COGNITION AND EMOTION

2010, 24 (3), 514
521

Development in childrens attribution of embarrassment

and the relationship with theory of mind and shyness
Cristina Colonnesi
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Iris M. Engelhard
Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Susan M. Bogels
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The present study examined the two-stage developmental theory of the understanding of
embarrassment (Modigliani & Blumenfeld, 1979) through the administration of verbal and nonverbal measures. Moreover, the relationship between childrens attributions of embarrassment and
their ability to understand false beliefs and propensity to be shy was investigated. Ninety-five
children (4 to 9 years old) were presented with brief stories in which the main character received
negative, neutral, or positive social reactions. Verbal and non-verbal attributions of embarrassment
were examined. In addition, a false-belief task and a shyness-propensity questionnaire were
administered. Using verbal measures, older children reported more embarrassment in the negative
and neutral conditions compared to younger children. However, using non-verbal measures, these
age differences disappeared. This suggests that young children may have a mature understanding of
embarrassment, but may not be able to express this linguistically. Verbal and non-verbal
embarrassment attributions were not related to the understanding of false beliefs, but they were
related to shyness propensity. The results are discussed in terms of socio-cognitive and emotional
factors in understanding emotions.
Keywords: Embarrassment; Shyness; Theory of mind; False belief; Verbal attributions.

Embarrassment seems to be limited to our

species and consists of ambivalent avoidance of
communicative contact through behaviours, such
as gaze, smiling, and blushing (Keltner, 1995).
Although young infants show signs of embarrassment (Reddy, 2000), the ability to attribute

embarrassment to others and to oneself may

develop during childhood (Bennett, 1989; Bennett, Yuill, Banerjee, & Thomson, 1998). Modigliani and Blumenfeld (1979) proposed a
distinction between primitive and mature embarrassment. Primitive embarrassment is thought to

Correspondence should be addressed to Cristina Colonnesi Faculty of Social and Behavioral Science, University of Amsterdam,
Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, NL-1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: c.colonnesi@uva.nl
Sandra Rosmuller is acknowledged for help with the data collection. We are grateful to teachers and children of the primary
school Sint Pieter in Maastricht, The Netherlands, for their participation. Corien Bogels is acknowledged for the drawings.
# 2009 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/cogemotion

514

DOI:10.1080/02699930902847151

CHILDRENS ATTRIBUTION OF EMBARRASSMENT

result from others overt negative reactions about

the self (e.g., being criticised or laughed at).
Conversely, mature embarrassment, or self-conscious shyness, is thought to result from a
discrepancy between the negative public image
that the individual assumes he/she has projected
and the self-image, and is expected to occur later
in the childs development.
Bennett (1989) tested this two-stage theory in
children aged 5, 8, 11, and 13 years. Children
were presented with hypothetical scenarios in
which the protagonist was the centre of social
attention, which involved no audience, a passive
audience, or an active (derisive) audience. They
were asked how they would feel if the event
happened to them and why. In line with expectations, the youngest children (aged 5 and 8) only
reported embarrassment in the derisive condition,
whereas the older children also reported embarrassment in the passive condition. Thus, early
attributions of embarrassment were related to
overt negative reactions of others, whereas late
attributions of embarrassment seem to be related
to others assumed evaluations of the protagonist.
Bennett and Gillingham (1991) re-analysed the
data for 5- and 8-year-olds and added an active,
positive (social attention) reaction. Interestingly,
whereas 5-year-olds only reported embarrassment
in relation to a derisive reaction from others,
8-year-olds also reported embarrassment in relation to a positive, supportive reaction.
Taken together these studies suggest that
children younger than 8 years only attribute
embarrassment to an individual receiving negative
responses from an audience, whereas older children attribute embarrassment to the presence
of an audience as such, independently of the type
of responses. These findings support the view
that children develop a mature understanding of
embarrassment around the age of 8 years. However, an alternative explanation of the findings is
that children younger than 8 are linguistically less
able to attribute embarrassment in neutral or
positive situations. In fact, there is evidence that
childrens linguistic level is strongly related to
their ability to attribute emotions, desires, beliefs,
and intentions (Ruffman, Slade, Rowlandson,

