Hey guys, Amy here, feeling a little awkward on DNews today…
And if you’ve ever walked into a situation and felt super awkward, you’re not alone.
But what exactly is it that makes us feel awkward?
Assistant professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City
University of New York is among the few scholars who have actually run tests to understand
awkwardness.
His set up was simple: He put three undergraduate-aged people in a room facing one another over a
plate of cookies.
At one point, a fourth person walked in and instructed the trio to do something simple
like introduce themselves, then left the room again.
The participants did, then left.
That’s it.
The session was recorded, and participants ranked their feelings of awkwardness while
they watched the footage.
The results from an admittedly small test group, were pretty telling.
Each participant recorded feeling most awkward during specific social situations, like when
they didn’t know what they were supposed to do upon entering the room, when social
norms were broken by someone accidentally interrupting someone else, and when a social
standard was broken by someone flubbing their words resulting in a pause in the conversation.
Participants also said they felt very awkward when a negative judgement was passed, even
if it was just someone making a face, and when their names or some detail about them
was forgotten.
Taken together, these results suggest that it’s our situations that make us feel awkward,
not ourselves.
It’s the fear of not being accepted and worrying that our words and actions will make
us fail or fall out of favour with those around us.
It’s different from shyness, which is a far more introspective feeling, though both
lead us to withdraw into ourselves.
And as you might expect from that understanding of awkwardness, participants in Clegg’s
test reported the lowest levels of awkwardness when the social situation was conducive to
being accepted, like when participants were sharing common interests, helping each other,
or generally being positive.
Joking about the awkward situations did wonders to alleviate the awkward as well.
So I guess the only way to combat that awkward feeling is to, well, try not to care what
people think about you?
Easier said than done?
Maybe.
What do you guys to combat feeling awkward?
Let us know in the comments below or you can catch me on Twitter as @astVintageSpace.
And don’t forget to subscribe for more DNews every day of the week.