WEBVTT - The Nature of Tears, Part 2 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.280 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.280 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.560 your Mind. This is Robert Lamp and this is Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.080 and we're back with part two of our series on tears. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.119 We figured out by today this is definitely going to 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.680 be at least three parts because there's just so much 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:27.040 that you know that the tears make an ocean and 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.320 and uh, and they don't stop coming, so so there 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.400 will be at least one more. Yeah, there's really there's 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.760 almost too much. Because sometimes we look into things and 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.320 we're like, okay, what is the what's the mythological ramifications 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.280 of this? Are there any treatments of this and mythology 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.919 or religion? And with something like tears, the answer is 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:50.240 is yes, every religion, every mythology pretty much, you know. Um, 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.760 so it's easy to get lost sort of just trade, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.200 you know, chasing some of these ideas down and then 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.680 trying to figure out what which ones are worth talking 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.600 about which ones are not. And then of course from 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.320 the scientific point of view there uh, we've already rolled 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:05.399 through I think some of the science of tears, and 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:07.200 we have a bit more to cover today. Well, We've 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.240 got a lot more to cover on the science of tears. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.880 In the last episode, we talked some about some of 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.000 the basic, uncontroversial biological facts about tears, you know, like 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.720 basal tears and reflex tears, what they're made of and 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.080 and how how they're secreted from the lacrimal glands, and 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.920 what they normally do. But the big question, the big 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:31.120 sort of mystery about tears, is this question of human 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.560 emotional tears. Humans appear to be the only animal that 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.200 sheds tears as a response to emotional states, and so 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.560 one of the huge questions is why, what is the 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:49.280 biological purpose and thus what is the evolutionary justification unique 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.080 to our species of liquid coming out of your eyes 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.680 in response to feeling emotions. As we talked about in 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.480 the last episode. You know, because this is not a 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.240 settled question, there are just there tons of hypotheses that 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.880 have been put forward over the years. We talked in 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:10.079 the last episode about several very unlikely ones, for example, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.000 tears being a byproduct of an alleged aquatic ape past 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.680 for human beings. This is almost certainly not correct because 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.520 we don't put much stock in the aquatic ap hypothesis 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:24.520 Another one is this idea that maybe tears are somehow 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.000 derived from a conditioned response of our ancient ancestors to 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.960 getting smoke in their eyes at funeral pyres after they 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.200 started controlling fire. There are several reasons we talked about 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.600 in the last episode by that that's probably not correct either. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.040 So over the next couple of episodes, we're going to 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.160 be exploring a bunch more of the existing hypotheses about 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.240 the evolutionary purpose of emotional tears. And I think you 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.600 can sort these into three broad categories. The first being 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.400 there there is no purpose, maybe they're just some kind 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.880 of byproduct, the second being the purpose is intra personal, 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.320 meaning internal to the body of the person who's crying. 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.000 And then the third would be that the purpose is interpersonal, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.640 meaning that tears serve some kind of external or relational function. Now, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.400 on the score of no purpose explanations, here's the kind 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:19.040 of surprising fact. Apparently, Charles Darwin actually believed that emotional 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.480 tears served no purpose of their own, but rather were 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:27.960 a byproduct of other purposeful adaptations, notably facial expressions and 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.560 vocal expressions. In his eighteen seventy two book The Expression 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.320 of Emotions, in Man and Animals, uh Darwin wrote, quote, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.800 the shedding of tears appears to have originated through reflex 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.440 action from the spasmodic contraction of the eyelids, together perhaps 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.000 with the eyeballs becoming gorged with blood during the act 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.320 of screaming. Therefore, weeping probably came on rather late in 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.840 the line of our descent. And this conclusion agrees with 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.560 the fact that our nearest allies, the nthropomorphous apes, do 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.640 not weep. So the second observation there being that that 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.400 the other apes that were most closely related to they 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.840 do produce tears, of course basal tears in their eyes 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.240 and irritant tears, but they don't produce emotional tears. So 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.200 that observation is correct. But I think Darwin's influenced in 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.000 the in the first half of that paragraph there is 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.400 almost definitely wrong. His idea is that, well, when we 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.000 get upset, we cry out with our voices, and this 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.200 makes like blood rushed to the face because you're screaming, 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.240 and maybe all the blood sort of makes your eyes swell, 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.679 and then they're Also when you're upset, there are facial 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:38.240 muscle contractions like involuntary reflexive contractions of things like the eyelids, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.480 and this just sort of squeezes tears out as an 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.200 accidental byproduct. I don't think I can go with Darwin 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.479 on this one. This sounds really wrong. Yeah, I mean, 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:50.520 I mean, on one hand, we've already talked about the 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:56.320 various sounds and screaming type uh effects that you see 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.640 with with other primates. I mean, if you've been to 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.000 a zoo or you've been to a natural environment where 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.480 primates make their home, you may have heard this. So 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.000 that they are there, they can create the kind of 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.160 screaming that I guess could theoretically cause the eyeballs to 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.880 become gorged with blood. So that doesn't seem to have 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.280 much weight to it. Yeah, it's not that it would 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.520 be impossible for contractions of the facial muscles to cause tears. 