Do people everywhere experience embarrassment in the same way? This is a difficult question to address empirically. Most cross-cultural research has focused on people’s self-reports of their experiences, feelings and expressions, which may or may not correspond to what actually happens in social interactions. Another tricky issue is how to translate terms for emotions into different languages. In English, there are separate terms for shame and embarrassment, and research suggests that the two emotions are different. Embarrassment tends to be over less serious errors and almost always happens in the presence of others. Shame seems to be reserved for more serious social violations and can be experienced alone. Smiling, which readily occurs in embarrassment, is unlikely to follow a shameful event. However, the boundary between events that elicit embarrassment or shame is undefined. In many cultures, the same word is used to describe both. For example, in Oriya, a language in India, the word “lajya” refers to a variety of emotional states, including embarrassment as well as shame. Many Asian languages also use one word for the two emotions, although some Asian cultures have multiple words that deal with saving face, shame and so on.