The Science Of Crying

The Science Of Crying: Humans appear to be the only animals that shed tears for emotional reasons; scientists now see crying less as a release valve and more as a social signal that calls for help, defuses aggression and bonds people together.

Ad Vingerhoets: The Dutch psychologist who has studied crying for decades found that boys and girls cry about equally until early adolescence, when the gender gap suddenly opens up.

German Society of Ophthalmology: Its research estimated women cry 30 to 64 times a year, compared with 6 to 17 times for men.

William Frey: The biochemist reported in the 1980s that emotional tears contain more protein than the reflex tears produced by irritants like smoke or onions.

Rose-Lynn Fisher: Her photo series The Topography of Tears captured dried tears under a microscope, revealing crystal patterns that look like aerial maps of landscapes.

Noam Sobel: His lab found that men who sniffed women's emotional tears showed lower testosterone and, in a 2023 follow up, less aggression, suggesting tears carry a chemical signal.

Charles Darwin: In his 1872 book on emotional expression he called weeping an incidental result of squeezing the eye muscles, a view modern researchers largely reject.

Lacrimal Gland: This almond sized gland above each eye produces three kinds of tears: basal tears that keep eyes moist, reflex tears that flush irritants and emotional tears.

Lauren Bylsma: Analyzing thousands of crying episodes from people in dozens of countries, she found most people felt better afterward but a sizable minority felt no change or even worse.

Oren Hasson: The evolutionary biologist argued tears work because they blur your vision, an honest signal of vulnerability that tells others you are no threat.

Robert Provine: When he digitally erased tears from photos of crying faces, viewers rated them far less sad and sometimes couldn't tell what emotion they showed.

Crocodile Tears: The phrase for fake sorrow has a real basis, as a 2007 study found crocodilians do shed tears while eating, likely from the effort of hissing and huffing.

Kathleen Wermke: Her 2009 study found newborns cry with an accent, as French babies' cries rise in pitch while German babies' cries fall, mirroring the language they heard in the womb.

Rui-katsu: Japan's tear seeking trend brings groups together to watch sad films and cry on purpose, sometimes guided by a professional tear teacher.

Michael Trimble: The neurologist's book Why Humans Like to Cry explores why people seek out sad music and art, arguing tears at beauty are a uniquely human mix of emotion and reflection.

Adagio for Strings: Samuel Barber's piece was voted the saddest classical work in a 2004 BBC poll and has been played at countless funerals and national tragedies.

Onion: Cutting one releases syn-propanethial-S-oxide, a volatile chemical that irritates eye nerves and triggers reflex tears that have nothing to do with emotion.

Nicolas Steno: In 1662 the Danish anatomist showed that tears come from glands around the eye, overturning the old belief that they leaked from the brain.

Chris Hadfield: On the International Space Station he showed that tears don't fall in zero gravity but pool into a stinging ball of water stuck to your eye.

Edmund Muskie: Reports that he wept while defending his wife in the snow outside a New Hampshire newspaper in 1972 helped sink his presidential campaign, though he insisted it was melting snow.

Richard Ferber: The pediatrician's sleep training method of letting babies cry for gradually longer intervals is still debated, though a 2016 study found no lasting stress or attachment harm.

Ignatius of Loyola: The founder of the Jesuits kept a spiritual diary recording his tears during prayer, treating weeping as a divine gift rather than a weakness.

Asmir Gračanin: His 2015 study found that people who cried at a sad film felt worse at first but, about 90 minutes later, felt better than before the movie started.

Alexander Fleming: Before penicillin, he discovered lysozyme in 1922, a natural antibacterial enzyme in tears that helps protect the eyes from infection.

The Champ: The final scene of this 1979 boxing film became a standard tool in psychology labs because it reliably makes research participants sad enough to cry.