Triggers of most embarrassing moment recollections in a college sample

Sabini, Siepmann, Stein, and Meyerowitz (2000) identified three types of situations which trigger embarrassment and created a subscale of each subtype of trigger. The three subtypes include faux pas (making a social mistake), center of attention, and sticky situations (threatening another’s social identity). Faux pas scenarios were rated as more embarrassing than the other subtypes. Consistent with this finding, we predicted faux pas would be the most prevalent mostembarrassing moment recalled in our free response study.