Oof, cringe. You know the feeling.
It pops up roughly every thirty seconds while you're watching Michael Scott say something he really shouldn't on The Office. It catches you when you confidently stride in one direction, realize you're going the wrong way, and have to spin around and backtrack in front of everyone.
Sometimes it shows up years later, out of nowhere, haunting you with a line you blurted out back in ninth grade. As uncomfortable as it is though, cringe is a genuinely fascinating thing, and there's real science behind why it gets to us the way it does.
Unlike a lot of other emotions, cringe is an intensely physical one. It makes us want to squirm in our seats, and can even send a little shiver down the spine.
Psychologist Dr. Tara Quinn-Cirillo explained to HuffPost that our bodies react this way because cringe hits when we want to run from a situation but can't.
Cringing, she says, is “essentially ‘moving away’ from the topic or situation you are experiencing.” So your body does the next best thing and tries to escape as much as it possibly can.
According to psychotherapist Emma Azzopardi, cringe is tied to our ability to empathize with other people, and by extension, with their embarrassment too.
“As social animals, empathy is a key trait that evolved to help us to be part of a community and to live harmoniously within it,” she told Refinery29.
“We recognize embarrassing situations for others through neural pathways activated in the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula regions of the brain.”
Because of this, people who are naturally more empathetic often end up feeling cringe more strongly on behalf of others.
And it can get surprisingly intense. A study published in the journal PLoS One found that watching someone embarrass themselves activates the same brain regions we use when we see someone in physical pain.
Now, cringing at other people is one thing. Cringing at yourself is another beast entirely. When something you said back in middle school comes back to haunt you over and over as you’re trying to fall asleep, it can be genuinely hard to shake. There’s a reason some of these memories are so difficult to let go.
Quinn-Cirillo explains that our brains are built to hang onto moments where we felt some kind of threat, including the social and emotional kind. In similar situations later on, your brain helpfully replays the old clip, convinced it’s protecting you from repeating a mistake.
At the same time, cringe can actually be a very good thing. It helps build our tolerance for discomfort and pushes us past the edges of our comfort zone.
Writer Isabel Sterne argues that leaning into it is almost a superpower, noting that “the more you embarrass yourself, the easier it will become, and the less you’ll care about others’ opinions of you.” Every awkward moment you survive chips away at your fear of the next one.
