ABSTRACT
WITHIN the past few years, Cupach and Metts have made a major contribution to a research literature on embarrassment, a literature that was very limited only a short time ago. Their present discussion identifies a multitude of ways to conceptualize the embarrassing predicament, draws some conclusions that offer a preliminary synthesis of situations resulting in embarrassment, presents several empirical generalizations developed from their own program of research in remedial face work, and integrates the findings of other scholars. However, while their discussion is thorough, one underlying question remains. How does studying embarrassment contribute, in a larger sense, to our understanding of communication? The work by Cupach and Metts implicitly addresses this issue, but the focus of this commentary is to show explicitly the importance of studying embarrassment as a way to understand the phenomenon of communication. My goal is to contextualize the research that Cupach and Metts present by introducing a framework that suggests new directions and questions for investigating embarrassment as a critical communication issue.
