Vicarious embarrassment

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Vicarious embarrassment (also known as secondhand, empathetic, or third-party embarrassment and also as Spanish shame or Fremdscham (noun)/fremdschämen (verb) in German) is the feeling of embarrassment from observing the embarrassing actions of another person. Unlike general embarrassment, vicarious embarrassment is not the feelings of embarrassment for oneself or for one's own actions, but instead by feeling embarrassment for somebody else after witnessing (verbally and/or visually) that other person experience an embarrassing event. These emotions can be perceived as pro-social, and some say they can be seen as motives for following socially and culturally acceptable behaviour. Vicarious embarrassment (German: Fremdscham) is often seen as an opposite to schadenfreude, which is the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction at misfortune, humiliation or embarrassment of another person. Vicarious embarrassment is different from an emotional contagion, which is when a person unconsciously mimics...

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