Crying in Adults: Self-Control and Autonomic Correlates

Despite widespread beliefs that some people can control crying and that crying decreases sad affect, minimal research has been conducted assessing the self-control and depression alleviation aspects of this behavior. Associated psychophysiological responses also remain largely unknown. The present study demonstrated self-control of crying in a laboratory setting; the group instructed to cry produced significantly more crying (M = 4.0 minutes) than the group instructed to refrain from crying (M = 0.5 minutes) during a 28-minute film. Examination of psychophysiological correlates (heart rate and skin conductance) of crying showed significant increases in sympathetic nervous system activity just prior to crying for criers when compared with noncriers. Contrary to the catharsis hypothesis, crying did not appear to reduce depressed affect in this nonpsychiatric sample.