Rumsey, & Garnham, 2003; Siegal, 1991). It

seems important to complement verbal measures
with a non-verbal approach to reveal childrens
understanding of embarrassment. Thus, children
might already be able to understand or recognise
embarrassment around the ages 4 or 5, but may
not be able to express their understanding in a
linguistically appropriate way until the ages 8 or 9.
A first study in this direction has been done by
Bennett et al. (1989). Children from 5 to 11 years
were asked to verbally attribute embarrassment to
the self, a mother, and a toddler, and to rate
embarrassment on a 4-point pictorial scale. The
results showed that 5-year-olds attributed embarrassment using the non-verbal scale, even when
they did not attribute embarrassment verbally.
What factors may be involved in the development of mature embarrassment attributions? To
experience embarrassment, people have to be
aware of others thoughts about them (Miller,
1996), and that others may evaluate them negatively. Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability
to understand others mental states, such as
desires, beliefs, and emotions, and that these
may determine behaviour (Colonnesi, Koops, &
Meerum Terwogt, 2008; Wellman, 1990). It is
commonly measured with a false-belief task,
which requires children to report someone elses
mistaken beliefs about a specific situation. Studies
have shown that 4- and 5-year-olds, and even
some 3-year-olds understand false beliefs (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). ToM and the
understanding of embarrassment are, indeed,
correlated among high-functioning adults with
autism, children with learning difficulties, and
younger healthy children (Hillier & Allison,
2002). Similarly, Bennett and Matthews (2000)
found that children aged 4 to 8 who were able to
understand second-order false beliefs (the understanding that someone else knows the mistaken
belief of a third person) reported more social
emotions (e.g., embarrassment, guilt, shame)
when social-conventional rules were violated
(e.g., wearing pyjamas to a supermarket). However, only half of the children who understood
false beliefs made one or more self-attributions
of social emotion. Therefore, other factors may
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also play a role in childrens attributions of

embarrassment.
Reddy (2001) reported that shyness may refer
to a trait (being characterised as shy or not shy)
and to a state (a specific reaction of shyness or
embarrassment to a particular situation). It seems
likely that children who experience more social
emotions and reactions (e.g., shyness, blushing)
are also more inclined to attribute these responses
to others. In other words, childrens attributions
of embarrassment might be related to their sociocognitive understanding and their own shyness
propensity. Banerjee (2002) provided some indirect support for this hypothesis by showing that
the attribution of embarrassment reported by 6to 11-year-olds was related to their understanding
of mental states and their concerns about the way
others evaluated them. Accordingly, childrens
understanding of mental states and their dispositional shyness might influence their attribution of
embarrassment.
The first aim of this study was to replicate
previous findings (Bennett, 1989; Bennett &
Gillingham, 1991) showing that older children
(aged 8
9) are able to attribute embarrassment
verbally to scenarios in which an audience responds negatively, neutrally, or positively. However, by using a non-verbal method as well, we
examined whether children younger than 8 can
make these attributions too. The second aim was
to extend previous research by investigating the
role of ToM (i.e., understanding of mental states)
and shyness in the development of embarrassment
attribution. We expected that false-belief understanding and shyness would be positively associated with embarrassment attribution to a neutral
or positive audience. We tested whether the
expected effect of age is moderated by false-belief
understanding and by shyness, and also explored
the relationship between the latter two.

METHOD
Participants
The participants were 95 children (36 girls) from
three age-groups: 4 to 5 (n28), 6 to 7 (n37),

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COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2010, 24 (3)

and 8 to 9 (n30) years old. The mean ages were

4.8 (SD0.6), 6.5 (SD0.6), and 8.4 (SD0.6)
years, respectively. Children were recruited from a
kindergarten and an elementary school located
in a middle- to upper-class neighbourhood.
Children who agreed to participate and whose
parents gave written informed consent enrolled in
the study. During school-time, children were
tested individually.

Procedure and measures

The participants were presented with several brief
stories and matching pictures about situations in
which the main character received negative,
neutral, or positive feedback from others (embarrassment task). For each story, children were asked
to indicate verbally (by saying out loud) and nonverbally (by pointing at drawn facial expressions)
how the protagonist would feel, and to describe
why. To examine the understanding of mental
states, the youngest two groups were administered
a false-belief task. Questionnaires were used to
assess shyness and blushing propensity. Testing
sessions took between 15 to 25 minutes and were
tape-recorded.
Embarrassment task. Children were instructed
that they would be told brief stories and shown
matching pictures. All stories described social
events within a school setting, in which the
(child) character was the centre of other childrens
and the teachers attention. Stories were written in
a booklet form in the present tense from an
observers point of view. There were male and
female versions, and the experimenter matched
the characters gender to that of the child. Each
story was told in three steps that were each
visualised with a picture. The story themes were:
(1) singing a song in front of the class; (2) telling
the class about the weekend; and (3) wearing a
new hat during recess. There were three types of
attention. In the negative condition other children
and the teacher reacted mockingly (with criticism), in the neutral condition they just paid
attention to the main character, without reacting
positively or negatively, and in the positive