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.280 I do think this may even be an explanation. I've 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.720 seen this invoked as an explanation for why sometimes your 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.360 eyes get teary when you yawn. Like when you yawn, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.960 that may put some kind of pressure on the lachrymal 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.919 glands that causes some excessive tearing, which you know it 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.760 leads to blurring of the vision. After you're done yawning, 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.960 and then you might need to wipe your eyes, maybe 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.760 a similar thing with coughing. So it's it's not impossible 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.799 that contractions of the facial muscles could cause some tearing. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.160 It just seems like the tears being produced by the 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.120 lachrymal glands during an emotional episode or something that exceeds this, 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:57.080 this kind of tearing. Um and uh And I don't know, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.360 most researchers who focus on this area really do think 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:03.960 that this is not a plausible explanation. It seems pretty 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.520 clear that tears are a true adaptive trait that serve 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.760 their own functions and function independently from just the contractions 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.800 of the facial muscles. Because another question would be like, well, okay, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.039 if this is true for humans, how come other like 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.279 apes that were closely related to don't also cry when 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.160 they contract their facial muscles in in emotional episodes. Yeah. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:26.839 Like I said, it seems like we just have we 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.479 have more evidence to the contrary at this point. Yeah, 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.640 so it seems like tears are probably purposeful, a true 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.280 adaptive trait of some kind. So the next category would be, well, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.640 maybe tears have some kind of intra personal purpose. They 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.640 do something within the body, within the self, uh. And 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.960 there are many ways of approaching this, but to cite 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.960 a characteristic example of this type of explanation, I wanted 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:55.800 to look at the detoxification hypothesis. This is one that 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.599 used to be pretty popular but has really fallen out 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.680 of favor historically. I think this is one of the 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.200 most popular hypotheses for for explaining the function of tears. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:09.400 It was advanced by the American biochemist William Fry in 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.720 the nineteen eighties, I think first published in nineteen eighty five, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:17.360 I believe and Fry's reasoning went like this, Okay, when 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.400 humans are under stress, you're having some intense emotional you 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.760 know about of emotion, there is a build up of 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.560 potentially toxic substances in the blood. So you know, think 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.840 about all the different uh stress effects of stress you 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.120 learned about. You know, when when you're really distressed, your 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.320 your bloodstream floods with cortisol. You're you're freaked out. You 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.840 can almost kind of like feel it moving through your body, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.480 or at least maybe it's an illusion, but I feel 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.840 like I can, like when I'm having a stressful experience, 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.960 there's almost a sematic sensation of the spreading of this 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:53.920 kind of like uh, aggravating numbness and fry positive that 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.480 when this happens, when your body fills up with all 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:01.720 these potentially toxic contaminants or horn stress hormones, things like that, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:07.239 the body cleanses these excess contaminants by purging them through 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:11.680 the tear response, with the lachrymal glands acting like kidneys 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.800 do for the urinary system. So under this hypothesis, you 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.880 are you are peeing out your eyes when you are 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.160 really stressed. Yeah, and I can I can understand why 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.800 this idea, you know, had had some support behind it 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.080 because I mean, on one level, yes, we can look 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.559 to the kidneys in the urinary system and we can see, uh, 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.400 we can see something like this. But to your point, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.199 the feeling of all this welling up inside of us 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.600 and then the what often feels like a release. And 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.800 I have to stress though that when when you get it, 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.880 look at different accounts of weeping, and depending on the 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.640 circumstances of the weeping, such as like solitary weeping versus 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:52.880 public weeping, and then that's going to depend on the 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.079 culture in the scenario in which is taking place. Um, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.839 you do see a lot of accounts where people say, Okay, 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.680 I felt better after or I wept after. You know, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.439 all this built up and then was released. Uh, so 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.080 we can under we could we can imagine where like 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.240 looking at this idea of what the urinary system is doing, 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.240 thinking about how we feel before and after an emotional outburst, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.040 we could easily fall in line with thinking like, yeah, yeah, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.360 those that that was the top the toxins building up 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.880 in my body, and I am letting the toxins out. 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.280 Weeping is just the body releasing the poison. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.200 this is having a sort of like chemical read on 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:35.600 the feeling of catharsis people uh sometimes experience from weeping. Uh. Now, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:37.439 of course I should say before I move on that 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.680 this hypothesis does not have much support among any modern 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.000 tear response researchers. I was reading it seems like the 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.240 evidence for it is not good. It has been strongly 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.640 pushed back against. But like you're saying, it does have 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:54.679 this intuitive appeal because there is a widespread belief in 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.440 the healing power of tears. I actually I came across 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.000 the stat that I found astounding. So I was reading 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.760 an article in Time magazine by Mandy Oaklander from sixteen 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.559 that was about interviewed several different researchers who work on 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:11.200 the subject of tears, and it's cited one analysis that 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.840 looked at a bunch of articles about crying in the 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.800 media over a period of more than a hundred years, 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.319 so going way back, and it found that nine four 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.360 percent of them described crying as in some way good 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:28.800 for the mind and body, and or described holding back 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.520 tears as bad for the mind and body. And yet 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.480 despite this gut feeling that people seem to have, I mean, 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:37.600 I feel this way too. It's it's a common belief. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.760 This this this gut feeling that tears bring catharsis and 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.280 relief and they heal you. They're good for you, they 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.880 heal the mind and body. Evidence for this is apparently 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.119 pretty scarce on the ground. The same article by Oaklander 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.240 in Times cites a researcher named Jonathan Rottenberg, who is 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.960 a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.520 who studies emotion and is on work with tears, and 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.199 Rodenberg says that these claims about the healing power of 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.600 tears are basically a fable there's just not much evidence 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:13.240 that crying has strong measurable benefits to health, mental or physical, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.920 or that it predictably brings relief or catharsis. I mean, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.600 obviously it does bring a feeling of relief sometimes. I 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.760 think we all know that from experience, but maybe not 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:26.199 as consistently as we tend to infer. Yeah, one example, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.160 because some some of us might be you know, you 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.360 might wonder, well, okay, what's an example of tears not 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.560 having a beneficial effect. One example was brought up, I 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.839 think this was in Holy Tears, was that some people, 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.360 when queried on this, they mentioned that if they are 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.440 weeping out of a feeling of loneliness and they are 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.760 doing so in a solitary setting, that they may feel 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.160 worse afterwards, which which I think is interesting and I 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.560 think that can potentially shed light on some other theories 0:11:54.920 --> 0:12:00.240 or potentially provide um some possible evidence for supporting other 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.280 hypotheses concerning the reason that we have tears, the function 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.800 of tears and human in the human condition. Right, Well, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:09.240 I'm going to get to this in a minute, but 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.280 I think this would be one of the many things 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:15.120 that I would interpret as as possibly pointing to tears 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:21.199 serving a primarily interpersonal function in communication and signaling between 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.480 people exactly. Yeah, yeah, you can interpret it as meaning, well, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.559 you know that you did not feel better, because the 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.200 the act of weeping is supposed to be communicating something 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.720 to another human being. Yeah, and it is supposed to 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.760 elicit a response from some But okay, so, so that 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.880 addresses the question of like subjective feelings of relief. You know, 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.880 sometimes people feel feelings of relief after crying, sometimes people don't. 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.760 But the other half of this, this intra personal interpretation, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.640 you know it does does crying do something for you, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.880 make to make your body better in some way, to 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.679 give you some kind of internal benefit. The other question 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.160 would be like, are there measurable ways that crying can 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.600 be found to improve well being apart from just the 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.840 the sort of immediate aftermath where you might feel a 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.000 feeling of relief or not. What about other types of 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.360 measures of physical and mental well being? Well, there was 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.840 one study I came across that looked into this question, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.160 and it was by Hez Door for Vinger Hoots. That's 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.720 that's add Vingerhoots, So I mentioned in the previous episode, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:26.520 and who will come up several more times in this 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.439 and Michael R. Tremble in eighteen called social and psychological 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:37.520 consequences of not crying possible associations with psychopathology and therapeutic relevance, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.280 And basically, the authors were trying to look into the 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.240 question of okay, so that, um, what if you find 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.320 people who report that they essentially never cried after a 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.480 certain period in their life, they feel like they either 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.920 lost the ability to cry or just at some point 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.000 in their life they just stopped crying and just don't 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.520 cry anymore. Um, can we compare their out comes in 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.480 terms of standard measures of well being and social functioning 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.440 compared to people who do cry on a regular basis. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.679 So they interviewed Auzy Hausborne because no more tears, that 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.160 would have been good, But now so they say quote. 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.160 Study participants included four hundred and seventy five people who 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.920 reportedly lost the capacity to cry and a hundred and 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:28.400 seventy nine normal control criers. Applied measures assessed crying, well being, empathy, attachment, 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.720 social support, and connection with others, and the authors had 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.640 hypothesized that people who don't cry would have lower well 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:40.560 being and poor social functioning compared to people who do cry. Uh, 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.040 and actually that's not exactly what they found. So they 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.840 did find some differences. So people who did not cry, 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.360 on average had fewer social connections and less social support, 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.520 and also had somewhat less empathy, though of course that's 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.760 not going to apply to everybody, and it's worth noting 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.880 that those things I just mentioned aren't necessarily a result 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.080 of not crying, but could maybe be causes of not crying, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.160 or could maybe be correlates with similar underlying causes. Um. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.840 But what they did what they did not find was 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.000 indications of lower well being. In turns, it actually found 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.880 that people who cry and people who don't cry were 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.480 about the same in terms of psychological measures of well being, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.320 so you know, no more measurable depression, anxiety, and so forth. 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.760 Thank thank now. Studies like this don't mean that we 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.680 can be sure tears serve no intra personal purposes. You 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.440 certainly can't rule it out. Tears may well serve some 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.080 kind of purpose within the self, within the body, But personally, 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.080 I've become pretty well convinced while researching for these episodes 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:54.320 that the primary adaptive purpose of emotional tears is interpersonal, 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:59.480 meaning it's external, it's social, and relational and that tears 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:04.080 are prime merely for communicating something too and affecting the 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:08.680 behavior of other members of our species other people. Yeah, 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:14.040 I I after reading through Holy Tears, I I also 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.480 feel like this is a very strong hypothesis, uh, in 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.760 how they discuss the role of tears and religious rights 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.200 and rituals. But but one area that I do have 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:31.160 questions about would be, uh, the weeping during media um, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.880 like during a film or something. You know. Uh, I 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:36.880 wonder if that is the same like when we weep 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.640 during motion pictures. Is that a communal experience or is 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.880 that a personal experience? Are we actually trying to communicate 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.520 something to other people viewing the film? Oh? Well, I 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.680 mean it wouldn't have to be It wouldn't have to 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.240 be intentional on your part. I mean, weeping is often involuntary. