Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior?
How do our emotional tears affect the way we are treated? We tested whether tears, paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression, elicited prosocial behavior among perceivers. Participants viewed a video clip depicting a confederate partner with or without tears displaying either a neutral...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2019-08-01
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| Series: | Evolutionary Psychology |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704919872421 |
| _version_ | 1818535428343463936 |
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| author | Lawrence Ian Reed Yanal Matari Molly Wu Revathi Janaswamy |
| author_facet | Lawrence Ian Reed Yanal Matari Molly Wu Revathi Janaswamy |
| author_sort | Lawrence Ian Reed |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | How do our emotional tears affect the way we are treated? We tested whether tears, paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression, elicited prosocial behavior among perceivers. Participants viewed a video clip depicting a confederate partner with or without tears displaying either a neutral or sad facial expression before making a behavioral decision in one of two economic games. In a Trust game (Experiment 1), participants who played the role of the investor were more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate trustee with tears (paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate trustee without tears. However, in a Dictator game (Experiment 2), participants who played the role of allocator were no more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate recipient with tears (paired with either a neutral or sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate recipient without tears. Taken together, these findings suggest that tears increase prosocial behavior by increasing trustworthiness as opposed to generally increasing other-regarding altruistic tendencies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T18:24:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e0e382eb03b146fc89e6b21632e58ee3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1474-7049 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T18:24:44Z |
| publishDate | 2019-08-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Evolutionary Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-e0e382eb03b146fc89e6b21632e58ee32022-12-22T00:55:09ZengSAGE PublishingEvolutionary Psychology1474-70492019-08-011710.1177/1474704919872421Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior?Lawrence Ian Reed0Yanal Matari1Molly Wu2Revathi Janaswamy3 Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychology, New York University, NY, USA Department of Psychology, New York University, NY, USA Department of Psychology, New York University, NY, USAHow do our emotional tears affect the way we are treated? We tested whether tears, paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression, elicited prosocial behavior among perceivers. Participants viewed a video clip depicting a confederate partner with or without tears displaying either a neutral or sad facial expression before making a behavioral decision in one of two economic games. In a Trust game (Experiment 1), participants who played the role of the investor were more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate trustee with tears (paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate trustee without tears. However, in a Dictator game (Experiment 2), participants who played the role of allocator were no more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate recipient with tears (paired with either a neutral or sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate recipient without tears. Taken together, these findings suggest that tears increase prosocial behavior by increasing trustworthiness as opposed to generally increasing other-regarding altruistic tendencies.https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704919872421 |
| spellingShingle | Lawrence Ian Reed Yanal Matari Molly Wu Revathi Janaswamy Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? Evolutionary Psychology |
| title | Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? |
| title_full | Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? |
| title_fullStr | Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? |
| title_short | Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior? |
| title_sort | emotional tears an honest signal of trustworthiness increasing prosocial behavior |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704919872421 |
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