Adult Crying: culture, gender, and personality based differences
The study investigated culture and gender based differences in crying proneness, crying
frequency and general tendency to cry, as well as the correlation between basic personality
traits (e.g. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional stability, Autonomy)
and a self-reported indices of crying. Participants were drawn from Arabians, Persian and
Western culture, and a province with both Persian and Arabians ethnicities. Both genders
form the three cultures completed two questionnaires: Adult Crying Inventory and Big Five
Personality Inventory. The result of MANOVA showed, that there were cultural differences
in crying proneness, but there were found cultural differences in crying frequency and
general tendency to cry. The women reported a higher crying frequency, crying proneness
and tendency to cry than men did. When correlated with personality traits, the study
indicated that there was a negative association between Extraversion and tendency to cry
but no significant differences between Extroversion and crying frequency or crying
proneness and there was a negative correlation between Emotional Stability and tendency
to cry but no significant differences between Emotional Stability crying proneness and crying
frequency. Summaries of findings in two sentences.
1
Introduction
Crying is a common way for humans to express emotion. Vingerhoets, Bylsma and
Rottenberg (2009), suggest that crying is a universal form of human expression that
permeates human life, from the beginning (e.g. “the primal scream”) until death.
Psychologists pay a lot of attention to human emotions and emotional expression, so it
seems surprising little research has been devoted to the subject of crying. Individuals of all
cultures and from different ages cry at certain times. Crying is known to be associated with
sadness, such as at funerals. Crying is also common in positive-situations like weddings,
winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Crying in adults is normally defined as a powerful
emotional event (either empathic or personal) that results in the production of tears.
Vingerhoets, Cornelius, van Heck and Becht (2000) developed a model of Adult Crying,
which focused on the subject of crying and antecedents of crying which has association
between psychobiological (e.g. hormonal level, physical state), social pressures (e.g.
location, presence of others, social norms and display rules) and cognitive (e.g. personality
factors and demographic) factors.
The study was conducted because there has been previous researches from Van Hemert,
van de Vijver and Vingerhoets (2011) which suggests that wealthy, extraverted, individuals
and countries (with or support the freedom of expression act) have reported to have more
of a propensity to cry than other countries. They also believe that there is a link between
personality and adult crying. However I argue that someone’s culture has a more significant
impact on adult crying rather than their personality, this is argued as somebody’s culture
helps to shape their personality. This interpretation is supported by Darwin, when he
disputed that of non western cultures cry more than those of western cultures, he especially
emphasized on England. There are several situations where this is true. In Iraq and Iran
there is an Islamic sect called ‘Shias’, this sect similarly like Britain have several memorial
days. Iraq/Iran’s most renowned memorial day is called Ashura. The difference between
Iraq/Iran (a non western culture) and Britain (a western culture), is that in Iraq/Iran it is a
part of the culture to go through the mourning phase, however in Britain, people do not go
through a mourning phase, instead they show respect by a moment of silence. Therefore
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this supports my argument, because even though people may have unsympathetic
personalities, it is a part of their culture to cry, therefore it starts to build up and shape their
personality into believing that they have to cry.
This study investigated crying frequency, crying proneness and tendency to cry in adult from
different cultures. The three different crying measures are defined as, “crying frequency for
estimates of actual crying episodes within a given period either measured retrospectively or
in a concurrent design. In contrast crying proneness refers to the general reported
propensity to cry in a certain situation. It seems that crying proneness reflects a more stable
personality characteristic, whereas crying frequency is more dependent on specific
environmental conditions and tendency to cry is a self-rating of general crying in
comparison to others.”(Vingerhoets and Cornelius, 2012, p. 117, 141).