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:56.560 It's usually involuntary, So weeping at a movie I think 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.840 could very well be not something you're trying to do 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.000 because you are in penstionally communicating with say the movie, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.880 or with other people you're watching the movie with. But 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:08.840 instead it's a standard kind of response to um empathetic 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.560 connection with drama you are seeing unfold and your brain 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.800 can't really tell the difference between drama in media versus 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.720 drama that would be going on with people in your life. 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.520 So an adaptation that arises because it's useful with some 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.000 some kind of social signaling function for other people also 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.800 gets hijacked when you're watching a movie about people. That's true. 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.520 So basically what we're talking about here would be it's 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.840 like the old example of the train coming at the 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.680 screen and early movie go where it's like freaking out, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.560 like ah, this the train is approaching. You jump because 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.760 it is uh, it is something that it is stimuli 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.199 that should cause you to jump and run away. But 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.199 the tearful scene, the emotional scene in an emotion picture, 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.400 that is something that is uh, that is more subtle, 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:55.680 and we're just going to respond to it as if 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.400 it is something that we should perhaps communally be responding to. Yeah. 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.080 I think the same way that a scary movie partially 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.040 simulates the feeling of real danger, or that a romantic 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.120 movie can cause some kind of romantic arousal. I mean, 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:12.800 it's all like, uh, there's a vicarious uh interaction with 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.400 what's going on in the media as if it were 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.320 taking place in real life. For a moment, I'd like 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.159 to come back to something we were talking about earlier, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.080 the uh, the the hypothesis that there is a purging 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.280 of toxins going on during weeping, because this reminds me 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.440 of another topic we've discussed in the show before sweating. Uh. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.879 You also see some of this, um, some of this 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.720 line of thinking being employed with sweating, sometimes with exercise, 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.240 but I've seen it particularly with with sauna traditions. Why 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.000 do people feel better after a sauna? What is a 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.840 sauna doing? And you do see this sometimes there is 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.040 this argument, well, when you're sweating, you're in the sauna, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.159 you release toxins. Uh. But I, if memory serves the 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.600 situation is though when you look at like how much 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.960 is shed via sweating versus how much is truly shed 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:09.760 via urination? Um, there's just a huge gulf between those numbers. Uh. 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.919 So it doesn't really match up, but it but it 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.760 becomes difficult to untangle uh this not you know, concerning 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.879 how much is purge via sweating, how much is how 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.600 much would need to be purged to make a meaningful 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.879 impact on your physiology, and how much we feel or 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.200 believe we have purged having gone through the experience. Yeah, 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.760 it's funny. I'm also skeptical of the idea that this 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.239 is why people feel a relief and after sweating or 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:37.240 being in the song. I would expect probably it has 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.360 more to do with I don't know, the pleasurable hormones 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.600 that people get after, you know, exercise or something like that, 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:48.040 maybe endorphins or something of that nature. Um, I don't know. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.480 I'm just spitballing there. But but yeah, I would be 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.000 skeptical of that. And it's funny that what you say 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.480 is um parallel to some arguments that are made against 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.520 the detoxification hypothesis of tears, because um, much like with 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.560 your sweating example, there's probably just not enough of the 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.480 stuff in the tears to really make a major difference 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.480 in the body. But but but in the next episode, 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:11.119 I think we're going to get more into the direct 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.159 formulations of some of the main contending hypotheses for for 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.679 explaining the biological evolution of tears. That that will be 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.159 more in the next episode. But I did want to 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.919 talk about some some broad observations in the idea of 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:28.879 tears as an external or interpersonal adaptation, something that is 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.920 that serves a relational function and one piece of evidence 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.080 that seemed somewhat convincing to me that tears serve an 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:42.120 external and communicative purpose is that people just automatically, when 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.040 they observed tears, interpret them as conveying information about the 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.600 emotional states of the person who's crying. And it's not 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.520 just that you look at a person who's who's crying 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.159 and you say that person is sad. The tears themselves 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.920 seem to convey very important information. And this was illustrated 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.560 in some research I was reading about in a two 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:07.000 thousand ten NPR article by Alison Aubrey called Teary Eyed Evolution, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.480 Crying serves a Purpose, and this featured an interview with 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.919 the researcher named Randolph Cornelius, who was a professor of 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.840 psychology at Vassar College. Uh. I'm citing this research in 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:19.679 particular because it came with what I thought was a 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:24.600 very useful visual aid. Um so so Cornelius, the psychologist 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.560 he he, he is arguing that tears are useful because 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.760 they convey information, and his research did something pretty clever. 