182 undergraduates described personal embarrassment, shame, and guilt experiences and rated these experiences on structural and phenomenological dimensions. Contrary to popular belief, shame was no more likely than guilt to be experienced in ,'public" situations; all 3 emotions typically occurred in social contexts, but a significant proportion of shame and guilt events occurred when respondents were alone. Analyses of participants' phenomenological ratings clearly demonstrated that shame, guilt, and embarrassment are not merely different terms for the same affective experience. In particular, embarrassment was a relatively distant neighbor of shame and guilt, and the differences among the 3 could not be explained simply by intensity of affect or by degree of moral transgression. Finally, participants generally were their own harshest critics in each type of event, evaluating themselves more negatively than they believed others did. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment are common-albeit generally unwelcome-emotions that are well known to most people. Nonetheless, because our use of emotion language can be imprecise, both psychologists and laypeople may find it difficult to differentiate these three types of affective experiences. For example, just now in writing this article, the first author felt guilty for her procrastination after her coauthors diligently completed their work; she felt embarrassed by an elementary grammatical error that had slipped by in a previous draft; and she felt mild shame after barking at her 2-year-old daughter, who reset the computer in the middle of a particularly difficult paragraph. On the other hand, did she feel embarrassed by her procrastination, shame over the grammatical error, and guilt over

Commitment to a relationship is affected by the quality of one's alternatives to that partnership, but one must be aware of those alternatives in order for them to be influential. In a study of the links between attention to one's alternatives and relational outcomes, participants described their relationships, inspected slides of attractive opposite-sex targets, and, 2 months later, reported whether their relationships had ended. Satisfaction with, investment in, commitment to, and adjustment in a dating relationship were negatively correlated with reports of vigilance toward desirable alternatives to that relationship. In the lab, those who had earlier claimed to be attentive to alternatives really did spend more time inspecting pictures of attractive opposite-sex targets. Moreover, there was no better predictor of relationship failure than high attentiveness to alternatives. Inattentiveness may be a maintenance mechanism that helps to preserve and protect desirable relationships. Even if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, happy gardeners will be less likely to notice.

Two experiments investigated the reactions of observers to actors' embarrassments. The first study manipulated the nature of the prior interaction between actor and observer (cooperative, competitive, or independent) and the observational set of the observer (empathic or nonempathic). The observers' self-reports and measures of their skin potentials indicated that an empathic set and any prior interaction generally increased their responsiveness to the actors' plight. Moreover, independent, empathic observers reported reactions that appear to be empathic embarrassment, embarrassment felt with another even though one's own social identity is not threatened. The second study showed that empathic embarrassment is strongest in subjects of high embarrassability who are chronically susceptible to embarrassment. The results portray social embarrassment as a robust, pervasive phenomenon that nevertheless affects some people more than others. The possible origins of empathic embarrassment and the joint influences of perception, interaction, and personality on the experience of empathic embarrassment are discussed. Embarrassment is that uncomfortable state of mortification, awkwardness, and chagrin that can result whenever undesired events publicly threaten one's social identity (Goffman, 1956). It is an aversive state of psychological and physiological arousal (Buck, Parke, & Buck, 1970) that engenders a sense of both exposure and abashment (Edelmann, 1985; Miller, 1986). As a result, people avoid embarrassment whenever possible (even at cost to themselves; e.g., Brown, 1970) and quickly try to repair its damage whenever it does occur (Apsler, 1975; Modigliani, 1971). Thus embarrassment can have substantial influence on social interaction. Nevertheless, the phenomenon has received relatively little experimental attention. Moreover, several intriguing determinants of embarrassment have largely been ignored by prior studies. How do the observers who witness others' embarrassments respond? Are there meaningful individual differences in susceptibility to embarrassment? This article reports two studies that address these questions and demonstrate the existence of an empathic embarrassment that depends heavily on both interactive and personality influences. Embarrassing Circumstances Scientific study of embarrassment began with Goffman's (1956) seminal suggestion that embarrassment results from disrupted interaction in which a person fails to maintain a consis-My thanks go to Sandy Standard, Barry Blackwood, Debbie Curtin, Martin Fleet, Cyd Strauss, and Karen Wollman for their help in conducting these studies. I am also grateful for the helpful suggestions provided by John Kihlstrom, Mark Leary, Barry Schlenker, and two anonymous reviewers.

A random sample of 68 practicing psychotherapists in Texas completed surveys that included the Maslach Burnout Inventory, demographic questions, and questions designed to assess their intent to leave the profession, their treatment orientation, and their perceived ideal caseload. Results indicated that demographic variables and treatment orientation were not accurate predictors of therapists' burnout. However, psychotherapists who worked for agencies had more symptoms of burnout than did colleagues who worked solely in private practice. The therapists' actual caseload was not associated with burnout, but their satisfaction with their caseload was. Therapists who indicated that their ideal caseload would be smaller than their current caseload were more burned out than those who were satisfied with their caseload. In addition, burnout was predictive of the therapists' reported intentions to leave psychotherapy for other professions.Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that frequently occurs among individuals who work di-

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To create a comprehensive catalogue of embarrassing predicaments, descriptions of recent embarrassments were obtained from 350 high school and college student respondents. Four major dimensions of embarrassing circumstances emerged, involving individual, interactive, audience, and bystander behavior The respondents' embarrassability predicted the intensity of their embarrassments; in addition, high school students suffered stronger embarrassments than college students, and women reported stronger embarrassments than men. Altogether the 12 subcategories of social predicaments delineated here appear to fit a social esteem model of embarrassment more parsimoniously than an awkward interaction model.

In this study, the correlates of embarrassability, or chronic susceptibility to embarrassment, were examined. Competing theoretical models suggest either that embarrassable people should be especially concerned about others' evaluations of them or that they should lack social skills. Further, shyness and embarrassment are typically considered to be closely related states. To test these propositions, 310 participants provided extensive self-reports of social skill, fear of negative evaluation, self-esteem, self-consciousness, and negative affectivity. Regression and factor analyses indicated that, compared to those of low embarrassability, highly embarrassable people are particularly concerned with the normative appropriateness of behavior and are more motivated to avoid rejection from others. In contrast, shyness was best predicted by low social self-confidence and low social skill. The data best support a social-evaluation model of embarrassment and argue that embarrassability is linked to the appropriateness of social behavior, and shyness to its effectiveness.

The literature on self-blame and depression reveals two interrelated problems. First, although R. Janoff-Bulman's (1979) conceptualizations of self-blame are clear, empirical operationalization is difficult and has resulted in approaches that do not capture the richness of the constructs. Second, past research has produced inconsistent findings. A comprehensive literature review revealed that the inconsistencies are related to the method of assessing attributions. A correlational study designed to more accurately represent the self-blame conceptualization revealed that both behavioral and characterological self-blame contribute uniquely to depression and loneliness. Supplementary results regarding circumstantial attributions and regarding attributional styles for success were presented. Empirical issues regarding possible methodological refinements and effect size, as well as the value of categorical approaches to the study of attributional style were discussed.