CHILDRENS ATTRIBUTION OF EMBARRASSMENT

condition they reacted supportively (with compliments). The pictures of the conditions were
standardised within each story (i.e., they used
the same setting and characters), and did not
show the main characters face. The type of
attention was counterbalanced across story themes.
That is, children were read three stories with the
restriction that each story type and condition was
included. The order of presentation was also
systematically varied and counterbalanced across
participants. After each story, children were asked
how the character would feel, using (1) an openended question (to assess verbal attributions of
emotions), and (2) a drawn rating scale (to assess
non-verbal attributions). Responses were coded as
follows:
1. Verbal attributions of embarrassment. Verbal
answers to the first question were classified
as embarrassment when children reported
that the character would feel verlegenheid
or schaamte (in Dutch both mean embarrassed). All responses included the words
verlegen, or schaamte could be unambiguously classified. Because there were no
cases of doubt, reliability statistics were
unnecessary. In each condition (positive,
neutral, negative), children got the score 1
when they attributed embarrassment to the
protagonist and 0 when they did not.
2. Non-verbal attributions of embarrassment. To
respond to the second question, the child
pointed to drawn faces representing anger,
happiness, fear, and embarrassment. Each
emotion was depicted by three faces, which
included a neutral childs face and two faces
with increasing emotional expression (e.g.,
from non-emotional to angry frowning).
The embarrassment faces were analysed as
3-point rating scales from 0 (not embarrassed) to 2 (very embarrassed).
False-belief task. The Smarties Task (Perner,
Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987) was used to measure
the understanding of false beliefs. Children were
told that first they would be shown the contents
of a Smarties box and then their best friend would
be too. When asked what they thought was in the

box, most replied Smarties/candy (93%). They

were shown that the box actually contained a
pencil. The box was closed, and they were asked if
they remembered the contents (control question),
what they originally thought was in the box (test
question for self), and, again, what the actual
contents were (control question). Finally, they
were asked what their best friend would think was
in the box before it was opened (test question for
other).
Shyness and Blushing Questionnaire for Young
Children. This 12-item questionnaire comprises
6 items from the Blushing Propensity Scale
(Bo gels, Alberts, & de Jong, 1996; Leary &
Meadows, 1991) and 6 items from the Social
Anxiety Scale for children (Dekking, 1983). This
scale may be obtained from the third author.
Selected items were relevant for all participating
ages, did not overlap, and represented the SAS
subscales at least once. Each item was rated for
the degree of blushing and shyness with facial
rating scales, ranging from 0 (never blush/not shy)
to 2 (blush often/very shy). Children were first
familiarised with the faces representing shyness
and blushing. The internal consistency was satisfactory (a.81 for shyness; a.85 for blushing).

RESULTS
The effect of age on embarrassment
attribution
Preliminary analyses showed no story or gender
effect on verbal attribution of embarrassment.
Of the 4- or 5-year-olds, embarrassment was
verbally reported by two children (7%) in the
negative condition, two (7%) in the neutral
condition, and one child (4%) in the positive
condition. Among 6- or 7-year-olds, these numbers were 7 (19%) in the negative condition,
14 (38%) in the neutral condition, and 8 (22%) in
the positive condition. Among 8- or 9-year-olds,
these numbers were 4 (13%), 14 (47%), and
10 (33%), respectively. Table 1 shows the data
of non-verbal attributions of embarrassment.
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Table 1. Means (SD) of non-verbal attributions of embarrassment in the three conditions

Negative
4- to 5-year-olds
6- to 7-year-olds
8- to 9-year-olds
All ages

0.74
0.94
0.96
0.90

Neutral

(0.85)
(0.84)
(0.80)
(0.83)

