Flushing propensity predicts fear of blushing
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Flushing propensity predicts fear of blushing Peter D. Drummond1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the association between fear of blushing and self-rated propensity to flush to physical stimuli. Two hundred and five respondents rated fear of blushing, social anxiety, blushing propensity, facial pallor in threatening situations, and facial flushing to physical exercise, heat and ingesting alcohol. Facial flushing propensity predicted fear of blushing independently of associations with social anxiety, self-rated blushing propensity and other documented predictors. In addition, after controlling for other predictors, facial pallor in threatening situations was associated with reduced fear of blushing. These findings suggest that a predisposition to flush is a marker of a more general hyper-reactivity of facial blood vessels. This predisposition could increase self-awareness of blushing and the odds that blushing is noticed by others, hence augmenting fear of blushing. Keywords Blushing · Erythrophobia · Facial flushing · Social anxiety disorder · Vascular reactivity
Introduction Blushing during self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment or shame appears to be a normal bodily response across races and cultures (Drummond and Lim 2000). Blushing may facilitate social communication in stressful situations (Thorstenson et al. 2019) but, nevertheless, can be a source of distress when associated with catastrophic beliefs about the social consequences of blushing (Dijk et al. 2016). In the extreme, an anticipatory fear of blushing (erythrophobia) can escalate into full-blown social anxiety disorder (Nikolić et al. 2015). At the heart of this phobia appears to be a fear of negative evaluation and/or rejection (Brummelman et al. 2018; Drummond and Gatt 2018). Because the blush potentially can be seen by others, fear of blushing may be compounded by concerns about disclosing private thoughts or feelings. In turn, this may trigger unpleasant emotions such as embarrassment or humiliation associated with a public loss of poise or self-control. Consequently, socially anxious people, and those with easily visible blushes (e.g., with fair * Peter D. Drummond [email protected] 1
Discipline of Psychology, College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education, Murdoch University, Perth, WA 6150, Australia
skin), may be especially vulnerable to developing this fear (Drummond and Lim 2000; Nikolić et al. 2015). Additional predictors include age and sex—fear of blushing generally is greater in younger than older people, and women are more frightened of blushing than men (Dijkstra et al. 2014). Fear of blushing also appears to be greater in collectivistic Asian than individualistic Western countries (Heinrichs et al. 2006), perhaps because of stringent norms about socially acceptable behaviour in collectivistic cultures. Blushing strongly may also contribute to fear of blushing—for example, by reinforcing interoceptive
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