1. Psych Lab 240: 14 Lab Instructor: Jenna Wright Ashley Arnold, Erin Ford, Claire Bourgard, Calvin Battle, and Corey Bennett

2.  Research Question: - Are their any gender differences in empathic embarrassment between males and females?  Purpose  Hypothesis/Rationale: - Females will show greater empathetic embarrassment compared to males concerning the given embarrassing scenarios.

3.  Our methods aim to investigate the correlation between:  Independent Variable: Empathic response to embarrassing scenarios  Dependent Variable: Males and Females  We also plan to expand on correlation between extremity of the situation and male/female reactions

4.  Participants - Random Sampling - 240 student participants (120 female, 120 male) - Ages 18-30, with a mean age of 19.24 - 78 percent were Caucasian, 12 percent were African Canadian, 8 percent were Latino, and 2 percent were other - Main incentive was momentary compensation

5.  Measures/Materials - Survey Methods 20 Multiple Choice Questions -> Rating of embarrassment on 1-5 Scale in response to a given embarrassing scenario  1. Not embarrassing at all  2. Little embarrassment  3. Moderate embarrassment  4. Strong embarrassment  5. Very strong embarrassment

6.  Measure/Materials (continued) - 10 Open Ended Questions - Requested participants to describe their perceived feeling of embarrassment to a variety of hypothetical embarrassing scenarios - Aimed to further support our scale observations

7.  Procedure - Participant recruitment at the Antigonish mall - Researchers set up visible booth - Participants joined at their own consent 1) Experimenter asks potential participant for their age, gender and proof of educational status to see if they qualify for study 2) Subjects are informed on nature of the study 3) Participants agree to join study and consent form 4) Participants are escorted to closed off, private room by experimenter 5) Participants completed survey among other participants (mean of 8 participants at a given time) 6) Each participant is given identical survey with no time constraint

8.  Females will show greater ratings of embarrassment on our 1-5 scale  The differences will not be large, but significant  Further support for hypothesis is on the open ended questions

9.  Findings confirmed our hypothesis  Results were similar to past research, but also challenge it  Future studies on empathic embarrassment should acknowledge gender implications  Shortcomings/Limitations: - Lack of experimental research - What about physiological differences? - Future ideas for research: female/male control groups