Study shows why we cry with happiness to regulate very strong emotions

We know that crying can originate in situations of great sadness, but, on the other hand, also of great joy. In this sense, a study carried out by social psychologist Oriana Aragón, from Yale University (USA), and published by the Association for Psychological Science in the USA, explained why we tend to cry when we are very happy. These are the so-called borderline emotions and we will deal with them below.

Today the awesome.club will show why our eyes fill with tears when we experience strong emotions, such as the birth of a baby or a special achievement. That is, why we feel like crying when we are very happy.

positive and negative emotions

Dimorphic emotions are those that are apparently opposite and manifest in the same situation, such as the well-known “crying with laughter” or the aforementioned emotional cry. These feelings appear when people feel, in some way, overwhelmed and – in the words of the researchers – other emotions (in this case, crying in a situation of joy) end up emerging to balance them.

A ‘positive stimulus’ was used to assess emotions

In the study, pictures of babies were used. The researchers chose this path because, apparently, people tend to form an emotional relationship with newborns’ big eyes, round cheeks and small chins. In all, the reactions of 105 volunteers were evaluated, especially in relation to the stimulus that the image of the babies aroused.

Why do people control strong emotions?

In this sense, borderline emotions appear when we regulate strong emotions. This happens because:

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People don’t know how to properly control positive emotions, unlike negative ones.

When people remember positive events from the past, they sometimes do so in a different way than in reality; by remembering, they can do it in a negative way.

People want to escape from some embarrassing positive situation.

Furthermore, the same study found that people who experience positive feelings express negative emotions to give greater importance and relevance to the situation they are experiencing, or perhaps to express the level of sentimental overload for any other emotion.

What is your opinion about this study? Do you often cry when you are very happy? Tell us in the comments section.