What is it about?
Weeping is purposeless and emotional tears do not serve any function. That was the conclusion of Charles Darwin in his 1872 seminal work The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. So far, this conclusion has never seriously been challenged, because investigators simply were not interested in this heavily underresearched topic (in the major textbooks on emotion, the terms tears, weeping and crying are not listed in the indices!). We challenge this conclusion. We strongly believe that emotional tears have played an important role in our evolution and still do serve important functions. Without tears, we, humans, would never have become the empathic, ultra-social species that we currently are (i.e., that we take care for the sick, elderly, and disabled and that we can work together). Crying deserves more attention of emotion researchers.
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Why is it important?
Human crying is an underresearched topic. We do not know why humans are the only species that produce emotional tears. What are the precise functions of crying? Is there a connection with social and moral functioning? Can more insight into crying learn us more about human nature? This important questions wait to be addressed.
Perspectives
Human crying is a fascinating research topic. It can be approached from several angles and with a wide diversity of methodologies. Reading about crying (including anthropological, theological, evolutionary biological literature) was a very enriching experience. It is a real exciting research topic, with many challenges.
Professor Ad JJM Vingerhoets
Tilburg University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Riddle of Human Emotional Crying: A Challenge for Emotion Researchers, Emotion Review, June 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1754073915586226.
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