The gesture may be universal, but researchers are still struggling to understand why humans are the only species to shed “emotional” tears. Until now, popular belief was that tears flush out stress toxins, but the reality is more nuanced. For Stefan Stieger, professor of psychology, the lack of concrete data in the field was glaring. “Crying is a basic human behavior”he explains, wondering how little research is carried out in people’s daily lives rather than in the laboratory.
He therefore set up an experiment which mobilized around a hundred volunteers in Austria and Germany. For a month, they had to note their state of mind on their phone before, during and after each crying attack. The results firstly show a glaring disparity between the sexes. Where men stop crying after about four minutes, women prolong the exercise, often twice as long. A difference which can also be explained by the causes of the crying crisis: if loneliness makes women break down, helplessness and sad films affect men more.
Published in the specialist journal Collabra: Psychology, the study claims that, contrary to the idea of instant relief, crying does not seem to act like a pimple reset. By measuring mood 15, 30 and 60 minutes after the episode, the researchers found no evidence of an immediate improvement in well-being. Worse yet, for those who cry because they feel isolated or overwhelmed by a situation, the mood would remain dark long after they dried their eyes.
The cultural exception
These results, relayed by Futurism, are surprising as the idea of post-tear relief is anchored in our culture. The study suggests that the beneficial effect, if it exists, is not automatic. Stefan Stieger himself admits his surprise at these results: the long-awaited relief seems to be, in many cases, an illusion or at least a much slower process than expected.
However, there is an exception in the data collected. Tears shed in front of a film or a work of art seem to have a special status. Unlike real-life sadness, movie-related sadness often leads to a reduction in negative emotions once the credits roll. This is perhaps the only moment when a good cry really functions as a liberating purge.
The study also highlights that the impact of our crying depends greatly on the initial reason. Crying because you’re alone doesn’t solve the loneliness, which explains why your mood doesn’t improve. On the other hand, cinema allows us to release tension without our personal reality being threatened, thus offering a smoother transition to a peaceful state.
There remains hope for fans of the handkerchief. The researchers admit a size limit to their work: “Crying could generate a relief effect several days later. It could be that the benefit is not a matter of minutes, but of days. Crying would perhaps serve to initiate a deep emotional digestion which only bears fruit much later, once the storm has passed.
