1. Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries
- Author
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Tara Bulut Allred, Agustín Ibáñez, Amparo Caballero, Anouk Kolen, Terri Tan Su-May, Shamsul Haque, Elif Gizem Demirag Burak, Jozef Bavolar, Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Phakkanun Chittham, Andreas Schwerdtfeger, Chew Wei Ong, Marie Stadel, Sadia Malik, Coby Morvinski, Victoria Schönefeld, Suzanne L. K. Stewart, John Jamir Benzon R. Aruta, María del Carmen Espinoza, Christine Joy A. Ballada, Darío Páez, Masataka Nakayama, Natália Kocsel, Adolfo M. García, Magdalena Bobowik, Janis Zickfeld, Tuğba Seda Çolak, Hans IJzerman, Jordane Boudesseul, Krystian Barzykowski, Elke Schrover, Gonzalo Martínez-Zelaya, Diogo Conque Seco Ferreira, Sergio Villar, Leigh Ann Vaughn, Leah Sharman, Philip C. Mefoh, Patrícia Arriaga, Inbal Kremer, Tobias Ebert, Franziska A. Stanke, Jonna K. Vuoskoski, Eleimonitria Lekkou, Nao Maeura, Asmir Gračanin, Argiro Vatakis, Kristina Sesar, Mustafa Eşkisu, Yaniv Shani, Kitty Dumont, Bruno Verschuere, Rebecca Shankland, Thomas W. Schubert, Friedrich M. Götz, Agata Blaut, René Šebeňa, Nadyanna M. Majeed, Nino Jose Mateo, Eric J. Vanman, Eunsoo Choi, Pilleriin Sikka, Gyöngyi Kökönyei, Harry Manley, Arta Dodaj, José J. Pizarro, Olivia Pich, Kenichi Ito, Irina Konova, Magdalena Śmieja, Nekane Basabe, Julie Karsten, Braj Bhushan, Catalina Estrada-Mejia, Ljiljana B. Lazarević, Andree Hartanto, Jana B. Berkessel, Peter J. Rentfrow, Pilar Carrera, Sari Mentser, María Josefina Escobar, Uğur Doğan, Sebastian L. Schorch, Niels van de Ven, Anna Tcherkassof, Paul E. Jose, Wee Qin Ng, Wataru Sato, Yukiko Uchida, Sergio Barbosa, Shlomo Hareli, Michelle Xue Zheng, Ravit Nussinson, Igor Kardum, Asil Ali Özdoğru, Yang Wu, Nina F. Balt, Henna-Riikka Peltola, Diogo Martins, Yansong Li, Pavol Kačmár, Zahir Vally, Charles T. Orjiakor, Judith K. Daniels, UAM. Departamento de Psicología Social y Metodología, MÜ, Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü, Doğan, Uğur, Burak, Elif Gizem Demirağ, Zickfeld, J. H., van de Ven, N., Pich, O., Schubert, T. W., Berkessel, J. B., Pizarro, J. J., Bhushan, B., Mateo, N. J., Barbosa, S., Sharman, L., Kökönyei, G., Schrover, E., Kardum, I., Aruta, J. J. B., Lazarevic, L. B., Escobar, M. J., Stadel, M., Arriaga, P., Dodaj, A., Shankland, R., Majeed, N. M., Li, Y., Lekkou, E., Hartanto, A., Özdoğru, A. A., Vaughn, L. A., del Carmen Espinoza, M., Caballero, A., Kolen, A., Karsten, J., Manley, H., Maeura, N., Eşkisu, M., Shani, Y., Chittham, P., Ferreira, D., Bavolar, J., Konova, I., Sato, W., Morvinski, C., Carrera, P., Villar, S., Ibanez, A., Hareli, S., Garcia, A. M., Kremer, I., Götz, F. M., Schwerdtfeger, A., Estrada-Mejia, C., Nakayama, M., Ng, W. Q., Sesar, K., Orjiakor, C. T., Dumont, K., Allred, T. B., Gra?anin, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Schönefeld, V., Vally, Z., Barzykowski, K., Peltola, H.-R., Tcherkassof, A., Haque, S., mieja, M., Su-May, T. T., IJzerman, H., Vatakis, A., Ong, C. W., Choi, E., Schorch, S. L., Páez, D., Malik, S., Ka?már, P., Bobowik, M., Jose, P., Vuoskoski, J. K., Basabe, N., Doğan, U., Ebert, T., Uchida, Y., Zheng, M. X., Mefoh, P., Šebe?a, R., Stanke, F. A., Ballada, C. J., Blaut, A., Wu, Y., Daniels, J. K., Kocsel, N., Balt, N. F., Vanman, E., Stewart, S. L. K., Verschuere, B., Sikka, P., Boudesseul, J., Martins, D., Nussinson, R., Ito, K., Mentser, S., Çolak, T. S., Martinez-Zelaya, G., Vingerhoets, A., College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of Psychology, Department of Marketing, Research Group: Marketing, Tilburg University, Center Ph. D. Students, Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Department of Social Psychology, Medical and Clinical Psychology, [Belirlenecek], Sociology/ICS, and Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology
- Subjects
Sociology and Political Science ,Emotions ,Personal distress ,Attachment ,050109 social psychology ,Ciências Sociais::Psicologia [Domínio/Área Científica] ,Relaciones interpersonales ,Emotional tears ,Social support ,0302 clinical medicine ,Emotional crying ,Cross-cultural ,Psychology ,Faces ,10. No inequality ,media_common ,Inclusion ,Emociones y sentimientos ,Crying ,05 social sciences ,Impact ,Feeling ,medicine.symptom ,Social psychology ,Social Psychology ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Empathy ,Interpersonal relations ,Equivalence ,050105 experimental psychology ,Exposure ,Interpersonal relationship ,03 medical and health sciences ,medicine ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Valence (psychology) ,Empathic concern ,Distress ,Individuals ,Psicología ,Psychologie ,Llanto ,Empatía ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
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 7007 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 = 0.49 [0.43, 0.55]. 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., National Science Centre, Poland; Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange Bekker Programme; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office; Hungarian Brain Research Programme; Internal Fund of the Open University of Israel
- Published
- 2021
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