Culture and Crying studies:
The world is characterised by different cultures. The cultural differences are that people
from different backgrounds see tragic events differently. Some cultures celebrate it where
as others believe in the process of crying. For example in the case of death, a person from
the Middle East will go through the process of mourning because it is seen as a sign of
respect to the person who has died, and it marks a loss of a beloved person. Whereas other
cultures such as Mexicans believe in Dia de los Muertos, which is the day of the dead, this is
where people go and celebrate the death of family and friends. They celebrate the death of
someone because they believe it is a good thing that you have lost someone, because they
will rise to a better place. There is little systematic research the subject of cross-cultural
differences in crying. Borgquist was the first researcher who studied different forms of
crying in a more systematic manner, by using questionnaires and the accumulated
knowledge of civilizations and ethnologists. Borgquist based his study on the respondents
(39 male and 161 female) to 200 questionnaires sent out by President G. Stanley Hall (The
first president of American Psychological Association). Borgquist (1906) found there were
not many differences between the reports which obtained from 200 Americans colleagues
and the statements about crying episodes that he collected from ethnologists and
missionaries around the world. He mentioned some differences in frequency of crying
between cultures: “tears are less frequently shed among civilized people than among
3
primitive people” (p.180). Borgquist based his claim on writings about different races, such
as: African, Indian, Latin, Maori, Japanese, Sandwich Islander and Samoan.
Darwin (1872/1965) was the first person to propose the hypothesis that cultures differ in
their frequency of crying. Darwin asserted that, in non-western cultures, crying was more
frequent than in western culture, especially England. Darwin was also the person who was
clearly open to the association of crying with positive and negative emotional states, such
as: when felling a pain in the body distress or reading a story book. Borgquist and Darwin
agreed that crying was more common in non-western cultures then western cultures. After
Darwin and Borgquist, there was a 70 year gap before any new studies on cross-cultural
crying. Szabo and Frey (1981) administrated a crying diary study comparing Americans and
Hungarian psychology students. They asked male and female Hungarian and American
students to keep a dairy record of monthly crying frequency. The result from the dairy study
showed that monthly crying frequencies were 0.7 for Hungarian men, 3.1 for Hungarian
women, 1.5 for American men and 5.3 for American women. Szabo and Frey (1981) assert
that Hungarian reported less frequent crying episodes than American. They also found
gender differences in the frequency of crying. Williams and Morris (1996) carried out a study
among 448 British and Israeli students, aged between 20-42 years, in which they responded
to questions on their crying behavior. They found cultural differences in self-reported crying
frequency between Israelis and British. The estimated yearly crying frequency was 4.8-for
Israeli men, 17.4 for Israeli women, 8.4 for British men and 31.7 for British women. Kraemer
and Hastrup (1986) collected data among American college students (316 female and 181
male) in the study using the Crying Frequency Questionnaire. They asked participants to
estimate the frequency of their yearly crying. The result of the study indicated that there
were gender differences in the estimations of the frequency of their yearly crying and also
found differences between individuals in regards to the frequency of yearly crying. When
William and Morris compared their results with the Kraemer and Hastrup (1986) results,
William and Morris suggested that American in Kraemer study and British reported more
crying frequency than Israelis. Vingerhoets and Becht (1997) collected data from 35
countries, with a sample size of 1470 men and 2100 women, their ages ranging from 16 to
28 years. The Adult Crying Inventory (ACI) questionnaire was used to do so. The researchers
asked participants to estimate their crying frequency (the rate at which someone cried over
a given period of time),crying tendency (the urge to cry) and crying proneness (the liability
4
to suffer from the act of crying) in the previous four weeks. Vingerhoets and Becht
suggested that men reported lower crying frequencies, crying proneness and tendency to
cry than women. Crying frequency and proneness varied between countries but crying
tendency was typically higher in most countries, with little variation between countries. The
details of their results were that females from; Chile, the United States, Turkey, the
Netherlands and Sweden and males from the United States, Australia, Finland, Germany,
Italy and Sweden reported higher crying frequencies than males from Bulgaria, Peru and
Spin and females from Nigeria. Crying proneness was higher in Brazilian women (mean
score=3.5) than Icelandic and Romanian women (mean score=2.6). Among the men Nepal
had a higher score (mean=3.0) on crying proneness than Icelandic (mean score=1.5). Overall
the results obtained from Vingerhoets and Becht cross countries study showed that; Firstly
in regards to the crying frequency, males reported less crying frequencies than females: on
average of 1.0 time and 2.7 times in four weeks for males and female, respectively, and
16.7% of the females and 55.4% of males reported have not cried in the past four weeks.
