What Makes You Cry?
Four different triggers behind the same tears - loss, the world's troubles, being moved, and someone else's pain
Crying is not one thing with one cause. Research that actually mapped what sets people off found four fairly separate triggers: the ache of attachment - losing someone, missing them, getting them back - the state of the world, being moved by something beautiful or kind, and feeling someone else's pain as if it were partly yours. Most people cry easily at one or two of these and barely at all at the others, and that pattern says more about you than how often you cry overall.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about how easily each kind of moment brings you to tears, not about how often you actually cry.
What it measures
The four factors of the Crying Proneness Scale: attachment tears (loss, longing, reunion), societal tears (the news, injustice, the state of the world), sentimental or moral tears (being moved by beauty, kindness or a touching scene) and compassionate tears (feeling someone else's pain as your own). This is an everyday trait about triggers, not a mood or depression assessment, and it differs from our emotion-regulation test, which is about strategies for handling feelings in general rather than what specifically brings you to tears.
Based on: Crying Proneness Scale (Denckla, Fiori & Vingerhoets, 2014)
Possible results
Attachment tears
Crying tied to loss, longing or reunion with someone close.
Societal tears
Crying triggered by the news, injustice or the state of the world.
Sentimental and moral tears
Being moved to tears by beauty, kindness or a touching scene.
Compassionate tears
Feeling someone else's pain as if it were partly your own.
Common questions
Does crying actually bring relief?
Not reliably, according to the evidence, even though almost everyone assumes it does. Reviews of crying research find that laboratory studies often show increased distress right after crying, and that whether someone feels better afterwards depends heavily on context - being comforted by someone present helps far more than the crying itself.
Is crying easily a sign of weakness?
No, and the four-factor research points the other way: easy tears at beauty or at someone else's pain are tied to empathy and connection, not fragility. Crying frequency also varies enormously by gender and culture for reasons that have little to do with inner strength.
Why do some things make me cry and not others?
Because crying has more than one trigger, and people's four scores rarely match. Someone can be unmoved by a sad film and cry immediately at a piece of good news on television, because societal and sentimental tears run on different wiring - that unevenness is the normal finding, not an exception.
Sources
- Denckla, C. A., Fiori, K. L., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2014). Development of the Crying Proneness Scale: Associations Among Crying Proneness, Empathy, Attachment, and Age. Journal of Personality Assessment. doi:10.1080/00223891.2014.899498
- Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Bylsma, L. M. (2016). The Riddle of Human Emotional Crying: A Challenge for Emotion Researchers. Emotion Review. doi:10.1177/1754073915586226
- Rottenberg, J., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2008). Is Crying Beneficial?. Current Directions in Psychological Science. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00614.x
An honest note These statements are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the four factors of the Crying Proneness Scale, so scores are not comparable to the published norms. One popular claim deserves a note: lay opinion holds that crying reliably brings relief, but reviews of the evidence find this is not consistently true - laboratory studies often show it increasing distress instead, and whether it helps depends on the situation. This is a trait about everyday triggers, not a mood assessment, and it says nothing about depression or any other condition.