The Emotional Game - Social Blushing

   This week's blog will be focusing on a player pretty close to home, a Southampton FC player, Jason Puncheon.

In a game this season, Southampton were playing against Everton, and during the second half Jason went off the pitch for an unspecified reason, leaving the team to play with 10 men for 10 minutes. Why? It wasn't entirely clear, however some of the fans seemed to have cottoned onto exactly why he was missing, and what he was doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThzwxLDgAI 

 Upon realizing that the fans know why he left the pitch, and the chants about it, he smiles and it looks quite embarrassed, but it doesn't great effect him. From the video it wasn't clear if he was blushing that much, but during the game it was. 

 As shown by Leary, Landel & Patton (1996), embarrassment serves the purpose of repairing the embarrassed parties image,and serves an interpersonal function, in this instance likely between the fans, the player, and his team mates. Furthermore it can alleviate negative reactions from others as found by Semin and Manstead (1982), so Jason's blushing might have helped the fans and other team members accept the fact they were playing with 10 men for a period of time.

In the following game against Manchester City, he scored a goal, his celebrations are below;

His celebrations included two references to the previous incident, the 'bum wiping' gesture, and smelly hand gesture. These displays showed that he wasn't that embarrassed as it previously seemed. Though it could well be that the celebrations are to alleviate the embarrassment from remembering what happened.

Fixing Fernando

 In terms of Fernando Torres, it might help his acceptance by the fans,public, and his teammates, if he were to blush more, as a method of apologizing when he performs poorly, or misses easy chances, people might be more accepting. as suggested by Leary et al.

Rather than covering his face, perhaps it would be better to let his team mates see his embarrassment/blushing. This show of blushing and embarrassment might also act as a cue to the fans that he is aware, and sorry for his poor performances  which will reduce their negative chanting towards him, which should reduce his hurt feelings, which will be explored in another blog. (And a reduction in hurt feelings may again lead to better performance.)