Abstract

FITZGERALD, Oscar Sierra  and  MEJIA CONSTAIN, Beatriz E.. Social function of tears: an empirical inquiry about the types of emotional tearing. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2007, vol.6, n.2, pp. 295-308. ISSN 1657-9267.

Human emotional interchange implicates expression/recognition of emotions. The human face is a conspicuous place to express/read emotion. Certain emotions associate with emotional tearing, differentiable from basal and reflex tearing. Murube, Murube and Murube (1999) classified emotional tearing in requesting- and offering -help. The validity of that typology was evaluated using faces of people of both sexes crying because of their own suffering and because of other’s suffering. A group of judges classified the crying shown by those faces. Discrimination hit rates and qui-square tests were estimated by sex. Results do not support a human ability to distinguish two types of crying and are interpreted from a cultural point of view.

Keywords : emotional tearing; requesting- and offering-help tearing; facial expression/recognition of emotions.

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