When tears seem honest: the context shapes how we judge crying

Summary: New research reveals that our perception of the tears of others is sincere or manipulative depends largely on the context. Tears were judged more honest when they spilled in non -manipulative situations and at least they are expected to cry, as men or individuals perceived as less warm.

This suggests that unexpected tears may indicate a stronger authenticity to observers. The findings highlight that crying is not universally seen as sincere, but that it forms who cries and under what circumstances.

Key facts:

Tears were perceived as more honest in non -manipulative situations. The less warm men and individuals gained more credibility when crying. Contiefsft to a large extent if tears are considered sincere or strategic.

Source: PLOS

A new study adds to the evidence that suggests that people’s perceptions about the tears of others as sincere or manipulative depend on a variety of contextual factors.

The findings suggest that tears can be perceived as more honest when they are shed in non -manipulative social situations and by people who are expected to cry. Monika Wróbel of the University of Lodz, Poland, and her colleagues present these findings in the open access magazine PLOS One on July 16, 2025.

Emotional tears are often perceived as sincere social signs, perhaps because it is difficult to cry on request. In contrast, generalized belief argues that tears can also be strategically spilled to manipulate others; That is, “crocodile tears.”

However, few studies have systematically explored the circumstances in which it is perceived that tears are sincere or not. To obtain a deeper vision, Wróbel and his colleagues conducted experiments in which thousands of participants shared their perceptions of the faces in the photographs, some of which had been edited to look like you.

The faces varied in their warmth transmitted and presented in hypothetical situations that were manipulative or not; For example, the person in the photo is trying to cut in line to see a doctor (manipulator) versus wait for a doctor and talk to a receptionist (non -manipulative). The participants also completed a questionnaire that evaluated their own personality traits.

The analysis of the participants’ responses showed that, although the tears had a very small general effect on how the participants perceived the honesty of the people in the photos, certain contextual factors seemed to influence the strength of this effect.

In particular, tears tended to increase the honesty perceptions of the participants with more force for women with female photos with less heat classifications and for men, which are generally perceived as less warm.

This suggests the possibility that the elimination of tears will be more beneficial for people who are expected to cry less. Tears were also perceived as more honest in the context of non -manipulative situations.

In general, the findings support the idea that the context is key to the perception of tears as honest or not, with multiple factors that affect the context. Additional research is needed to unravel these factors and their effects.

The authors add: “Our studies showed that tears are not universally seen as a sincere social signal, because their perceived authenticity depends on who is crying and in what situation.

“The most important thing is that we discover that tears could be more socially beneficial (that is, perceived as more honest signs that motivate others to support the breeder) when people wake up less than do so (for example, by low men or people).

“Possibly, when low -calm men or people break, which is quite unexpected, observers assume that there must be a genuine reason to do so.”

“The greatest challenge in the study of the social effects of tears is to choose the appropriate stimuli. In our research, similar to most studies in this field, we use images of individuals with tears digitally added.

“However, crying is a complex and multifaceted emotional expression that consists not only in tears but also of gestures, vocalizations or facial muscle movements. This requires improved and ecologically valid manipulations in the future.”

Financing: The investigation was financed by the National Center for Sciences, Poland (https://www.ncn.gov.pl/en) by a subsidy granted to Monika Wróbel (subsidy number: 2021/43/b/hs6/01882).

The financiers did not play any role in the conceptualization or preparation of the studies informed in this manuscript.

On this psychology research news

Author: Hanna Abdallah
Source: PLOS
Contact: Hanna Abdallah – Plos
Image: The image is accredited to Neuroscience News

Original research: open access.
“The honesty behind tears: situational, individual and cultural influences in the perception of emotional tears as sincere” by Monika Wróbel et al. Plos one

Abstract

The honesty behind tears: situational, individual and cultural influences in the perception of emotional tears as sincere

Emotional tears have been considered honest and sincere signs, most likely because they are difficult to eliminate demand.

At the same time, people recognize that tears can be used strategically to manipulate others: calls calls of crocodiles.

Therefore, the question arises under what circumstances tears are perceived as honest signs and when crocodile tears.

Here, we investigate this question in three experimental studies and various populations.

In a preliminary study (n = 7,007), we obtain the first evidence that emotional tears can increase perceptions of honesty, which may vary according to the situational context or the gender of the objective.

In two main studies (n = 3,488) using a varied group of standardized and non -standardized portraits of full and non -blue objectives presented in different potentially manipulative contexts versus non -manipulators and we vary in their warmth, we prove perceptions of honesty in five countries (Norway, Pole, South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom).

In general, the main effects are weak and suggest that honesty perceptions depend on the objective characteristics, situational factors and the characteristics of the observer.

We observe some evidence that emotional tears increase honesty perceptions with greater force for low heat objectives (experimentally manipulated through facial characteristics or by objective gender), which also affects support intentions.

The manipulative contexts slightly reduced the perceptions of honesty, but these effects were moderated by the objective characteristics. The people who scored with a high level of psychopathy showed lower grades of honesty for the objectives with emotional tears.

Together, these findings provide more evidence that if emotional tears indicate honesty, it probably depends on several individual, situational and cultural factors.

Small effect sizes require improved manipulations and more valid designs in the future.