Big Think: Have you ever called someone by the wrong name and they called you out on it, publically? Such an incident can be mortifying. Most of us get over it fairly quickly. But some people have such a fear of embarrassment that it stops them in their tracks. It's called katagelophobia, and it's more common than you might think.
3 comments:
As someone who has to deal with social anxiety on a day to day basis, I found this article to be helpful, but I also realized that this is something I've started doing the past few years on my own. They way the worded it was to put yourself in a situation as an observer, but what have done is started to think less about people reacting to me and what I do and instead about how they react to anyone in general doing that action or saying that thing. I easily get embarrassed and upset when I make mistakes in social situations and am afraid of that kind of negative attention and judgment that theoretically comes with it, but using this method it's easier to take your emotional response away and look at it analytically and realistically. I also really related to what the article said about always being in the spotlight, even if no one is paying attention to you, and it's another thing I've been working really hard on. Always seeing yourself as being looked at or judged makes it hard to do anything and results, at least in me, with becoming shy and not wanting to do anything for fear it gets you judged or turns out to be wrong. Trying to recognize when you are in the spotlight and when you aren't is super important because it can help to relieve a little stress of doing things. While these tips may not help longterm to deal with things like social anxiety, they are really good situational tools and I think I personally can explore them more in order to help myself become more comfortable and get over my social anxiety.
Interesting article. I was wondering how this ended up in a pile with all of our School of Drama stuff but I guess because it was a study done at Carnegie Mellon University I see the connection. I am personally not someone who gets embarrassed easily, however I do think that this article had a good point in the idea of being the observer compared to being the protagonist. I wonder if someone with lower self esteem doesn’t view themself as the protagonist and can still experience extreme embarrassment. I wonder how something as simple as how one views oneself can change how they place themselves in situations. Is someone who is self centered going to perceive themselves to be the protagonist? I wonder if the same study can be used to study someone egocentricity and if that could alter this study’s original analysis. This article was true food for thought.
Similar to Ella, I am kind of shocked that this is an article that relates to the rest of the content that we read and write about in these comments, however since it was conducted at Carnegie Mellon, it does make sense because we are the students that this study was done on. I think the concept of trying to change your view in a situation to get a different prospective is one that is very unique and definitely a strong way of removing yourself from a situation, but one that I feel like is not necessarily the easiest, especially if you are actively engaged in a situation causing social anxiety. To view oneself as not necessarily the viewed but the viewer is definitely a concept that could also be used in other situations that might not pertain to social anxiety but in just other cases of social interaction. I am still definitely very intrigued by this article and brought forward a new way of thinking about day to day interactions.
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