Editing Blushing (section)

==Psychology==
[[Charles Darwin]] devoted Chapter 13 of his 1872 ''[[The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals]]'' to complex emotional states including self-attention, shame, shyness, modesty and blushing. He described blushing as "... the most peculiar and most human of all expressions."

Several different psychological and psycho-physiological mechanisms for blushing have been hypothesized by Crozier (2010): "An explanation that emphasizes the blush's visibility proposes that when we feel shame we communicate our emotion to others and in doing so we send an important signal to them. It tells them something about us. It shows that we are ashamed or embarrassed, that we recognise that something is out of place. It shows that we are sorry about this. It shows that we want to put things right. To blush at innuendo is to show awareness of its implications and to display modesty that conveys that you are not brazen or shameless. The blush makes a particularly effective signal because it is involuntary and uncontrollable. Of course, a blush can be unwanted [but the] costs to the blusher on specific occasions are outweighed by the long-term benefits of being seen as adhering to the group and by the general advantages the blush provides: indeed the costs may enhance the signal's perceived value."<ref>Crozier, R. (2010), [http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=23&editionID=188&ArticleID=1670 "The Puzzle of Blushing"], ''The Psychologist'', Vol 23. No 5, May 2010, pp. 390–393.]</ref> A number of techniques may be used to help prevent or reduce blushing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://howtostopblushing.net/how-to-stop-blushing/|title=How Can People Stop Blushing Forever|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170401143736/http://howtostopblushing.net/how-to-stop-blushing/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2017-04-01}}</ref> The most extreme of these interventions is a surgical technique known as [[endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy]].<ref name="Park">{{cite journal |last1=Park |first1=Jae Kil |last2=Hyun |first2=Kwanyong |last3=Moon |first3=Mi Hyoung |last4=Lee |first4=Jungsun |title=Surgical treatment of facial blushing: Patient selection and operative technique (retrospective observational study) |journal=Medicine |date=8 July 2022 |volume=101 |issue=27 |pages=e29808 |doi=10.1097/MD.0000000000029808 |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9259148/|pmc=9259148 }}</ref>

Salzen (2010) suggested that blushing and flushing were manifestations of the physiological impact of the instinctual [[Fight-or-flight response|fight/flight]] mechanism when neither confrontation nor retreat is possible.<ref>Salzen, E. (2010), "Flushing and blushing" letter in ''The Psychologist'', Vol 23, No 7, July 2010, p. 539.</ref>

Blushing has been linked to activation in the [[cerebellum]] and the left [[Paracentral lobule|paracentral lobe.]]<ref name="o518">{{cite journal |last=Nikolić |first=Milica |last2=di Plinio |first2=Simone |last3=Sauter |first3=Disa |last4=Keysers |first4=Christian |last5=Gazzola |first5=Valeria |date=2024-07-17 |title=The blushing brain: neural substrates of cheek temperature increase in response to self-observation |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |publisher=The Royal Society |volume=291 |issue=2027 |page= |doi=10.1098/rspb.2024.0958 |issn=1471-2954 |doi-access=free|hdl=20.500.11755/c2d7e660-5628-4c77-aa7b-340039915a70 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>