Tears Evoke the Intention to Offer Social Support: A Systematic Investigation of the Interpersonal Effects of Emotional Crying Across 41 Countries
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Authors
Zickfeld, Janis H.van de Ven, Niels
Pich, Olivia
Schubert, Thomas W.
Berkessel, Jana B.
Pizarro, José J.
Bhushan, Braj
Mateo, Nino Jose
Barbosa, Sergio
Sharman, Leah
Kökönyei, Gyöngyi
Schrover, Elke
Kardum, Igor
Aruta, John Jamir Benzon
Lazarevic, Ljiljana B.
Escobar, María Josefina
Stadel, Marie
Arriaga, Patrícia
Dodaj, Arta
Shankland, Rebecca
Majeed, Nadyanna M.
Li, Yansong
Lekkou, Eleimonitria
Hartanto, Andree
Özdoğru, Asil A.
Vaughn, Leigh Ann
del Carmen Espinoza, Maria
Caballero, Amparo
Kolen, Anouk
Karsten, Julie
Manley, Harry
Maeura, Nao
Eşkisu, Mustafa
Shani, Yaniv
Chittham, Phakkanun
Ferreira, Diogo
Bavolar, Jozef
Konova, Irina
Sato, Wataru
Morvinski, Coby
Carrera, Pilar
Villar, Sergio
Ibanez, Agustin
Hareli, Shlomo
Garcia, Adolfo M.
Kremer, Inbal
Götz, Friedrich M.
Schwerdtfeger, Andreas
Estrada-Mejia, Catalina
Nakayama, Masataka
Ng, Wee Qin
Sesar, Kristina
Orjiakor, Charles T.
Dumont, Kitty
Bulut Allred, Tara
Gračanin, Asmir
Rentfrow, Peter J.
Schönefeld, Victoria
Vally, Zahir
Barzykowski, Krystian
Peltola, Henna-Riikka
Tcherkassof, Anna
Haque, Shamsul
Śmieja, Magdalena
Su-May, Terri Tan
IJzerman, Hans
Vatakis, Argiro
Ong, Chew Wei
Choi, Eunsoo
Schorch, Sebastian L.
Páez, Darío
Malik, Sadia
Kačmár, Pavol
Bobowik, Magdalena
Jose, Paul
Vuoskoski, Jonna
Basabe, Nekane
Doğan, Uğur
Ebert, Tobias
Uchida, Yukiko
Zheng, Michelle Xue
Mefoh, Philip
Šebeňa, René
Stanke, Franziska A.
Ballada, Christine Joy
Blaut, Agata
Wu, Yang
Daniels, Judith K.
Kocsel, Natália
Burak, Elif Gizem Demirag
Balt, Nina F.
Vanman, Eric
Stewart, Suzanne L. K.
Verschuere, Bruno
Sikka, Pilleriin
Boudesseul, Jordane
Martins, Diogo
Nussinson, Ravit
Ito, Kenichi
Mentser, Sari
Çolak, Tuğba Seda
Martinez-Zelaya, Gonzalo
Vingerhoets, Ad
Affiliation
University of Chester and others
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Show full item recordAbstract
Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7,007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without digitally-added tears. We confirmed the main prediction that seeing a tearful individual elicits the intention to support, d = .49 [.43, .55]. Our data suggest that this effect could be mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress of the observer. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one’s group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed high heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effects for higher-scoring countries. These findings suggest that tears can function as social glue, providing one possible explanation why emotional crying persists into adulthood.Citation
Zickfeld, J. H., van de Ven, N., Pich, O., Schubert, T. W., Berkessel, J. B, Pizarro J.,…& Vingerhoets, A. (in press). Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.Publisher
ElsevierType
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/