Secondly in regards to self-rating of tendency to cry, females rated themselves higher than
males. Thirdly the section of which crying proneness was asked to report, females reported
higher (mean=3.0) score than male (mean=2.1). Crying frequency and proneness varied
between countries but crying tendency was typically higher in most countries just at a lower
score (mean= 4.3 and 3.5 for women and men respectively) was obtained from Nigeria, with
little variation between countries. Over many years van Hemert, van de Vijver and
Vingerhoets (2011) carried out systematic research on culture and gender based differences
in crying. The study was carried out in 37 different countries, using 2,497 female and 3,218
male participants, with a focus on the countries in the last crying episode and crying
proneness. Tendency to cry and the measures of the last crying episode results were taken
from ISAC questionnaire, and used Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Big Five
Personality. The researchers did not mention whether the questionnaires used were in
English, a native language or translated to other languages. The result showed that firstly,
crying was more correlated to the wealth and happiness. Secondly, individual living in
countries with high levels of extraversion reported more crying than individual living in
countries with lower levels of extraversion. The important finding of the study was related
to the demandingness of climate and crying frequency. The result showed that people tend
to shed more tears in moderate climates than in extreme cold or warm climates, this is
5
because of the lifestyles which people live in given climates; people in cold countries spent
more time at home and people in warm country spent more time out than inside. They
found that individuals living in wealthy, extraverted, individuals and democratic (these
measures related to the freedom of expression not to the suffering) and with higher
extraversion (Big Five personality) countries reported more of a tendency to cry than other
countries. From a cultural context crying could be observed as the experience of emotions
and emotional events that lead to tears. There are no previous studies on differences in
crying in Arab and Persian cultures. However, a number of studies (in different fields) have
compared the two cultures and identified that they have unique differences, even though
both cultures are from the Middle East and share similar beliefs. The results of a recent
anthropological survey by Farjadian and Ghaderi (2009) showed that there is no close
genetic association between Arabs and Persian. Another study by Haosseini and
Khaghninezhad (2011) investigated the role of culture in learning English as a foreign
language, in which the researchers asked 162 participants to complete the Integrative Tests.
The result of this study showed that the Persian English learners did significantly better in
the test than Arabs. (Haosseini and Khaghninezhad 2011) suggested that this difference is
due to the cultural characteristics of Iranians and the result showed that culture plays an
important role in the recall tests.
Gender and Crying studies:
The cultural stereotype is that women cry more than men and this is supported by many
scientific studies. Another stereotype is that men are more likely to avoid crying in front of
other people than women.
Bekker and Vingerhoets (1999) suggested that “one of the most pervasive stereotypes of
sex differences in our culture is that of the emotional, labile women versus the rational,
strong man” (p.11). This stereotype tells us that crying is more common in infants and
women than men: this idea has been supported by scientific literature. Many research
studies suggested that woman have a higher frequency of crying, as well as higher
proneness and tendency to cry. The systematic studies that showed gender differences in
crying. (Young 1936) assert that woman cry more frequently than men do, In this study they
used a combined questionnaire in a different form in which they asked participants to
reported their crying frequency during last 24 hours in period of 3 in half weeks . The result
6
showed that 80 to 90 percent of participants reported their crying within social environment
and only 20 to 10 percent refer to organic states such as injury, illness and fatigue. There
was a possible weakness that has been identified, and this is that when college students
filled out forms daily for three and a half weeks, they only filled them out for five days a
week, missing two days that were Saturday and Sunday, these two days could be significant
in a person’s crying pattern. William (1982) found that women cry more intensely and are
more prone to cry than men, using a questionnaire that asked participants to estimate their
crying in the last year. Frey (1983) asked males and females to record their crying for a
month: the results showed that women cried more frequently and more intensely than
men. Lombardo, Cretser, Lombardo and Mathis (1983) and (2001) argued that women cry
more frequently, more intensely and with a higher proneness to crying than men. The
frequency of crying is found less within men and more within women when watching films,
at work and in general (Ross and Mirowsky 1984; Hastrup, Baker, Kraemer, and Bornstein
1986; Kraemer and Hastrup 1986; Choti, Marston, Holston and Hart 1987; Wanger, Hexel,
Bauer and Kropiunigg 1997). Women also describe themselves more in relation to others
(Bekker, 1993).