0.74
0.70
0.90
0.78

To examine whether age was associated with

verbal attribution of embarrassment, chi-square
tests were used. The adjusted standardised residuals (ASR) were calculated to detect the direction of the effect in case of a significant chi-square
(with criteria ASR ]2.0 and ASR 5 2.0 per
pB.05). In the negative condition, age and
embarrassment attribution were significantly associated, x2(2, N95)6.25, p.04. The 4- to
5-year-olds reported embarrassment less often
than other emotions (ASR 2.0, pB.01),
whereas 8- to 9-year-olds reported it more often
(ASR2.2, pB.01). Results of the neutral condition were similar, x2(2, N95)11.57,
pB.01, showing a comparable pattern for the
4- to 5-year-olds (ASR 3.3, pB.01) and
the 8- to 9-year-olds (ASR2.1, pB.01). The
positive condition showed no significant association between age and embarrassment, x2(2, N
95)4.40, p.11. Table 2 also shows that age
and verbal attribution of embarrassment were
associated in the negative and neutral conditions.
This was irrespective of the story type. Cochrans
Q test showed that children produced more
embarrassment in the neutral condition than in
the negative and positive conditions, x2(2)9.91,
pB.01.

Positive

(0.81)
(0.74)
(0.71)
(0.75)

0.60
0.60
0.63
0.60

(0.80)
(0.72)
(0.71)
(0.74)

Next, we examined non-verbal ratings of

embarrassment. There was no significant story
type or gender effect on embarrassment attribution. In contrast to verbal attributions, Table 2
shows that no significant associations were found
between age and non-verbal embarrassment attributions in any of the positive, neutral or negative
conditions.
We predicted that false-belief understanding
and shyness would moderate the relationship
between age and embarrassment attributions;
however, because this relationship was supported
only for verbal report in the negative and neutral
conditions, we can only test moderation for these
conditions. Childrens attributions in these two
conditions were combined in the following analyses, forming a score ranging from 0 to 2.

The effect of age on embarrassment

attributions moderated by false-belief
understanding
Correct answers to the false-belief task were given
by 39% (n11) of children aged 4 or 5 and 82%
(n28) of children aged 6 or 7. Table 2 shows
that false-belief understanding was significantly
related to age, but not to embarrassment attribution. To examine whether the effect of age on

Table 2. Correlations between age, shyness, false-belief understanding, and embarrassment attribution
Verbal attribution of embarrassment

Age (N95)
Shyness (N91)
False-belief
understanding
(N62)

Negative

Neutral

Positive

Negative

Neutral

Positive

Age

Shyness

.28*
.21*
.13

.31*
.20
.17

.13
.13
.22

.11
.24**
.03

.03
.33**
.09

.04
.29**
.01

.09
.47**

.08

Note: *pB.05; **pB.01.

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Non-verbal attribution of embarrassment

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2010, 24 (3)

CHILDRENS ATTRIBUTION OF EMBARRASSMENT

verbal embarrassment attributions in the negative

and neutral condition was moderated by falsebelief understanding, we conducted a two-phase
linear regression analysis (see Baron & Kenny,
1986) for 4- to7-year-olds (N62), and entered
age and false-belief understanding at step 1, and
their interaction at step 2. The model was
significant at step 1, R2 .11, F(2, 61)3.78,
p.03, with only a significant effect of age
(b.30, t2.18, p.03), but not at step 2,
F(3, 61)2.48, p.07. The age effect on verbal
embarrassment attributions, when the audience
had a negative or neutral reaction, was not
moderated by the understanding of false beliefs.

The effect of age on embarrassment

attributions moderated by shyness
Next, we examined whether shyness moderated
the age effect on verbal embarrassment attributions in the neutral and negative conditions.
Shyness (M18.99, SD4.87) and blushing
(M18.80, SD5.17) scores were strongly correlated, r(89).75, pB.001, and were summed for
further analyses. Table 2 shows that shyness was
not significantly related to age, but it was
significantly related to verbal embarrassment
attribution to a negative audience and to nonverbal embarrassment attribution to any audience.
Again, regression analyses were conducted, with
age and shyness at step 1 and their interaction at
step 2. A significant model was found at step 1,
R2 .18, F(2, 90)9.95, pB.001, with effects of
both age (b.33, t3.45, pB.01) and shyness
(b.24, t2.50, p.01). Although the model
at step 2 was also significant, R2 .19, F(3, 90)
6.74, pB.001, the interaction between age and
shyness was not. Thus, the age effect on embarrassment attribution to a neutral or negative
audience was not moderated by shyness.

The relationship between false-belief

understanding and shyness
Finally, the correlation between false-belief understanding and shyness propensity was not
significant (see Table 2). Again, two-phase regression analyses were conducted to predict verbal

embarrassment attributions, and to predict

non-verbal attributions of embarrassment by
false-belief understanding, shyness, and their
interaction. All showed that the interaction was
not significant. In conclusion, the effect of shyness
on embarrassment attribution was not moderated
by the understanding of false beliefs.

