Name: Why do we feel awkward? - 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2020-01-15T06:08:57.000Z
Duration: 6 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello, and welcome to "6 Minute English". I'm Neil.

Yes, feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed or self-conscious in a social situation where something isn't quite right.

Mmm... sometimes. I remember always feeling very awkward watching TV with my parents if there was an explicit love scene, you know, people canoodling.

Oh, yes, me too! And that feeling of awkwardness is what we're looking at in today's 6 Minute English, and how it's all connected to social rules.

"Social rules" are the unspoken rules which we follow in everyday life, the way we interact with other people and particularly with strangers.

Yes, for example, if you're waiting at a bus stop, it's okay to talk about the weather to a stranger.

But it would be very awkward if you broke that social rule by asking them about, oh, I don't know, how much money they earned.

Oh, yes, that would be wrong, wouldn't it?

And we'll find out about another awkward situation on the underground railway later in the programme.

Before that though, a quiz: Which city has the oldest underground railway? Is it a) London b) New York or c) Tokyo?

Aha! Well, I'm pretty confident about this! I think it's London.

Well, I'll have the answer later in the programme.

Dr. Raj Persuad is a psychologist. He was a guest on the BBC radio programme "Seriously". He was talking about social rules.

How do we understand what the implicit social rules are that govern our behaviour?

They're so almost invisible yet we all obey them.

I.e., they're massively powerful that the only way to get at them, because you couldn't use an MRI brain scanner or a  microscope...

What's the tool you would use to illuminate the social rules actually govern our lives?

He says that they govern our behaviour, they govern our lives. This means that they 'control' our lives, they 'rule' our lives.

What's interesting is that he says these social rules are 'implicit'.

They're not written down anywhere. They're unspoken but understood.

If they are unspoken and not written down, how can scientists and sociologists study them?

They need a way to illuminate the rules. This means a way of shining a metaphorical light on them to see what they are.

I.e., they're massively powerful that the only way to get at them, because you couldn't use an MRI brain scanner or a microscope...

One way to find out about a rule is to break it.

Another word for 'break' when we're talking about rules is 'breach' and breaching experiments were used to learn about social rules.

Here's Dr. Persaud describing one of those experiments.

So a classic one: People would go into the Metro, the underground railway—Tube—and there'd be only one person sitting in a carriage.

You would go and sit next to that person.

And if that led to awkwardness or discomfort, where the person got off the tube stop immediately, you had discovered a social rule.

Well, quite simply, find a nearly empty train carriage and then go and sit right next to someone rather than a distance away.

If that person then feels uncomfortable or awkward, and that's something you can tell by watching their behaviour.

For example, do they change seat, move carriage or get off the train completely?

If they do, then you know you've discovered a rule.

So you find a rule by breaking it or breaching it.

Okay, time to review our vocabulary, but first, let's have the answer to the quiz question.

I asked which city has the oldest underground railway.

Is it a) London b) New York and c) Tokyo?

I was! I said London, but... now I'm having second thoughts.

Oh… That's a little bit awkward, isn't it?

Well, it is London, so I don't know if you're right or wrong!

The facts are that London opened in 1863.

Well done, and extra bonus points if you knew any of those dates.

I hope it doesn't make you feel awkward, but can you start, Dan?

And the adjective 'awkward', and its noun 'awkwardness', are on our list for today.

They mean 'an uncomfortable feeling in a social situation'.

This is all connected with the idea of social rules—unspoken, but well-known rules which we follow in daily life to avoid awkward situations.

The rules, as Neil said, are not spoken and they're not written down but we know them and understand them.

And these implicit rules govern our lives.

The verb 'govern' means to 'control and rule'.

To see something clearly, either in reality or metaphorically, you need to put some light on it.

And that was the next of our words, the verb 'illuminate'.

And finally, we had a word which means, when we're talking about rules, the same as break, to 'breach'.

In experiments, they breached the rules to learn more about them.

Well, we don't want to breach any rules so it's time for us to leave you for today, but don't worry, we will be back.

In the meantime, you can find us in all the usual places online and on social media, just look for BBC Learning English.