Crying and mood change: A cross-cultural study

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the influence of crying-related variables and country characteristics on positive mood change after crying. It was hypothesized that mood change would be positively associated to crying frequency, Individualism-Collectivism, and the extent of gender empowerment in a country. Masculinity-Femininity and shame were expected to have a negative relation with mood change. Participants were 1680 male and 2323 female students from 30 countries who provided self-report data on their crying behavior. Although bivariate associations yielded inconsistent results, in a regression analysis Masculinity-Femininity, national income, shame, and crying frequency emerged as significant predictors of mood change, all in the anticipated direction. The results suggest that how one feels after a crying episode depends on how common crying is in one's culture and general feelings of shame over crying. It also seems that (perceptions of) role patterns may play an important part in the experience of mood change.Crying and mood change 3 Crying and mood change: A cross-cultural study While recent research has taught us much about the antecedents and consequences of emotions and emotional behavior (cf.

The Curse of Curves

“…For males, instead, male-biased philopatry would have relaxed the selection pressures to advertise trustworthiness gestures in favor of capacity cues for attracting and maintaining larger, more fluid and instrumentally oriented coalitions of kin-related peers. This framework explains the general tendencies for females to form more consolidated and intimate peer relationships than males (Geary et al 2003;Rose and Rudolph 2006;Taylor et al 2000;Vigil 2007Vigil , 2008, and to express higher levels of appeasement and vulnerability gestures (e.g., crying, laughter, interpersonal mimicry, touching behaviors, sustained eye contact) that effectively disarm threat impressions and project impressions of trustworthiness to others (Becht and Vingerhoets 2002;Provine 1993;Vigil 2009a).…”

Cross-Cultural Equivalence of HSCL-25 and WHO (ten) Wellbeing Index: Findings From a Population-Based Survey of Immigrants and Non-Immigrants in Sweden

“…Azayem and HedayatDiba 1994) and that the Middle Eastern immigrants are more religious than the Scandinavians. (3) Crying easily was a stronger predictor of mental ill health among Middle Easterners, which may suggest that crying serves different purposes or expresses different emotions in the respective cultures (Becht and Vingerhoets 2002).…”

Self-reported crying during the menstrual cycle: Sign of discomfort and emotional turmoilor erroneous beliefs?

“…The sample consisted of women between 16 to 28 years of age (M = 20.9; SD = 2.5), participating in the International Study on Adult Crying (ISAC) [18][19] . Country samples were included when the number of women in the mentioned age range was at least 30.…”

“…Specifically, we expect to find increases in self reported crying during the premenstrual phase, when decreases in mood are most likely to occur and during the menstrual cycle when physical discomfort might result in increased crying. In Study 1, we report retrospective data collected in the context of the large world-wide International Study on Adult Crying (ISAC) [18][19] . The study of cross-cultural differences can significantly contribute to our understanding of menstrual cycle effects of crying.…”