45 Of The Dumbest Things People Said Without Even Realizing It

Social psychologist Vanessa believes that the best approach is to focus on the error, not the person, so that they don't feel under attack. This is especially useful if we have to correct an authority figure or somebody that we look up to.

"It’s best to focus on the specific error, and to point it out in a way that simultaneously affirms the person’s broader positive identity, and potentially also normalizes making mistakes. For example, you could say something like, 'Some of the smartest people I know make that same mistake. I used to make it too, but then I discovered that this is actually the correct information…' That way, you can make the correction in a way that saves face for the other person," she explained.

How we approach things when we hear somebody say something that's blatantly wrong depends on the goal that we're trying trying to achieve. Naturally, we'll do things differently if we're trying to make the speaker aware of what's actually correct and if we want the audience to know if the speaker said something incorrect or even inappropriate.

"Of course, the more publicly and bluntly we correct someone, the more face-threatening, and therefore embarrassing it is for them (and, really, for everyone involved). So, if you are primarily interested in correcting the speaker, it probably makes sense to do it in the least embarrassing way—in private, and diplomatically," Vanessa pointed out that discretion can be a virtue in this case. However, this gentler approach doesn't always fit.

"There are times when we want to make sure the people exposed to the speaker’s comment know it is incorrect. For simple factual errors, it probably makes sense to publicly, but politely, note the error, so that the audience is able to focus more on the substance of the correction than on how the correction was made," the social psychologist told Bored Panda.

"However, if someone says something blatantly offensive, that’s when it can be okay to stop worrying so much about protecting the speaker’s face and saving them from embarrassment, and move towards more bluntly speaking against a statement in order to defend those who may have been offended or hurt by a comment and more forcefully ensure others won’t emulate it."

Most issues that involve spilling silly verbal drivel are based on two things. The first is fairly simple—some of us (me included) speak before we think and end up sharing our unfiltered, honest opinions on things. Sometimes, those opinions can show our huge gaps in knowledge, as well as the importance of slowing down.

The solution to this is simple (i.e. simple but not easy because it requires a bit of soul-searching): teach yourself to have more patience. Relax. Think. Listen. Don’t rush to open your mouth. The second aspect, however, is much more complex and harder to tackle because it’s all to do with a lack of education. And that particular puzzle takes a while to solve.

The keys to educating yourself and filling in knowledge blindspots are dedicating the time needed to actually learn something new and keeping your mind open to new information. You really can’t learn something new that you think you know, so a certain level of humility (while still staying scientifically skeptical of everything) is always a plus.

Some knowledge blindspots will go away when you start engaging in new activities, whether it’s reading new books, watching unseen movies that you’d never even glance at before, or even meeting interesting people outside of your social circle.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to having the right attitude. Staying curious, driven, and open-minded is one thing, but you also have to embrace the possibility of failure. And not just failure—embarrassment, too. Anything worth doing or worth learning will inevitably mean that you may find yourself getting embarrassed because you might lack knowledge. But if you learn to use that feeling to your advantage, you can pretty much be unstoppable.

Earlier, I spoke about with researcher Vanessa about embarrassing knowledge blindspots,. "We spend a lot of time and effort presenting an ideal version of ourselves to other people. When something happens that contrasts with the image we’ve been projecting—when we say or do something that shows we actually aren’t as graceful or as smart as we’d like people to believe—we feel embarrassed," Vanessa told Bored Panda.

"Discovering you were wrong about something most everyone else around you has long known to be true is one of those moments. In that moment we learn, 'Wait a minute, maybe I haven’t been presenting the image of being smart or worldly that I thought I was presenting all this time,' which is embarrassing,” she shared.