"It’s an emotion concerned with mere social niceties, yet it’s often overpowering. **Memories of mortification persist for decades; studies have found we’ll go to dangerous lengths to avoid it, skipping medical checkups, having unsafe sex rather than buying condoms, even hesitating to save people from drowning for fear of misjudging the situation**. "**People ‘underestimate how much they will allow the threat of embarrassment to govern their own future choices**’, argues the psychologist [[Christine Harris]]. ‘**We tend to make choices that maintain a veneer of smooth social interaction’, even when they’re hugely risky**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[courage]], [[counter-intuitive-thinking]], [[making-decisions]], [[instincts]], [[embarrassment]], **Source** -- [[20241114100017 - B - Help!]]