We care about what others think of us. Whether we're giving a speech, posting a photo, or singing in front of a crowd, we often manage our emotions to leave a good impression. But how does this tendency—known as impression management—change across childhood and into adulthood? Do young children feel self-conscious the same way adults do when they're being watched?

To examine this, the authors conducted a study with 215 participants across three age groups: young children (ages 3.5 to 5), older children (ages 8 to 10), and adults. They designed a task in order to induce self-conscious emotions—embarrassment and pride—by asking participants to perform a singing task and solve a bogus “difficult” puzzle in which they received false positive feedback, both recorded. Afterwards, they watched a video of these performances, either while alone or in the presence of an audience (to induce embarrassment and pride, respectively).

The authors looked at how participants responded emotionally in three different ways: what they said they felt, how their bodies reacted (such as changes in perspiration, heart rate, and skin temperature that indicates blushing), and how they expressed emotions through their facial and bodily movements.

The authors found that embarrassment was strongly affected by social presence. Across all ages, people reported feeling more embarrassed and showed more signs of blushing when others were watching. This suggests that even very young children are sensitive to being observed and this is reflected in their emotional responses accordingly. Participants’ expressions and experience of pride, conversely, did not increase just because others were present. Instead, the intensity of participants’ expressions of pride was mostly shaped by age: adults showed the most visible signs of pride, such as smiling, expanded posture, and head tilting.

Overall, the authors' findings show that the social environment—whether we’re alone or in front of others—plays a powerful role in how we experience and show emotions. But not all emotions behave the same way. These insights help us better understand how emotional self-awareness and social sensitivity develop throughout childhood and into adulthood—and why even small audiences can have a big emotional impact.