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.880 It took photographs of people who were crying and then 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.800 digitally manipulated them to remove the tears. So you'd have 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.160 the same face with the same expression when the person 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.240 is crying, except without any tears visible in the eyes 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.600 or on the cheeks. And what the study found is 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:55.440 that people rated the same faces without tears as much 0:21:55.480 --> 0:22:01.719 more ambiguous. People consistently interpret tearful faces as sad, and 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:06.440 they interpret them as having stronger emotional value. But people 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.600 have a lot more difficulty inferring the feelings of those 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.920 same faces without the tears. And so, to quote from 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.639 Cornelius as as cited in this article, he says, quote, 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.359 tears also narrow the range of emotions people think the 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.960 models are experiencing. Tearful people are mostly seen as experiencing 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:30.639 emotions in the sadness family, sadness, grief, morning, and so forth. 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.880 And Robert, I really, once I looked at these images, 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.920 it really hit home for me, because, yeah, so it 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.960 will have two faces side by side. One is a 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.680 crying face and the other is the same exact face, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.520 but photoshop to have the tears removed and the faces 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.159 without tears. Whereas there's like one in the middle of 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:51.520 a man crying with tears rolling down his cheeks and 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.600 he looks very sad. And in the picture right next 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.480 to him, without the tears, the same expression looks possibly 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.000 kind of like smug or defiant. Yeah, I thought, kind 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.480 of menacing. Like without the tears the tears removed, he 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:05.800 kind of looks like I like he thinking I might 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:07.720 just beat you up. But in the first one, it's 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:10.720 it's clear this man has been watching a sad football 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.399 movie and weeping openly. Uh. There's one that you shared 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:16.480 above this of a child or I think it's a 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:20.920 child looking up um, and with the tears are removed, 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.639 it seems like they're perhaps just looking at a bird 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.119 flying through the air, but with the tears, it's like 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.919 they are looking up at a crucifixion. Yeah. Yeah, The 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:31.800 same face without the tears could be interpreted is kind 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.600 of like, um, I don't know, maybe concerned, but also 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:40.720 displaying a possibly creepy kind of interest in something. Uh So, yeah, 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:44.720 at least to me, I immediately from these images can 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:49.720 see the informational value of tears. They radically reduce the 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:54.439 ambiguity in interpreting somebody else's facial expression, and and and 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.600 suddenly you're not wondering like what is this person thinking? 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.600 You immediately read them as like as kind of sad 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:06.679 and vulnerable and helpless and not dangerous, whereas the same 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:08.760 face without the tears is like, I don't know what's 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.560 up with this person? Now? Of course this is all this, 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.040 this all becomes more complicated when we we we think 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:18.040 about some of the exceptions to this this rule that 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.000 pop up, you know, regarding quinted person could be uh, 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:23.600 a teary eyed you know, perhaps they have some sort 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:28.080 of a tear gland situation going on, or perhaps there 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:31.119 is some sort of irritant in the air, um, something 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:35.040 of that nature. Perhaps they're their sinuses are are bothering them, 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.800 or they just yawned. But if you're just looking at them, 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.159 you're you're going to instantly go to that something something 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:43.360 powerful or bad has happened and this person may need 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:46.840 comfort in you know. This got me thinking about, um, 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:49.760 another way that tears might work. This is not something 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:53.119 that I found advocated in in any research, though somebody 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:55.000 might have put this forward and I haven't read about 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.399 it yet. Um, but this would be uh the idea 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.520 that what if tears are you useful as an honest 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:07.159 signal of emotions? That could have evolved as a response 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:12.600 to the evolution of deceit so uh so, So what 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.520 I'm imagining here is, you know, humans are are complex 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:20.760 social animals managing complex social relationships, and human brains are 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:26.159 complex enough that humans can lie about what they feel, 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:30.240 and they can lie about who and what they care about. 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:35.000 But because tears are difficult to fake, I wonder if 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:39.000 maybe tears evolved as an honest signal of our true, 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:42.359 motivating feelings, who and what we actually care about and 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:45.280 how we feel about things. And thus I wonder if, 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:48.480 possibly in that way, they could be adaptive because they 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:52.520 make us more trustworthy. A person who cries about something 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:55.840 is less likely to be lying about what their feelings 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:58.840 about that thing are. This, of course makes my mind 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.679 instantly go to actor. But that I mean, that's kind 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:03.840 of a whole discussion in and of itself, because you 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:06.959 get into how is the actor summoning the tears? Are 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:10.720 they engaging with with actual tearful memories, or you know, 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:13.000 a deep reading of the script and so forth. But 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:16.600 ultimately the result is when you watch a film and 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:20.000 the actor is summoning tears, it it makes anything that's 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:23.560 going on on the screen more believable, no matter how 0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:26.520 poor the screenplay, no matter how weird the lighting. If 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:31.320 the actor is is summoning actual tears in their performance 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:33.720 like that, that gives it a leg up. Yeah, and 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:36.239 I think it's worth noting that like most people, like 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:39.800 some people can cry on command, but most people would 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:41.879 have a hard time doing that, Like it's not easy 0:26:41.920 --> 0:26:45.040 to do unless you have that that chunk of onion 0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:48.240 in your in your handkerchief. Right, Is that the older 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:51.439 actor's trick? Yeah, I guess so. So, yeah, maybe it 0:26:51.440 --> 0:26:53.719 has something to do with the evolution of deceit. But anyway, 0:26:53.760 --> 0:26:56.040 that's just sort of like a weird thought that popped 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.479 into my head. Maybe that'll connect to some of the 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:01.119 hypotheses that we that we discussing more detail in the 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:04.040 next part. But I wanted to talk about another study 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:08.120 that was interesting about ways that tears might be useful 0:27:08.160 --> 0:27:12.720 for interpersonal signaling and behavior manipulation. And this would be 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:16.800 something that's not focused on conveying information that's perceived consciously, 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:19.000 like what we were talking about with looking at tears 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:21.720 on people's faces a minute ago. This would be operating 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:25.359 at a subconscious level on the basis of chemical signaling 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:28.680 or chemo signaling. This next example is also good because 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:30.320 from what I can tell, this is a study that 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:35.560 led to some maybe very misleading headlines in popular coverage. 