The Agony of Humiliation : Behavior: Those who endure the heat of public scrutiny often hide out until things cool off. Luckily, people soon forget about them, experts say.

Poor Zoe Baird.

One day she’s a highly paid but relatively obscure corporate lawyer in line for a dream job. The next she’s the subject of indignant dinner table conversation across America, thanks to her poor judgment in hiring a nanny.

Six months from now, long after a new attorney general has been appointed (or not), most people may furrow their brows while trying to place her name.

But for Baird, Kimba Wood and others whose flaws and foibles are thrust under the white-hot spotlight of public inspection, life will never be quite the same.

Which leaves us wondering: How do people cope with the humiliation that accompanies such intense scrutiny? And what goes on after the spotlight fades?

Everyone has experienced humiliation. Who hasn’t felt the occasional sting in school, at home or on the job?

While the average person may easily leave the situation behind, it’s tougher when the circumstances are broadcast far and wide, making strangers privy to what would ordinarily be intimate secrets.

And what about the public agony of getting so close to the top, then falling--in a 52-17 rout viewed by hundreds of millions. The Buffalo Bills must have felt badly about losing one Super Bowl and really awful after losing two. Now the first to fumble three straight, they’re devastated. The team will probably bounce back, but it won’t be easy.

In the short term, public humiliation causes tremendous anxiety, says Bernard Spilka, a University of Denver social psychologist and an expert on dealing with stress.

A person may sleep poorly, experience physical symptoms, such as digestive problems or high blood pressure, and act jumpy, he says.

“You’re under stress because you can’t control what’s happening,” Spilka explains.

Under such circumstances, most people lie low and avoid the public eye for a while, he says.

(Most people we called declined to call back.)

“I’m sure a lot of these people say to themselves, ‘Look, the people forget,’ and they do,” Spilka says.

Public people benefit from what social psychologists call “idiosyncrasy credit,” which roughly means, “The higher you are on the ladder, the more people are willing to make allowances,” Spilka says.

A good example is Richard Nixon’s rehabilitation as an elder statesman within less than a generation after the most humiliating scandal ever to envelop the presidency, he says.

As people recover from an embarrassing episode, they’re likely to use various self-talk strategies to make themselves feel better, Spilka says.

“No. 1 is, you’ve got to change the way you see yourself, so you’ve got to reinterpret the situation,” Spilka says. Someone might say, for instance, “I’m not so bad--everybody does it.”

People also try to make positive predictions about the future, telling themselves, “It’s bad now, but things will pass and it’s going to get better,” Spilka says.

Another approach is “to try to identify with individuals who have made it and recovered,” Spilka says. George Bush’s self-comparison with Harry Truman in the waning days of the presidential campaign comes to mind.

Roger Bell, a psychologist who teaches at the University of Louisville medical school, says one predictor of how well people will recover from a humiliating event is the level of their social support, such as friends and colleagues.

Political figures have an added advantage, he says.

“They may have a better ability to deny circumstances,” he says. “How else does a politician in a diverse culture satisfy vested interests on a number of sides? He almost has to say things differently to different groups.”

Nevertheless, Bell views episodes of public humiliation as potential watersheds.

“I think events like this are pivotal points in a person’s personality development,” he says. “One or two things can come out of it. They either come out a stronger or tougher individual or they fall by the wayside.”

Consider Anita Hill, a law professor who came forward with allegations of sexual harassment by her former boss, Clarence Thomas, during the September, 1991, hearings on his Supreme Court nomination.

As she was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hill’s past and reputation became the subject of as much innuendo and hearsay as Thomas’, yet she maintained her composure on national TV.

“I suspect she must have felt awful,” Spilka says, “but she had learned how to control the presentation.”

Since the Thomas hearing, Hill has become an icon for sexual harassment victims. Although she seems to have accepted her new status, Hill gives few interviews and only occasional speeches in university settings.

Others try to resume the lives they led before their names became household words--not always successfully.

For example, medical student William Kennedy Smith was one of the least-known members of his clan until his trial and acquittal on charges of raping a Palm Beach woman during Easter weekend, 1991.

Smith dropped from sight after the verdict but turned up in Albuquerque last June--a year late--to start his residency at the University of New Mexico.

He has kept a low profile, declining to grant interviews. He’s been seen with friends in local restaurants and ran a marathon last September. But his efforts to blend in have not been entirely successful.

Last fall, feminists held a series of meetings called “Shakin’ the Willies” to vent their anger at having Smith in their community.

The owners of a feminist bookstore next door to the coffeehouse that Smith frequents got in a zinger of their own. They hung a T-shirt in the window depicting actress Geena Davis pointing a revolver with the words, “William Kennedy Smith, Meet Thelma and Louise.”