Cross cultural tears: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across different cultural backgrounds

Abstract

The present project wants to examine the importance of emotional crying as an attachment behaviour and its fundamental role across a number of diverse cultures. Emotional tears are uniquely human and have fascinated scholars across several decades (Vingerhoets, 2013). Some researchers argue that tearful crying played a significant role in the evolution of humankind with regard to social development and solidarity (Walter, 2006). Recent years have seen an increased interest in exploring the interpersonal effects of human tears (see Gračanin, Bylsma, & Vingerhoets, 2018 for a review), with findings that emotional tears foster approach or support behavior (Gračanin, Krahmer, Rinck, & Vingerhoets, 2018) and crying individuals being evaluated as more communal (e.g., Zickfeld, van de Ven, Schubert, & Vingerhoets, 2018). These findings generally fit the hypothesis that emotional tears constitute a social act, promote social bonding and fulfill an attachment function (Nelson, 2005; Bowlby, 1982; Gračanin, Bylsma, et al., 2018; Murube, Murube, & Murube, 1999; Radcliffe-Brown, 1922; Vingerhoets, 2013). The present projects aims to answer the question whether emotional tears present a fundamental form of solidarity and bonding and whether the findings on increased attributions of warmth and higher approach intentions for tearful individuals replicate across a number of diverse contexts. Published in OSF: https://osf.io/fj9bd. The OPen SCience FRamework also includes:

Data from the pilot study: https://osf.io/txcw3/ General information about the translation process (including the Portuguese version https://osf.io/t4cas/), Data management and research protocol (https://osf.io/5bh7m/), Approvals from ethical committees (https://osf.io/v8rqh/), Data and descriptive document of supplementary analyses (https://osf.io/s8ack/), Data and syntax (https://osf.io/x2pks/), Information about stimuli (https://osf.io/x2pks/)