Williams and Morris (1996), and Vingerhoets and Becht (1987) claimed that women have
higher crying frequency, crying intensity and crying proneness. Defruyt (1997) found that
males reported a lower crying frequency than females. A gender differences study in
tendency to cry (Becht, 1998) collected data from 29 countries and found that sex
differences; women rated their general tendency to cry on average of mean of 5.9
compared to 3.3 for men. This finding showed that men self-rated themselves with a lower
general tendency to cry than women.
Vingerhoets and Scheirs (2000) concluded (from reviewing all the above studies about
gender differences) that, compared to women, adult men cry less frequently, are less prone
to crying and cry for shorter time. (Vingerhoets, et, al., 2000) added that socialization plays
the main role in creating gender differences in crying. The idea of socialisation could be
applied on a gender or cultural context. The process for the individual to adjust to a certain
group relates to the dissimilar appraisal process and so that process could lead to a situation
that induces crying.
Peter, Vingerhoets and van Heck (2001) examined gender differences in crying. In this study,
48 men and 56 women completed the Adult Crying Inventory questionnaire part A and were
7
requested to score their crying proneness, estimate their crying frequency and rate their
tendency to cry. (Peter, el, al,. 2001) found gender differences in two measures of crying,
with women reporting more proneness to cry and higher crying frequency than men. Becht,
Poortinga and Vingerhoets (2001) carried out a study among 35 countries across Africa,
America, Asia and Europe, with females and males responding to the Adult Crying
questionnaire. (Becht, el, al,. 2001) claim that the gender difference in all cultures is that
men are less likely to cry than women. Fischer, Mosquera, van Vianen and Manstead (2004)
carried out study on cross-culture gender differences in 6 emotions, with data collected in
37 countries all over the world. The participants responded to a questionnaire for each of
the six emotions: sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt and disgust, and two emotional
expressions: antagonism and crying. The result of emotional expression indicated that men
reported crying less frequently compared to women. This difference is not necessarily
homogeneous a cross countries. (van Hemert , el, al,. 2011) assert that there are large
differences among females and males for tendency to cry and last crying episodes. In the
study women reported crying more often than men. A recent study carried out by Santiago
and Campbell (2013) that investigated the study of crying from anger and sadness in white
British adolescents. (Santiago and Campbell 2013) monitored 96 boys and 101 girls.
Participants were required to complete a questionnaire composed of four sections: one was
a series of questions that were developed for the study, and 3 were official psychometric
tests. The result showed that males and females were both more likely to cry in response to
sadness than anger, with girls reporting that they cried more than boys in both emotions.
This study also showed gender differences in the response to emotions. There are many
questions about why there are gender differences in crying, many studies showed that
gender differences are due to differences to the situations that inducing crying, and
stereotype and biological factors.
Personality and Crying studies:
There is enough evidence showing us that individuals differ in crying proneness and crying
frequency. The studies below show that there is a relationship between personality and
crying. Personality is the characteristics and qualities a person holds, including their traits
and consistency. Personality is developed within the society rather than inherited. This is
because people’s emotions and the way they treat or react to specific events vary on
8
how/where/when they were brought up and their surroundings. The prone of crying has
been found to associate itself with a variety of factors based on an individual. The following
are included: Gender, socialization, emotional/traumatic events in life and the transition of
parenthood. Never the less, personality applies its key role in crying. This has shown in
reports in which women have been reported to cry more than men do during their
adulthood.