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:40.159 But anyway, so some studies in mice have found that 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:45.119 behaviorally relevant chemo signals in tears. So these would not 0:27:45.160 --> 0:27:48.159 be emotional tears because mice don't shed emotional tears. These 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:53.040 would just be regular basil or reflex tears. These chemo 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:58.159 signals in mice include pheromones that uh, for example, can 0:27:58.200 --> 0:28:01.200 do things like make male mice more attractive as mates, 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:04.879 or there can be chemo signals in juvenile mice that 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:09.680 prevent adults from attempting unwanted mating behaviors with with those mice, 0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:13.400 so that they can have kind of uh, discouraging unwanted 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:17.160 behaviors and other mice. And picking up on that research, 0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:21.400 there were some scientists who in your two thousand eleven 0:28:21.560 --> 0:28:24.879 looked into whether there could be similar chemo signals in 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:28.560 human tears, and so this led to a study by 0:28:28.960 --> 0:28:32.639 Shanny Gelstein at All published in Science called human tears 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:35.160 contain a chemo signal. Now, I want to be clear 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:38.760 that I'm often kind of skeptical about I'm not quite 0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:41.200 sure why this is, but I think maybe because Uh. 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:43.560 There have been a few studies along these lines that 0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:46.800 have later turned out to be not well founded. But 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:51.840 I'm kind of skeptical about studies finding big macro behavioral 0:28:51.840 --> 0:28:55.520 effects of imperceptible smells and stuff in humans, so I 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:57.800 would definitely want this verified by a good bit of 0:28:57.840 --> 0:29:02.120 independent replication. But if this the finding of the study 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:06.720 is correct, what it found is that emotional tears in 0:29:06.840 --> 0:29:13.240 humans tend to contain chemicals that change the behavior of adults, 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:17.760 especially adult men, possibly making them less aggressive and less 0:29:17.800 --> 0:29:22.880 likely to experience sexual arousal, maybe making them more likely to, say, 0:29:23.520 --> 0:29:28.400 provide care behaviors. The study measured this by having people 0:29:28.520 --> 0:29:33.040 uh smell tears that were from from human donors, and 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:35.160 they found that tears that were produced by women who 0:29:35.200 --> 0:29:39.600 were experiencing negative emotions, when men sniffed those tears, they 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:43.920 had reduced levels of testosterone, and they had reduced self 0:29:44.040 --> 0:29:49.000 rated uh sexual arousal and reduced physiological measures of arousal. 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:52.400 And so what some headlines did with this is basically 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:56.160 they went with like the sexual angle and said that, oh, yeah, 0:29:56.360 --> 0:29:59.560 tears will make you less attractive. Yeah, that feels like 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:02.680 a very a specific misread of of what they're trying 0:30:02.720 --> 0:30:05.480 to say here, right, right. So, actually I was reading 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:07.920 there was a section that covered this in that article 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:10.720 by Mandy Oaklander that I mentioned a minute ago, and 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:13.640 it actually went back and interviewed one of the authors 0:30:13.680 --> 0:30:17.880 of that that study in Science, Noam Sobel, who said, Okay, yeah, 0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:22.000 it really generated some sort of misleading headlines that that 0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:25.080 had the wrong takeaway from it, because even though they 0:30:25.120 --> 0:30:28.560 did find that at least within this one studied emotional 0:30:28.640 --> 0:30:32.640 tears lowered sexual arousal and men, he thinks that the 0:30:33.040 --> 0:30:37.120 real interpretation, the correct interpretation of this finding is that 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:43.000 is that the chemo signals in this maybe reducing aggression, uh, 0:30:43.040 --> 0:30:46.000 and that that men's tears may also have the same 0:30:46.040 --> 0:30:49.040 effect as women's tears. And so the main takeaway would 0:30:49.040 --> 0:30:52.440 not be that like tears are unattractive. It would be that, 0:30:52.560 --> 0:30:56.360 like tears, if this finding is correct, serve to sort 0:30:56.400 --> 0:31:01.320 of like put other biological draw vibes on hold and 0:31:01.440 --> 0:31:04.720 sort of put put the men who smell them into 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:08.520 a kind of uh, caregiving mode. Now, one thing that 0:31:08.560 --> 0:31:11.280 when possible issue that this raises for me though, is 0:31:11.320 --> 0:31:15.480 that tears are also shed in rage, you know, so 0:31:15.840 --> 0:31:18.840 one can easily imagine a scenario where if if one 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:22.840 warrior is coming at another and one warrior, uh, their 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:25.720 eyes are streaming with tears and their their faces snarling 0:31:25.760 --> 0:31:29.120 like a beast, and they're coming at you with battle axe. Uh. 0:31:29.200 --> 0:31:31.360 Is does that mean the other warrior is going to 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:34.680 suddenly let their guard down and and have this emotional 0:31:34.680 --> 0:31:38.160 outpouring for the other warrior because tears are present like 0:31:38.240 --> 0:31:41.480 that doesn't really match up for me? No, and it well, 0:31:41.520 --> 0:31:43.920 I mean sure if it does work this way, certainly 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:46.680 wouldn't be that deterministic. It would just be an influence, 0:31:46.760 --> 0:31:49.840 not like a you know, overriding every other consideration a 0:31:49.880 --> 0:31:53.720 person could have. Though, I mean I would say that, Uh, 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:56.479 you can imagine even in a context of of people 0:31:56.880 --> 0:32:00.600 of you know, warriors and killers, it seems is harder 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:04.640 to enact violence maybe on somebody who is crying like that. 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:10.360 Crying does serve pretty often to sort of neutralize aggression. Yeah. 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:12.520 But but then again, I guess we have to remember 0:32:12.560 --> 0:32:15.040 that it does not occur in a vacuum. Like we 0:32:15.160 --> 0:32:21.720 have the human facial communication array, we have body posture. Uh, 0:32:21.760 --> 0:32:24.480 and you know that is also augmented by us or 0:32:24.720 --> 0:32:27.800 or or non use of tools and weapons, like there's 0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:29.680 there there are a number of other signals that would 0:32:29.680 --> 0:32:31.880 be in place in addition to the tears. Even if 0:32:31.880 --> 0:32:36.479 the tears had this ability to augment what's going on 0:32:36.720 --> 0:32:39.320 with the with the our facial features. Yeah, I mean, 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:43.600 we're constantly processing all kinds of signals and information. Tears 0:32:43.600 --> 0:32:46.240 would be one input among many. You know, they might 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:48.800 have an influence in one way, but you know you 0:32:48.880 --> 0:32:51.160 might be able to ignore that influence if you've got 0:32:51.200 --> 0:32:54.720 strong motivations. Uh. In all this, like, I can't help 0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:58.240 but be reminded of an old Halloween Disney cartoon. Perhaps 0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:00.840 you've seen it, in which there is a paging gorilla 0:33:01.520 --> 0:33:06.000 and um and Donald Duck is there, and the Huey 0:33:06.040 --> 0:33:08.479 Dewy and Louis are there, and they're running around being 0:33:08.520 --> 0:33:11.800 chased by this gorilla. They're they're able to eventually subdue 0:33:11.840 --> 0:33:15.640 the gorilla using tear gas. Tear gas, of course, has 0:33:15.960 --> 0:33:18.960 does not have an emotional context. It isn't It is 0:33:18.960 --> 0:33:23.080 