If I Cry, Do You Care?

Abstract

Crying is a powerful solicitation of caregiving, yet little is known about the cognitive processes underpinning caring responses to crying others. This study examined (1) whether crying (compared to sad and happy) faces differentially elicited semantic activation of caregiving, and (2) whether individual differences in cognitive and emotional empathy moderated this activation. Ninety participants completed a lexical decision task in which caregiving, neutral, and nonwords were presented after subliminal exposure (24 ms) to crying, sad, and happy faces. Individuals low in cognitive empathy had slower reaction times to caregiving (vs. neutral) words after exposure to crying faces, but not after sad or happy faces. Results are discussed with respect to the role of empathy in response to crying others.

A Call for the Empirical Investigation of Tear Stimuli

“…Most existing research investigating the perception of emotional tearing uses posed facial expressions that feature artificial tears, added using eyedrops or digital enhancement (Reed et al, 2015;Ito et al, 2019). These artificial images have been used to explore how the presence of tears influences the perception of sadness (Hendriks et al, 2007;Ito et al, 2019), and the degree of helping behaviors elicited (Hendriks and Vingerhoets, 2006;Balsters et al, 2013;Lockwood et al, 2013). When images with visible tears are perceived as significantly sadder than the same image without tears, it is referred to as the tear effect (Provine et al, 2009).…”

“…In the context of our everyday lives, it is of interest to understand the relationship between tears, emotional support, and empathy. There is consensus that tears elicit greater emotional support and empathy compared to tear-free expressions (Hendriks and Vingerhoets, 2006;Balsters et al, 2013;Lockwood et al, 2013). Hendriks and Vingerhoets (2006) concluded that tearful expressions elicit greater support and reduced avoidance behaviors relative to other emotional displays.…”

“…Thus, despite participants' belief that encountering a tearful person would increase their own distress, they still reported greater helping responses to tears. Lockwood et al (2013) further explored the role of empathy in response to emotional crying using reaction time. Participants responded to neutral and caregiving words after witnessing subliminally presented emotional face primes of happy, sad, and crying faces.…”

“…Although tears have been readily touted as an honest signal of emotion (Trimble, 2012;Vingerhoets, 2013), there is a lack of empirical evidence to justify this perception. Furthermore, tears reliably elicit empathic responses (Lockwood et al, 2013) and social support from observers (Vingerhoets et al, 2016), while also signaling appeasement, which serves to reduce aggression (Hasson, 2009). While the presence of tears on a face can signal the need for social support, tears are also used to manipulate and deceive.…”

“…Despite the negative connotations associated with insincere emotion, most crying research has used standardized or posed faces featuring artificial tears. Although these studies have demonstrated that tears are responded to favorably (Balsters et al, 2013;Lockwood et al, 2013), how the artificial nature of these displays impacts person perception is yet to be determined. We call for the empirical investigation of the perception of both posed and genuine emotional tear displays.…”