Why do we cry?
What research on emotional tears says about why people cry, what a tear does to the people watching, and why tears also come with joy.
Answer to the question
Why do we cry?
We cry because tears work as a signal. Reviews of emotional tears propose that crying began as a call for help, and experiments show that tears make faces look sadder and raise observers' intention to offer support across 41 countries. Tears also accompany positive moments of closeness, so one bodily event can carry different meanings.
Key takeaways
- A review of research on emotional tears proposes that crying began as a signal of distress that invites others to help (Gračanin and colleagues, 2018).
- Sad faces with the tears digitally removed were rated as less sad, and some were read as showing awe, concern or puzzlement (Provine and colleagues, 2009).
- In a preregistered study of about 7,000 people in 41 countries, tears added to pictures raised the intention to offer social support (Zickfeld and colleagues, 2021).
- Surveys of 3,542 people in 19 countries describe tears as part of being moved, a positive experience of sudden closeness (Zickfeld and colleagues, 2019).
- Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made treats tears as sensations the brain categorises, so the same tears can mean sadness or joy.
This article is general information about research on crying as a social signal. It is not medical advice, and nothing in it is a reason to change any treatment or to stop seeking care. Speak to a GP or another clinician about your own health. Medical review: Reja Batool.
Tears that spill over feeling, and not over smoke or grit, are thought to belong to humans alone, which makes the question of why we cry stranger than it first looks. A person who cries is slower to see through the blur and plainly exposed to anyone nearby. The research points to a payoff outside the body: a tear is something other people can see, and it changes what they do next.
Why do we cry when others can see?
Asmir Gračanin and colleagues reviewed the theory and research on emotional tears from an evolutionary angle, starting with infant crying. Their central proposal is that crying began as a signal of distress that invites others to help. Read that way, weeping is less a private release than a message with a likely audience, and the review argues that ritual weeping in different cultures fits the same account, since such rituals often appeal to a powerful person or deity and strengthen bonds among the people present.
Provine's paper adds a detail about timing: emotional tearing may not appear until several months after birth, which suggests the tear is a later addition to a call for help that infants already make by voice.
The tear itself seems to carry part of the message. Robert Provine and colleagues showed people sad faces, some with tears and some with the tears digitally removed. Faces without tears were rated as less sad, and some were read as expressing awe, concern or puzzlement instead. Provine's team suggested that tears settle an ambiguity: an expression alone can be read in several ways, and a tear narrows the reading.
A signal needs someone to receive it, which places crying inside the wider need to belong that is followed through in Why Do We Need to Belong. Crying alone is familiar to most people, and the account does not require an audience in the room. It concerns what the habit is for, not whether anyone is present on a given occasion.
What do tears do to people watching?
A preregistered study led by Janis Zickfeld put the signal to a wide test. About 7,000 participants in 41 countries rated pictures of 100 people, some shown with digitally added tears and some without. Tears raised the intention to offer social support. The effect ran through how the person looked: tearful faces were seen as warmer and more helpless, and observers felt closer to them and more concern for them, but not more personal distress.
In daily terms that gives a plain reason colleagues, friends and strangers so often soften at the sight of tears: the face reads as warmer and more in need, and the response it draws is concern and not alarm. The size of the effect varied between countries, and it was stronger among observers who scored high on empathic concern. These were reported intentions in an experiment, not help observed in daily life.
The design matters here: the same faces appeared with and without tears, so any difference in support came from the tears and not from the face underneath. The authors describe tears as a kind of social glue, one reason the habit may persist into adulthood. Observers did not report catching the crier's distress, which separates this response from the emotional contagion described in What is emotional contagion, where the feeling itself spreads from person to person.
| Source | Kind of evidence | What it supports |
|---|---|---|
| Gračanin and colleagues, 2018 | Evolutionary review | Crying began as a signal that invites help |
| Provine and colleagues, 2009 | Faces with and without tears | Tears make sad faces read as sadder and less ambiguous |
| Zickfeld and colleagues, 2021 | Tears added to pictures, 41 countries | Tears raise the intention to offer support |
Is crying always about being sad?
No. Zickfeld, Thomas Schubert and colleagues surveyed 3,542 people in 19 countries and 15 languages about being moved, an experience they call kama muta. They describe it as a positive, socially close emotion set off by a sudden intensification of communal sharing, and it often comes with warmth in the chest, moist eyes or tears, chills and a lump in the throat. The samples showed some variation between cultures, so the pattern is shared in outline and not identical in detail. The tears that follow a loss can equally follow a reunion or a kind act.
Lisa Feldman Barrett's How Emotions Are Made supplies a frame for why one bodily event can carry such different meanings. In her account the brain uses past experience to predict what the body needs, and sensations such as a thumping heart and tears become an emotion once the brain categorises them. With other predictions the same sensations could be read as sadness, anger, fear or, at a wedding, joy. That helps explain why people choose to cry at a film, a pleasure followed in Why We Like Sad Films.
Crying is best read as one bodily event with several jobs, and the research supports a social reading over a private one. A tear tells onlookers something the face alone leaves open, and observers across 41 countries reported leaning towards support. What the tear means to the person crying is built from the moment, so the same drops can mark a loss, a reunion or a kindness. For anyone watching someone cry, the research suggests the useful question is what closeness the moment is asking for, and for anyone crying, that the tears are doing part of the explaining.
Common questions
Why do we cry?
We cry because tears work as a signal. Reviews of emotional tears propose that crying began as a call for help, and experiments show tears make faces look sadder and raise observers' intention to support, in 41 countries.
Do only humans cry emotional tears?
Many animals produce tears to lubricate or clear the eye, but emotional tearing may be unique to humans, which is one reason researchers ask what it is for.
Do tears make other people want to help?
In a preregistered study across 41 countries, tearful faces raised the intention to offer social support, though the size of the effect varied between countries.
Can people cry from happy moments?
Yes. Research on being moved across 19 countries describes moist eyes or tears as a common part of a positive experience tied to sudden closeness.
Sources
Barrett, L. F. How Emotions Are Made. Seed book; vault hub Books/How Emotions Are Made.
Gračanin, A., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2018). Why only humans shed emotional tears: Evolutionary and cultural perspectives. Human Nature, 29(2), 104-133. doi:10.1007/s12110-018-9312-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-018-9312-8
Provine, R. R., Krosnowski, K. A., & Brocato, N. W. (2009). Tearing: Breakthrough in human emotional signaling. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(1). doi:10.1177/147470490900700107 https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490900700107
Zickfeld, J. H., van de Ven, N., Pich, O., Schubert, T. W., et al. (2021). Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 95, 104137. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104137 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104137
Zickfeld, J. H., Schubert, T. W., Seibt, B., et al. (2019). Kama muta: Conceptualizing and measuring the experience often labelled being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages. Emotion, 19(3), 402-424. doi:10.1037/emo0000450 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000450