an irritant. But in this cartoon, when the gas of 0:33:23.120 --> 0:33:25.400 the tear, when the tear gas reaches the eyes of 0:33:25.440 --> 0:33:29.440 both Duck and Ape, it produces tears that are then 0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:35.560 instantly emotional tears confusing the categories. Yeah, yeah, there's some 0:33:35.560 --> 0:33:45.080 some some wonderful category confusion there. So anyway, I'm not 0:33:45.120 --> 0:33:46.840 sure what I think about the idea of tears as 0:33:46.880 --> 0:33:49.720 chemo signals, though I do feel pretty well convinced that 0:33:50.120 --> 0:33:51.920 there are some kind of signal, and it might be 0:33:51.960 --> 0:33:55.000 a signal of the more the more straightforward kind that 0:33:55.120 --> 0:33:58.440 we were talking about before we're observing them has some 0:33:58.480 --> 0:34:02.520 pretty reliable cognitive effects. People see the tears and react 0:34:02.560 --> 0:34:04.840 in a certain way. And and there are some indications 0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:09.960 also that UM that tears, maybe emotional tears, may be 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:13.799 specially designed to be seen. Like I was reading in 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:18.000 one of these articles UM a finding that has alleged 0:34:18.080 --> 0:34:22.520 that emotional tears tend to contain higher protein content than 0:34:22.880 --> 0:34:26.680 um uh than just like basil or reflex tears. Though 0:34:26.840 --> 0:34:29.279 that I'm not sure how well that finding holds up, 0:34:29.280 --> 0:34:31.719 because I might have read that that had been that 0:34:31.800 --> 0:34:35.440 had been contradicted as well. But if that is the case, UM, 0:34:35.840 --> 0:34:39.320 one hypothesized explanation for that is that the additional protein 0:34:39.400 --> 0:34:43.480 content of the tears causes them to be thicker, meaning 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:46.279 that they take longer to roll down the cheek so 0:34:46.400 --> 0:34:50.000 emotional tears, if this is true, would be more visible 0:34:50.040 --> 0:34:52.600 than just say, like your eyes overflowing with tears because 0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:55.760 they're irritated. Those thinner tears might just sort of wash away, 0:34:56.239 --> 0:34:59.400 whereas the emotion, the thicker emotional tears hang on the 0:34:59.480 --> 0:35:02.600 cheek and sort of stick to your skin and other 0:35:02.640 --> 0:35:05.480 people can see them more easily. Now this is very 0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:08.480 interesting because it brings to mind two different things. One, 0:35:09.280 --> 0:35:13.200 what happens when there is makeup of some sort in 0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:16.200 place on the face, uh, And you can see this, 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:19.320 you know, across the spectrum any kind of uh makeup 0:35:19.360 --> 0:35:21.120 that might be worn on the face, especially for some 0:35:21.160 --> 0:35:24.160 sort of ritual scenario. And then if there's weeping, it 0:35:24.160 --> 0:35:27.240 has the potential to make the tears all the more apparent. 0:35:28.160 --> 0:35:30.359 And this also reminds me of something I was reading 0:35:30.360 --> 0:35:35.840 in Holy Tears. Apparently there have been accounts of of 0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:40.080 there are various accounts of weeping blood um in in 0:35:40.080 --> 0:35:44.760 in cultures, and there was there's this possibility that there 0:35:44.800 --> 0:35:47.920 there are some mourners that have been reported to have 0:35:48.239 --> 0:35:51.400 engaged in rituals in ancient Turkey where they would score 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:55.720 their faces um during the ritual before the ritual and anyway, 0:35:55.719 --> 0:35:57.640 the result would be that you would have blood and 0:35:57.680 --> 0:36:01.319 tears mixed together. Uh, thus sort augmenting the tears with 0:36:01.360 --> 0:36:05.440 blood and or or the reverse augmenting the blood with 0:36:05.520 --> 0:36:09.000 tears causing this this increased flow. Well, yeah, and playing 0:36:09.040 --> 0:36:12.279 on the intuition that tears are are meaningful, and they're 0:36:12.320 --> 0:36:15.880 meaningful if they are seen. They're meant to be visually seen, 0:36:16.440 --> 0:36:18.239 and of course the one way to hide them is 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:19.880 you do you're crying in the rain, right like in 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:24.359 the Affily Brothers song. Okay, you know, there's one observation 0:36:25.120 --> 0:36:27.840 that I came across that struck me as really interesting. 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:31.480 This was not from a scientific study. Actually just heard 0:36:31.520 --> 0:36:34.160 this in a video I was watching. So Vox has 0:36:34.480 --> 0:36:38.359 a video series called Glad You Asked that's hosted by 0:36:38.480 --> 0:36:42.080 somebody somebody named Joss Fong, and they had an episode 0:36:42.080 --> 0:36:45.000 on tears, and there was a part in the episode 0:36:45.000 --> 0:36:48.960 where somebody observed that tears are the only body fluid 0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:52.480 that doesn't tend to gross other people out. And that 0:36:52.560 --> 0:36:55.880 struck me as really interesting. So the idea of getting 0:36:55.920 --> 0:37:01.840 somebody else's urine or feces, blood, sweat, spit, mucus, etcetera, 0:37:01.920 --> 0:37:05.000 any of that getting any of that on you most 0:37:05.000 --> 0:37:08.560 of the time people would find all of these options disgusting. 0:37:09.160 --> 0:37:12.319 The the suggestion here is that tears are the only 0:37:12.400 --> 0:37:15.799 fluid secreted by the body that doesn't usually provoke a 0:37:15.880 --> 0:37:19.440 disgust reaction in others. And I don't know of any 0:37:19.480 --> 0:37:22.520 empirical research to back up this observation. It might exist, 0:37:22.600 --> 0:37:24.960 but it does ring true to me, and it strikes 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:29.759 me as as notable. Yeah, yeah, um, I mean it's hard. 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:33.680 It's hard to reflect on any actual experience with that. 0:37:33.719 --> 0:37:36.799 I feel like any time that I've gotten, say, my 0:37:36.880 --> 0:37:42.600 son's tears on me, it's almost always been their emotional tears. 0:37:42.800 --> 0:37:45.560 Then there's gonna be mucus as well, you know, so 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:48.200 in that case it's like, yeah, I probably need to 0:37:48.280 --> 0:37:51.359 change shirts. But but but once you're apparent, you get 0:37:51.400 --> 0:37:53.640 all kinds of fluids on you, and that just I think, 0:37:53.760 --> 0:37:57.239 you know, oh yeah, yeah, from urine and everything else. 0:37:57.280 --> 0:38:00.400 But I guess with you know, with the with the tears, 0:38:00.400 --> 0:38:03.080 I can I can unders understand that. Yeah, I can 0:38:03.160 --> 0:38:05.000 certainly match u, especially when I think about the time 0:38:05.040 --> 0:38:08.840 that he shot tears into my mouth. Um, by virtue 0:38:08.880 --> 0:38:11.360 of his tear Duck situation. At the time, I was 0:38:11.400 --> 0:38:14.600 not it was more interesting as opposed to to a 0:38:14.600 --> 0:38:17.799 gross out moment um. I also was looking around because 0:38:17.800 --> 0:38:20.480 I was thinking, well, maybe there's some notable exception in 0:38:20.560 --> 0:38:23.359 human culture, and I thought I had some like some 0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:26.360 flag came up in my memory of some faint, faint 0:38:26.400 --> 0:38:29.440 example of something where maybe tears had some sort of 0:38:29.440 --> 0:38:33.640 a negative connotation, maybe involved with say like um, you know, 0:38:34.080 --> 0:38:37.000 the pershing of bodily energies or the imbalance of energies. 0:38:37.040 --> 0:38:39.560 But I couldn't find anything. Maybe I'll find something and 0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:42.200 we'll share in the future. But it does seem to 0:38:42.239 --> 0:38:45.000 be pretty universal, and even then it would not I 0:38:45.000 --> 0:38:47.640 don't know if it would necessarily be that the tears 0:38:47.680 --> 0:38:51.360 themselves have any kind of unclean aspect to them. It 0:38:51.400 --> 0:38:55.440 would be something about like the deeper body or the 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:58.080 or some sort of alleged energy system of the body. 0:38:58.560 --> 0:39:00.799 In the same way, whereas if you if you might 0:39:01.360 --> 0:39:03.600 and I'm not saying this is fair, but if you 0:39:03.640 --> 0:39:07.719 were judgmental of somebody for crying during space jam, um 0:39:07.960 --> 0:39:11.399 adult crying during space jam, you might you might well 0:39:11.520 --> 0:39:14.360 argue that this that they shouldn't have done so, uh, 0:39:14.440 --> 0:39:17.440 that they didn't have proper emotional reason to do so, 0:39:17.600 --> 0:39:20.560 But you wouldn't think anything less with the actual substance 0:39:20.560 --> 0:39:23.480 of their tears, Like, keep those space Jam tears away 0:39:23.520 --> 0:39:26.040 from me, do not let them soil my body. I 0:39:26.080 --> 0:39:30.160 wouldn't trust anybody who did not cry during Space Jam. 0:39:30.440 --> 0:39:33.120 You go, maybe they're the hole of these tears. All. Yeah, 0:39:33.400 --> 0:39:35.279 as long as we're off the subject and reaching the 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:37.000 end of the podcast, what have you? What do you 0:39:37.040 --> 0:39:40.680 make of old Pinhead saying, um, you know, no, no tears. 0:39:40.680 --> 0:39:42.480 It's a waste of good suffering. I always felt that 0:39:42.600 --> 0:39:45.200 safe old tears. Yeah, I always felt like that was 0:39:45.239 --> 0:39:46.840 a bit off brand, Like what do you what are you? 0:39:46.880 --> 0:39:49.040 What are you expecting to happen? Like I thought pain 0:39:49.080 --> 0:39:52.760 and suffering was your whole bag, but suddenly like crying 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:55.359 is not allowed. Yeah, at what point does he think 0:39:55.360 --> 0:39:58.200 it's okay for the tears to begin? Yeah, it seems 0:39:58.239 --> 0:40:01.440 kind of closed minded pin it. Well, it is interesting 0:40:01.520 --> 0:40:03.960 that in the context of the movie, these would be uh, 0:40:04.000 --> 0:40:06.759 if it's hell Raiser, these would be anticipatory tears, right, 0:40:06.840 --> 0:40:10.720 tears that are in response to terror at the idea 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:14.480 of suffering yet to come. And yet there are some 0:40:14.520 --> 0:40:19.400 people who have put forward models of emotional tears that 0:40:19.560 --> 0:40:23.560 sort of say the opposite, that say tears are a 0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:26.839 sort of step down the signal. I'm not sure I'm 0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:30.560 convinced by this actually, but it at least has been alleged. 