Tears do not influence competence in general, but only under specific circumstances: A systematic investigation across 41 countries.

Wróbel, Monika; Wągrowska, Julia; Zickfeld, Janis; Ven, Niels van de

doi:10.1037/emo0001010

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The newly created set of vignettes can serve as stimulus material for the experimental manipulation of the emotional basis of tears. The use of this set may allow for the detailed investigation of the issue, moving away from its broadly understood negative and positive causes (Wróbel et al, 2022;Zickfeld et al, 2021) to emotions such as joy/happiness, sadness, anger, fear, that is, emotions that differ not only in valence but also in their social meaning (Fischer & Manstead, 2008). Moreover, it may indicate qualitative differences in reasons for crying dictated by different emotional backgrounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Makes People Cry? A Preliminary Analysis of Situations That Evoke Emotional Tears

Wągrowska

Wróbel

2022

RPsych

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The aim of two preliminary studies reported in the article was to identify the main reasons for crying and to create a set of situational vignettes that would refer to specific situations or events that potentially can make people cry. In Study 1 (n = 61), we asked the participants to list six general reasons behind crying. In Study 2 (n = 70), the participants were asked to identify specific situations in which people shed emotion-related tears. As a result, we selected a set of 34 situational vignettes. Each of them is a short and gender-neutral description of a specific emotional reason that can make people cry and is related to one of the following basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. The vignettes can be used to manipulate the emotional basis of tears in experimental research.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Makes People Cry? A Preliminary Analysis of Situations That Evoke Emotional Tears

Wągrowska

Wróbel

2022

RPsych

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“…Specifically, it is assumed that five categories account for most crying triggers in daily life. Experimental approaches have already demonstrated that impression formation processes in response to tearful versus tearless targets are qualified by the triggering reason (e.g., Wróbel et al, 2022), but an externally valid perspective involving the full range of possible crying triggers is lacking (MacArthur & Shields, 2019).…”

Section: Emotional Cryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we were interested in the characteristics of the crying episodes and examined who has typically observed crying (Studies 1 and 2), what emotion expressions are paired with crying (Studies 2 and 3), how intense these expressions are (Studies 2 and 3), and which aspects of crying are typically involved, that is, tears, crying-related facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations (Study 3). Second, we examined how crying individuals are perceived and reacted to; specifically, we examined how crying individuals are perceived on the two core dimensions of impression formation, that is, warmth and competence (e.g., Cuddy et al, 2008), dimensions that are typically examined in the crying literature (e.g., Van de Ven et al, 2017; Wróbel et al, 2022; Zickfeld & Schubert, 2018; Zickfeld et al, 2021; Studies 1–3). We tested whether impression formation depended on the reason triggering crying (Studies 1 and 2).…”

Section: Emotional Cryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the social signal function of emotional crying: Broadening the perspective to social interactions in daily life.

Barthelmäs,

Stöckle,

Keller

2024

Emotion

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Emotional crying is a potent signal that can influence how social interactions unfold. Although the social signal function of crying has been mostly studied in experimental approaches involving hypothetical scenarios with strangers as targets, we propose that daily social interactions should be considered to address aspects of external validity. We conducted three retrospective studies (total N = 2,277; convenience samples; Studies 2 and 3 were preregistered; data were collected in 2022 and 2023) and found that individuals primarily observed close others crying in their daily lives; a boundary condition that was hardly reflected in former studies. Crying episodes were typically characterized by tears and changes in facial expression, vocalizations, and gestures, whereas isolated emotional tears, were rarely reported. Participants indicated that they frequently helped close others, but that helping strangers was the exception. The level of familiarity with the target also influenced the form of help provided. Furthermore, the crying person was rated as less warm and less competent when crying (vs. in general or in a neutral situation). Additional analyses suggest that question order effects and recall biases are no plausible alternative explanations of our findings. Taken together, these results call into question the validity of the experimental approaches used in this line of research. We discuss strategies for future study of the social signal function of crying in nonhypothetical scenarios with reference to the "generalizability crisis" of psychological science.

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“…In turn, perceptions of helplessness mediate between people's observation of tears in others' faces and their motivation to help these individuals (Vingerhoets et al, 2016). Tearful individuals also appear less competent; people perceive them as having low ability to act in particular situations (Wróbel et al, 2022). In the workplace, tearing elicits disapproval from coworkers (Hoover-Dempsey et al, 1986) rather than the positive responses that tears elicit in other contexts (e.g., Hendriks & Vingerhoets, 2006), perhaps because apparent incompetence and appeals for help violate the implicit contractual notion that individual compensation requires the individual to pull his own weight.…”

Section: Receivers' Responses To Benefit-triggered Tears In Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional tears: What they are and how they work

Sznycer

Gračanin²,

Lieberman³

2023

Preprint

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Tears serve ophthalmic functions: They lubricate, nourish, and protect the cornea. Tearers produce tears non-permanently and at relatively low cost. And observers pay attention to the eyes of others and extract from eyes and faces a lot of information about others’ stable and transient characteristics, including their mental states. These background conditions may have led to the evolution in the human lineage of additional signaling functions in tears. Emotional tearing occurs during negative events (e.g., injuries) and positive events (e.g., achievements). Episodes of tearing appear to be united by tearers’ subjective imputation of negative or positive value to certain internal or external events. Knowing the degree to which things enhance or diminish one’s prospects—the value of things—is a pressing matter for humans and other organisms. Value information is produced for internal consumption, to be used by behavior-regulating mechanisms in the focal individual. But some value information is made available, in addition, to other people, through tearing and other forms of verbal and non-verbal communication. Tearing may function as an implicit plea for receivers to minimize the costs imposed on the tearer by nature, by third-parties, or by the receivers themselves—common when the tearer has lower formidability or wherewithal than receivers do. In addition, tearing may exhort receivers to infer and register which things the tearer values, positively or negatively. Here, we characterize tears, describe the game-theoretic logic of bargaining from a position of weakness, outline the computational systems that regulate the production of and responses to emotional tears, and review findings about emotional tearing that are relevant to the signaling hypothesis.

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Tears do not influence competence in general, but only under specific circumstances: A systematic investigation across 41 countries.

Abstract: In Press at Emotion. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in Emotion.

Cited by 8 publications

References 47 publications

What Makes People Cry? A Preliminary Analysis of Situations That Evoke Emotional Tears

What Makes People Cry? A Preliminary Analysis of Situations That Evoke Emotional Tears

On the social signal function of emotional crying: Broadening the perspective to social interactions in daily life.

Emotional tears: What they are and how they work

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