The Impact Of Vicarious Embarrassment On Self-Serving Bias

Vicarious embarrassment is a common but unique emotional experience,which is the result of individuals projecting the embarrassing emotional state of others onto themselves,under the influence of empathy and perspective-taking.Unlike embarrassment,individuals experiencing vicarious embarrassment typically do not violate social moral standards or social norms.Previous studies have found that embarrassed individuals tend to use self-serving bias strategies to regulate and restore their self-concept integrity.However,it is unclear whether vicarious embarrassment individuals adopt the same strategies.Therefore,investigating the impact of inducing vicarious embarrassment on self-serving bias can help us better understand the cognitive characteristics and specific mechanisms of self-serving bias in vicarious embarrassment distinct from those in regular embarrassment.Objective: To explore the influence of vicarious embarrassment on the change of individual self-service bias.Methods:(1)Experiment 1 utilized a self-referential task paradigm to examine individuals’ self-serving bias when conducting self-evaluation.Two groups of participants were induced neutral emotions and vicarious embarrassment emotions using situational comics materials,and differences in self and other word ratings between the two groups were compared.(2)Experiment 2 utilized an average reference evaluation task paradigm to examine individuals’ self-serving bias when conducting social comparisons.Two groups of participants were induced neutral emotions and vicarious embarrassment emotions using situational comics materials,and differences in positive and negative word ratings when compared with "same school and grade individuals" were compared between the two groups.(3)Experiment 3 utilized an interpersonal event attribution task paradigm to examine individuals’ self-serving bias in attribution.Two groups of participants were induced neutral emotions and vicarious embarrassment emotions using situational comics materials,and differences in positive and negative event ratings between self-attribution and other-attribution were compared between the two groups.Results:(1)Experiment 1 found that participants induced with vicarious embarrassment showed significantly stronger self-serving bias in positive word evaluations than those induced with neutral emotions.(2)Experiment 2 found that participants induced with vicarious embarrassment also demonstrated a significantly stronger above-average effect in positive word evaluations than those induced with neutral emotions.(3)Experiment 3 found that regardless of positive or negative events,participants induced with vicarious embarrassment demonstrated stronger self-serving bias in both self-attribution and other-attribution than those induced with neutral emotions.Conclusion:The induction of vicarious embarrassment can increase individuals’ self-serving bias,manifested as a significant increase in self-serving bias in positive word evaluations during self-evaluation and social comparisons of vicarious embarrassed individuals,whereas this increase is not significant in negative word evaluations.Vicarious embarrassment induction can also lead to a stronger self-serving bias in both self-attribution and other-attribution,with individuals more likely attributing positive events to themselves and negative events to others.