It is the “cringe” feeling I believe. Its embarrassment on behalf of the bad joke not landing. I could also be irritation that your brain didn’t get the reward it was anticipating.
I’m not sure I can come up with a distinguishing principle here, but I feel like some but not all unpleasant emotions feel similar to physical pain, such that I would call them a kind of pain (“emotional pain”), and cringing at a bad joke can be painful in this way.
It is the “cringe” feeling I believe. Its embarrassment on behalf of the bad joke not landing. I could also be irritation that your brain didn’t get the reward it was anticipating.
My understanding of Sarah’s comment was that the feeling is literally pain. At least for me, the cringe feeling doesn’t literally hurt.
I’m not sure I can come up with a distinguishing principle here, but I feel like some but not all unpleasant emotions feel similar to physical pain, such that I would call them a kind of pain (“emotional pain”), and cringing at a bad joke can be painful in this way.
Huh! For me, physical and emotional pain are two super different clusters of qualia.
I would strongly guess that many people could physically locate the cringe pain, particularly if asked when they’re experiencing it.
Sternum and neck for me