The idea that crying is a cathartic experience, leading to relief from distress, has deep roots. however, empirical evidence for catharsis after crying is mixed. one explanation for the inconsistent results is that variations in the social context of the crying situation determine whether or not crying-related catharsis occurs. To evaluate the role of social context and other contextual feature...

Despite being a universal human attachment behavior, little is known about individual differences in crying. To facilitate such examination we first recommend shortened versions of the attitudes and proneness sections of the Adult Crying Inventory using two independent samples. Importantly, we examine attachment orientation differences in crying proneness and test the mediating role of attitude...

Lay opinion and extensive survey data indicate that crying is a cathartic behavior that serves to relieve distress and reduce arousal. Yet laboratory data often indicate that crying exacerbates distress and increases autonomic arousal. In this article, we present a framework for explaining variations in the psychological effects of crying as a function of (a) how the effects of crying are measu...

Clinical commentators widely interpret crying as a sign of depressed mood. However, there is virtually no empirical data on this topic, and the evidence that mood disorders alter crying is surprisingly weak. This study compared mood disordered patients to a nonpsychiatric reference group on the frequency, antecedents, and consequences of crying behavior using a well-validated questionnaire meas...

We aimed to examine the connections between individual affective characteristics and crying, and to evaluate Rottenberg, Bylsma, and Vingerhoets’ (2008) framework for studying crying and mood. We analyzed the relationship among features of the social environment, mood characteristics of the crier, crying frequency/urge to cry, and mood change across 1004 detailed crying episodes sampled from 97...

The aims of this study were (1) to confirm gender differences in crying in middle childhood and (2) to identify factors that may explain why girls cry more than boys in a Dutch sample (North Holland and Utrecht). We examined 186 children's (age: 9-13 years) self-reports on crying, catharsis, seeking support for feelings, and internalizing feelings. Girls reported a greater crying frequency and ...

This contribution describes the current state-of-the-art of the scientific literature regarding the self-soothing effects of crying. Starting from the general hypothesis that crying is a self-soothing behavior, we consider different mechanisms through which these effects may appear. In the first section, we briefly explain the main functions of human crying. Then we define self-soothing in term...

Crying is a common, normal occurrence in a healthy infant. However, crying is one of the primary reasons parents seek health care for their infant child (Barr, 199 Many parents find inconsolable crying to be particularly difficult because the use of soothing techniques to comfort the infant seems futile. Parents also may view infant crying as a negative reflection on their ability to parent, in...