What is happening when somebody goes red with embarrassment and everyone else can tell? What does humiliation do?
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As primates our social status and standing are critical to our survival and our ability to successfully reproduce. Any challenge to that status is recognized by our limbic system as a potential existential threat. It’s similar to fight or flight. Before we got civilized we’d be likely to attack whoever threatened our place in the hierarchy in order to prevent a loss of status. Or if the offender were clearly stronger/meaner/dangerous we might back down, but that limbic response remains. Now that we’re civilized we’re very strongly incentivized not to engage in instant violence, so we’re left stewing in that toxic soup of aggressive hormones. The flushing and all of that are the physical symptoms
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