DISCUSSION
This study examined developmental differences in
childrens attributions of embarrassment and the
interaction between cognitive and emotional
components that are involved. Our results are
consistent with previous findings showing that
children older than 8 can attribute embarrassment
when the feedback of an audience is not negative
(Bennett, 1989; Bennett & Gillingham, 1991;
Modigliani & Blumenfeld, 1979). However, our
results also show that children aged 6 can already
attribute embarrassment in non-negative situations when a non-verbal method is used. In
addition, we found that children with higher
shyness levels made more verbal and non-verbal
attributions, and that the understanding of false
beliefs was irrelevant. These results support the
literature (Banerjee, 2002; Bennett & Matthews,
2000), but they also bring some new evidence and
challenges to the study of self-conscious emotions.
The fact that age differences were only found
for verbal, but not non-verbal, attributions suggests that differences in language development,
rather than emotional development, are being
measured with verbal methods. This explanation
is consistent with findings of Bennett and colleagues (1998), showing that younger children are
able to recognise the emotion of embarrassment
even if they seem unlikely to produce the term
spontaneously. An alternative interpretation is
that experiencing a specific emotion is different
from the mature consciousness and understanding
of the same emotion. Although embarrassment is
a self-conscious emotion, there is evidence that
infants show expressions of embarrassment far
before they are self-aware, as seen through selfrecognition (Reddy, 2000). In the same way, it is
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plausible that children are able to recognise and

experience embarrassment before they become
able to conceptualise this emotion in words. The
validity of our non-verbal measures of embarrassment was supported by the fact that non-verbal
emotional attributions were meaningfully related
to the content of the stories. This suggests that
young children understood non-verbal ratings. In
sum, before the age of 8 children seem able to
experience and understand embarrassment in
others and themselves, but they are less able to
describe these emotions.
An unexpected result was that all age groups
produced few verbal and non-verbal attributions
of embarrassment when the audience showed a
positive reaction. One possible interpretation of
this finding is that peoples positive reactions
might in general diminish the feeling of embarrassment. Reddy (2000) and Draghi-Lorenz,
Reddy, and Morris (2004) found that adult
participants who judge embarrassed smiles in
infants often describe these as happy rather than
as embarrassed. Similarly, 83% of children in our
study verbally attributed a positive emotion in the
positive audience condition (blij, happy; goed,
good; and fijn, nice). In contrast, children
produced the highest number of attributions of
embarrassment in the neutral condition, in which
the audiences reaction was the most ambiguous.
This is in line with cognitive theories of social
phobia stating that social anxiety is maintained by
negative interpretations of ambiguous (e.g., neutral) social feedback (Bo gels & Zigterman, 2000;
Clark & Wells, 1995).
To the best of our knowledge, the present
study is the first to have examined the combined
effect of false-belief understanding and shyness
proneness on childrens attribution of embarrassment. Childrens own level of shyness seems to be
related to the verbal and non-verbal attribution of
similar emotions to others. It is evident that
childrens own emotional traits play an important
role in the way they interpret others emotions.
However, we also found that children who understand false beliefs did not attribute more nonverbal embarrassment. A limitation of the present
study is that only childrens understanding of

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COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2010, 24 (3)

first-level false beliefs was examined. Future

research may evaluate childrens understanding of
both first- and second-order false beliefs, as well
as the understanding of different mental states.
It is important to note that the data were
collected in Dutch, which, like several other
European languages, does not clearly distinguish
between embarrassment and shyness: verlegenheid can have either meaning. Thus, it is unclear
whether generalisability of the findings to English
may be limited due to linguistic differences. To
gain further insight into age-related development
of objective signs of blushing and shyness, further
research is needed that includes children of
different ages, observer ratings, more standardised
conditions, and psycho-physiological assessments
(e.g., Mulkens, de Jong, & Bo gels, 1997). The
relationship between the development of shyness
between the ages 0 and 4 and the development
of objective self-awareness also awaits future
research.
In conclusion, this study provides support that
childrens are able to understand embarrassment
before they are able to attribute this emotion
linguistically. Moreover, the propensity to be shy
seems to play a relevant role in the attribution of
the same emotion to other persons.
Manuscript received 15 February
Revised manuscript received 27 January
Manuscript accepted 20 February
First published online 18 May

2008
2009
2009
2009

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