Cringe reactions function as a social radar system that lets a person signal their own high status by feeling secondhand embarrassment for someone else.
Vicarious embarrassment occurs when someone intentionally breaks a social norm in a way that makes the observer feel physically uncomfortable. Many people think cringe is just a sign of empathy for a person failing in public. The data suggests that feeling cringed out is actually a way of confirming your own superior social competency. It functions as an internal alarm that goes off when someone else does not know the rules of the room. This makes cringe a tool for social hierarchy rather than just a weird emotional reaction.
The psychology of cringe
PsyArXiv · qdwv8_v1
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, vica