Abstract
While cringe is an increasingly common term in social discourse and popular media—often used to describe a situation perceived as awkward or uncomfortable—we currently understand little about its underlying psychology and function in human social life. Across five studies (N = 1416; three preregistered), we examined the social cognition of cringe as a stable individual difference trait and as a fleeting affective state, investigating whether it is the same as, or functionally distinct from, vicarious embarrassment. We propose that cringe is a specific variety of vicarious embarrassment elicited by intentional, reputationally damaging social norm violations, that functions as a signal of normative competency—communicating recognition and alignment with group norms—and motivates norm compliance and enforcement. We first developed and validated the novel 20-item Cringe Scale to measure individual differences in trait cringe which we found positively predicted state cringe perceptions, incentivized donations, and behavioral intentions. Additionally, we found that cringe, as compared to vicarious embarrassment, was elicited more intensely by intentional and public norm violations, and was associated with heightened moral wrongness and punishment judgements as well as reduced empathy and prosocial motivation toward the transgressor. Path analyses revealed that perceptions of transgressor intent and norm violation severity mediated these differences. Together, our results establish cringe as a functionally distinct variety of vicarious embarrassment characterized by psychological distancing rather than empathic concern. The findings inform our understanding of an increasingly important self-conscious emotion and illuminate the adaptive social functions of cringe in social cognition.