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:33.640 I could imagine a scenario. Okay, if you're gonna think 0:40:33.640 --> 0:40:36.120 long and hard about the cenobytes of of Clive Barker 0:40:36.200 --> 0:40:39.600 cell raiser, you could say, well, they're all about actual senses, 0:40:39.640 --> 0:40:43.840 actual senses of of pleasure and pain, and therefore the 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:48.480 emotional context of pleasure and pain might be completely lost 0:40:48.560 --> 0:40:51.360 on them, because yeah, they're all about like stick and 0:40:51.440 --> 0:40:54.960 hooks and things and and so forth, and and the 0:40:55.040 --> 0:40:58.720 tightening of leather, not so much about anticipating the pain 0:40:58.880 --> 0:41:01.520 or reflecting on the pain. So I don't know, now 0:41:01.600 --> 0:41:04.799 I'm back backtracking. Maybe it is totally on brand, but 0:41:04.880 --> 0:41:08.279 maybe maybe would have been more impactful if if ten 0:41:08.400 --> 0:41:11.160 had had been said something like just to express that 0:41:11.160 --> 0:41:13.919 he doesn't even understand what's happening. What are you doing? Why? 0:41:14.000 --> 0:41:16.560 Why is there liquid coming out of your face? Liquid 0:41:16.560 --> 0:41:18.719 shouldn't be coming out of your body unless it is 0:41:18.719 --> 0:41:22.560 a response to direct physical stimuli. Since I mentioned it, 0:41:22.600 --> 0:41:24.520 I figured I might as well explain the idea of 0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:28.160 the sort of step down theory of tears. Um So. 0:41:28.320 --> 0:41:31.319 I was reading about this in an article in The 0:41:31.400 --> 0:41:35.600 Washington Post from April sixteen by Mary Kim called the 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:38.600 Science of a Good Cry, and this involved an interview 0:41:38.640 --> 0:41:42.600 with an emeritus professor of psychology at Temple University named J. E. Ron, 0:41:43.239 --> 0:41:46.120 who had advocated what was called in this article a 0:41:46.200 --> 0:41:49.879 two stage theory of emotional tears, which would be kind 0:41:49.880 --> 0:41:52.759 of similar to the two stage theory of laughter, which 0:41:52.800 --> 0:41:57.080 posits that maybe laughter functions when tension is first raised 0:41:57.160 --> 0:41:59.720 by the setup of a joke and then suddenly lowered 0:41:59.800 --> 0:42:02.480 by the punch lines that stepped down to the lower 0:42:02.560 --> 0:42:05.960 level of tension. Under this theory, that causes the laughter 0:42:06.360 --> 0:42:08.839 as the result of a joke. Uh The idea here 0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:12.040 is that maybe crying works in a similar fashion. Uh So, 0:42:12.160 --> 0:42:13.879 I want to read a quote from this article that's 0:42:13.920 --> 0:42:18.200 explaining a friend's view here. Uh. Quote, people experience a 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:22.080 crying fit when something happens to first spark high anxiety 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:26.000 or distress, followed by a moment of recalibration or release. 0:42:26.560 --> 0:42:29.360 For instance, a child that loses his mother at the 0:42:29.360 --> 0:42:33.279 grocery store. Begins by frantically searching for her, getting more 0:42:33.280 --> 0:42:36.239 and more worried as he scans the aisles. Suddenly he 0:42:36.239 --> 0:42:39.880 hears her call his name from behind, sees her comforting face, 0:42:40.000 --> 0:42:44.040 and promptly bursts into tears. And uh and uh. It 0:42:44.080 --> 0:42:46.319 goes on to explain how this could maybe also work 0:42:46.360 --> 0:42:50.040 for things that appear to be tears of joy. Um, 0:42:50.080 --> 0:42:52.800 maybe like while you're planning a wedding for your child, 0:42:52.960 --> 0:42:55.439 you know they're there's sort of a high anxiety, high 0:42:55.560 --> 0:42:59.640 stress preparation stage, but then during the ceremony itself, it's 0:42:59.680 --> 0:43:02.240 kind of everything is culminated and then there's a release 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:06.160 of tension and then you cry. So, according to this 0:43:06.160 --> 0:43:09.120 this hypothesis here, emotional tears would occur not really at 0:43:09.120 --> 0:43:13.400 the onset of distress, but at the onset of relief 0:43:13.440 --> 0:43:16.600 from distress. I'm not sure how convinced I am by this. 0:43:16.640 --> 0:43:19.560 I'm not sure how well it lines up with actual 0:43:19.600 --> 0:43:23.560 instances of crying, but it does seem to be somewhat corroborated, 0:43:23.600 --> 0:43:28.080 at least by um what parts of the nervous system 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:31.160 seem to be activated, like crying does seem to be 0:43:31.239 --> 0:43:36.439 more associated with activation of the parasympathetic nervous system as 0:43:36.440 --> 0:43:39.640 opposed to the sympathetic nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous 0:43:39.680 --> 0:43:43.560 system is what's usually associated with high stress conditions, fight 0:43:43.640 --> 0:43:46.440 or flight, goose bumps, all that kind of thing. And 0:43:46.480 --> 0:43:50.080 then usually when you when you're done with a sympathetic 0:43:50.120 --> 0:43:53.160 nervous system response, you know, the the high stress is subsided, 0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:57.440 you shift back down into activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, 0:43:57.800 --> 0:44:00.160 which is often known as the relax and restore war 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:03.160 system or the rest and digest system. It's the stuff 0:44:03.200 --> 0:44:07.239 that's uh normal, involuntary activities of the body that are 0:44:07.280 --> 0:44:09.840 happening when you're not in a state of heightened stress 0:44:09.920 --> 0:44:12.720 or anxiety. And this is the system that crying seems 0:44:12.760 --> 0:44:15.399 to be more associated with. Uh So, so that would 0:44:15.440 --> 0:44:18.239 be an interesting indication in favor of this this two 0:44:18.280 --> 0:44:23.399 stage emotional tier theory. But still I'm not sure how 0:44:23.440 --> 0:44:26.960 correctly the theory rings. Just with experience of wind crying 0:44:27.040 --> 0:44:29.520 happens and how it happens. Yeah, I mean, it just 0:44:29.600 --> 0:44:32.080 it becomes so complex when you start trying to tease 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:37.400 a part you know, emotional and physical responses to you know, 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:40.640 often you know complex stimuli. That is, you know, this 0:44:40.800 --> 0:44:43.120 is something kind of thing that you know, Pinhead's not 0:44:43.120 --> 0:44:46.400 gonna understand. It's just a it's a it's a tangled 0:44:46.440 --> 0:44:49.040 knot of human emotion. Oh we did, We did get 0:44:49.120 --> 0:44:51.279 set off on that whole thing, but Pinhead didn't. We 0:44:51.280 --> 0:44:53.680 we did, we did. Alright, Well, on that note, we're 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:56.440 gonna go ahead and close out this part two of 0:44:56.480 --> 0:44:58.640 our look at Tears. We are going to come back 0:44:58.640 --> 0:45:01.400 with part three, and I'm excited to get into some 0:45:01.440 --> 0:45:03.960 of the mythological and religious stuff a bit more in 0:45:04.120 --> 0:45:07.239 that one, but there will be a short gap. We 0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:10.799 have a special interview episode that we're excited about that's 0:45:10.800 --> 0:45:14.320 gonna air Tuesday, and then the following Thursday, we should 0:45:14.360 --> 0:45:16.960 be back with Tears Part three. If all goes according 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:19.760 to plan. Yeah, if it doesn't, that means something changed. 0:45:20.120 --> 0:45:23.239 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yes, we'll 0:45:23.280 --> 0:45:25.360 have to get into that. What's with all the teeth gnashing? 0:45:25.400 --> 0:45:28.040 I don't know. Maybe we'll get into that in part three. 0:45:28.320 --> 0:45:31.279 What does nash ing mean? What is it? What is 0:45:31.280 --> 0:45:34.400 it to nash to bite to like grind your teeth? 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:36.960 I was just imagine that. Yeah, just kind of like 0:45:37.000 --> 0:45:42.560 weeping and just you know, um, so perhaps we should 0:45:42.600 --> 0:45:45.200 explore that, maybe maybe there there's some legs to that question. 0:45:45.560 --> 0:45:50.120 Experts on gnashing right in. Yeah, all right. If you 0:45:50.120 --> 0:45:51.839 want to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow 0:45:51.880 --> 0:45:53.480 Your Mind, you'll find them all on the Stuff to 0:45:53.480 --> 0:45:56.720 Blow your Mind podcast feed, which you can find wherever 0:45:56.719 --> 0:45:58.719 you get your podcast. We have core episodes in two 0:45:58.719 --> 0:46:02.319 season Thursdays, Artifact on Wednesday, listener Mail on Monday, Weird 0:46:02.360 --> 0:46:04.839 House set Him on Friday. That's when we just kick 0:46:04.920 --> 0:46:06.840 back and discuss a weird movie, and then on the 0:46:06.880 --> 0:46:10.760 weekend we have a rerun of a core episode. Huge 0:46:10.800 --> 0:46:14.440 thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:46:15.080 --> 0:46:16.680 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:46:16.680 --> 0:46:19.200 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 0:46:19.200 --> 0:46:21.200 a topic for the future, just to say hello, you 0:46:21.200 --> 0:46:23.920 can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow your 0:46:23.920 --> 0:46:34.160 Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production 0:46:34.239 --> 0:46:36.960 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:40.000 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're 0:46:40.040 --> 0:47:00.240 listening to your favorite shows.