Adult emotional crying: Relations to personality traits and subjective well-being. (July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Barthelmäs, Michael; Keller, Johannes
• Is Part Of: Personality and individual differences. Volume 177(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Subjects: Adult crying -- Emotional crying -- Crying frequency -- HEXACO -- Disintegration -- Subjective well-being; Personality -- Periodicals; Individuality -- Periodicals; Individuality -- Periodicals; Personality Development -- Periodicals; Personnalité -- Périodiques; Individualité -- Périodiques; 155.205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110790
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0191-8869

Abstract

Abstract: Emotional crying represents a specific form of emotion expression that did receive considerably less attention in emotion research than most other emotional phenomena. We examined the relation between personality traits and the frequency of emotional crying. In a well-powered, pre-registered study ( N = 622), participants were asked to report the number of times they had been crying during the past four weeks. We assessed the personality dimensions represented in the HEXACO personality inventory and disintegration (proneness to psychotic-like experiences) as personality traits. Additionally, we asked respondents to report on the extent to which they (typically) perceive affect- and arousal-changes after crying episodes as well as on their subjective well-being. As predicted, emotionality and disintegration were positively associated with crying frequency. Explorative analyses revealed that extraversion, agreeableness and subjective well-being were negatively associated with crying frequency. Further, honesty-humility, extraversion and agreeableness were related to positive affect after crying, while arousal change (in direction of calmness) was a function of honesty-humility, agreeableness, and openness. The present study indicates that human emotional crying is not only related to emotionality (or neuroticism) but to a set of traits, depending on which aspect of crying is in the focus of attention.