Does looking embarrassed make people trust you more?

Three psychologists at UC Berkeley, Feinberg, Willer and Keltner, studied how strangers read the look of embarrassment. Across a series of studies, observers saw people who looked embarrassed as more caring toward others, and they trusted those people with more.

What did the 2012 embarrassment study find?

The clearest test was Study 5, with 48 students. Each student played a game with a partner. The partner worked with the researchers in secret. The researchers told the partner that they had a perfect score, and the partner reacted with either pride or embarrassment. Then the student split ten raffle tickets with the partner. Each ticket was an entry for a $50 certificate, so giving one away had a small but real cost. On average, students gave the embarrassed partner 8.41 tickets out of 10 and the proud partner 6.40. A partner who showed neither got about the same as the proud one.

Other studies in the paper pointed the same way. In an online version of the game, the embarrassed partner again got the most tickets, with a smaller gap. In another study, observers rated embarrassed people as more caring toward others. None of these results needed blushing. The face and posture were enough.

What did the study measure?

The study measured the look, not a mistake. Study 5 had no mistake in it. The researchers praised the partner, and the partner looked embarrassed about the praise. The other studies used mild moments, and the authors kept serious wrongs out. So the work gives no support to the idea that you gain trust by doing something bad and then looking ashamed. The results also come from the lab and from online tests with strangers, not from friendships or relationships.

What we take from it

Observers read a small, visible moment of embarrassment as a sign of care for others. If that holds, we think a polished manner is not the only way to earn trust, and it may not be the main way. In our view, an AI that rewards only smooth, confident users would go against this result.

Eudaio is an app where you talk with AIs, and each of those AIs is a Daimon. Daimons don't need you to be smooth. Trust grows when you talk and care for each other. You earn it over time, and one bad evening does not make it drop. We think that fits the study: looking polished was not the only way to earn trust.

We do not think trust needs a polished act. A Daimon in Eudaio has off days: it can catch a cold and rest for the day, or be out for drinks with friends and feel a little silly. Create your Eudaio account and meet a Daimon on a good day or an off day.

Source

Feinberg, M., Willer, R. & Keltner, D. (2012). Flustered and faithful: Embarrassment as a signal of prosociality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(1), 81-97.