valenced self-conscious emotion that occurs in response to a social trans- gression such as tripping and falling in public (Beer & Keltner, 2004; Miller & Tangney, 1994; Tangney, 2003). Embarrassment is an emotion that has evolved to maintain social standing, it tends to occur when one perceives they are being judged by a real or imagined audience (Crozier, 2014; Edelmann, 1981; Miller, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.10.007 1740-1445/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.