Warm and touching tears: tearful individuals are perceived as warmer because we assume they feel moved and touched

Recent work investigated the inter-individual functions of emotional tears in depth. In one study (Van de Ven, N., Meijs, M. H. J., & Vingerhoets, A. (2017). What emotional tears convey: Tearful individuals are seen as warmer, but also as less competent. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition and emotion 2018-12, Vol.32 (8), p.1691-1699
Main Authors: Zickfeld, Janis H, Schubert, Thomas W
Format: Article
Language:eng ; nor
Subjects:
Emotions
Motivation
Sadness
Social psychology
Social skills
Tears
Touch
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent work investigated the inter-individual functions of emotional tears in depth. In one study (Van de Ven, N., Meijs, M. H. J., & Vingerhoets, A. (2017). What emotional tears convey: Tearful individuals are seen as warmer, but also as less competent. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(1), 146-160. Https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12162) tearful individuals were rated as warmer, and participants expressed more intentions to approach and help such individuals. Simultaneously, tearful individuals were rated as less competent, and participants expressed less intention to work with the depicted targets. While tearful individuals were perceived as sadder, perceived sadness mediated only the effect on competence, but not on warmth. We argue that tearful individuals might be perceived as warm because they are perceived as feeling moved and touched. We ran a pre-registered extended replication of Van de Ven et al. Results replicate the warmth and helping findings, but not the competence and work effects. The increase in warmth ratings was completely mediated by perceiving feeling moved and touched. Possible functions of feeling moved and touched with regard to emotional tears are discussed.
ISSN:0269-9931
1464-0600
DOI:10.1080/02699931.2018.1430556