Blushing and the exposed self: Darwin revisited

Blushing is widely regarded as an expression of embarrassment, and many psy chologists argue that it serves to communicate appeasement or an apology. H owever, embarrassment does not invariably give rise to a blush, which can a lso accompany shyness, shame or modesty. In addition, people blush when the y are not at fault and have little to apologise for. These observations rai se the question why some social predicaments elicit a blush whereas others do not. The paper seeks to identify conditions that will produce blushing a nd it proposes that a blush is contingent on the exposure of some topic tha t ought to remain hidden. The connection between a properly hidden topic an d a visible reaction can create a predicament or convey information about t he blusher, but it is argued that these are not the primary functions of th e blush. The proposal is compared with alternative accounts and its implica tions are examined by means of scrutiny of descriptions of blushing taken l argely from literary sources.