A Guide to Crying

It is the first sound that is uttered when entering the world. Not an attempt at communication, but an involuntary, primal urge. The cry. New mother's expect to hear it, doctor's have gone so far as to hold baby upside down and spank, in order to produce it. The cry. While it is a beautiful sound at birth, after baby is home, crying can become a major source of frustration for the new mom.

Why do we cry? The most obvious reason that humans will produce a discharge running down their cheeks, is emotions. Crying is most often associated with emotions of sadness, however, humans cry when confronted with a variety of emotions. Sometimes joy or happiness is the trigger. Anger and frustration, seem to have many crying followers. Exactly which emotions might make a person react with crying, varies with each individual.

What makes us do it? At times, crying can be an embarrassing event for us, which could cause more crying. We do not want to cry, but seem to have no choice in the matter. What is going on? Why does emotion contain this physical reaction? There are varied theories on the subject of how physical responses and emotion are connected. The famous "theory of emotion," has been debated by psychologists for a few hundred years now. One of the contenders in the history of the search for a general theory of emotion, is the James-Lange theory (1884). It suggests that a stimulus is perceived , the body responds (possibly, with crying), then we experience the emotion. Another theory, the Cannon-Bard theory (1900) suggests somewhat the opposite, that stimulus is perceived, emotion is experienced, then the body responds to it (possibly, with crying). While more modern theories (Griffith, 2006) suggest that they are both right and wrong at the same time, or better yet, that a search for a general theory of physiologic response to emotion is misguided. Conclusion? Perhaps, the reasons that we cry are as individual as the individuals that are doing the crying.