Williams (1982) was the first researcher to explore systematically the role of personality in
crying. In this study 40 participants (male and female) responded to questionnaires that
measured crying proneness and personality (assessing their empathy, psychoticism,
femininity, masculinity, neuroticism and extraversion). (Williams 1982) found a positive
proneness was correlated to neuroticism and a negative association with masculinity.
Furthermore Vingerhoets, van Den Berg, Kortekaas, Van Heck and Croon (1993) have shown
a positive correlation between crying frequency and neuroticism in both males and females.
The results from this study suggest that men with high self-esteem cried more easily and
more often.
Defruyt (1997) investigated gender and individuals differences in adult crying. In this study
105 participants (male and female) responded to complete three questionnaires: 1)
International Study Adult Crying questionnaire (ISAC) 2) The Big Five personality and 3) NEO
personality Inventory. The analysis of the study showed that Emotional Stability was
significantly correlated with crying frequency and crying as a coping aspect of crying and
Extraversion was considerable correlated with crying. (Peter, el, al,.2001) found a
correlation between crying and personality. Women displayed a negative relation between
Emotional Stability and crying for both negative and positive reasons. For men, there was a
negative correlation between crying for negative reason and Emotional Stability. Moreover,
there were significant negative relationships between Emotional Stability and all crying
indices (i.e., crying for negative reasons, crying for positive reasons, crying frequency and
crying proneness). For men there was a negative correlation between Emotional stability
and only crying for negative reasons.
Rottenberg, Bylsma, Wolvin and Vingerhoets (2008) carried out a study into individuals’
different approaches to crying. (Rottenberg, et, al, .2008) monitored 196 female participants
from the Netherlands. Participants required completed 6 questionnaires and the result
showed that there was a relationship between personality characteristics and crying
9
frequency and crying proneness. (Rottenberg, et, al,. 2008) found that a higher level of
Extraversion, Neuroticism and Empathy were related to a self- reported ease of crying.
Moreover, individuals with higher levels of Empathy and Extraversion reported crying more
frequently. (Van Hemert, el, al,.2011) were used two personality questionnaires across
cultures and the results showed that Big Five extraversion has a significant positive
correlated to the crying variables. However, there was a not relationship between EPQ
extraversion, and crying and also there was not significant correlation between neuroticism
scores (Big Five Personality and EPQ) and crying.
The Present Study
The aim of the present study was to examine crying proneness, crying frequency and
tendency to cry in 3 cultures (Arabs, Western and Persian) in different countries. The
present study was to investigated, how different cultures, and personalities determine adult
crying and compared cross-cultural gender differences in crying.
The Hypotheses are as follows:
1. There will be differences between the performance of Arab, Persian and Western on
crying frequency, crying proneness and general tendency to cry.
2. There will be significant differences between genders on crying frequency, crying
proneness and tendency to cry.
3. There will be interaction between gender and culture.
4. Extraversion and Emotional Stability will have an association with the three measures of
crying.
10
Methodology
Participants
Sixty participants from three ethnic groups (Arabs, Persian, and Western) were used, with
an equal number of females and males drawn from each group. The sample consisted of
friends and relatives in the ages range of 20-45. The questionnaires were sent to 160
participants and 60 participants (mean=33.27, SD=7.07) completed the questionnaire. Arabs
(mean age=34.62, SD=7.04, rang age=25, N=21), Persian (mean age=31, SD=6.95, rang age=
23, N=15) and participants originated from a Western background (mean age=33.5,
SD=7.13, rang age=25, N=24). Participants were contacted by email, telephone or in person,
and the study then took place via emails or post. There were no personality measures
available for 17 participants (6 female and 3 female from Persian group, 3 male and 4
female from Arabs group, and 1 female from western group) because the Big Five
Personality questionnaire presented in English version. Therefore, the analysis of the
influence of personality measures on crying variables was carried out on a smaller number
of participants.
Materials
The three crying measures were derived from the Adult Crying Inventory, which applied in
the (Vingerhoets and Cornelius, 2001) see Appendix the ACI questionnaire has been
translated into Arabic and Farsi. The Arabic questionnaire (ACI-R) had already been
translated by the (Vingerhoets and Cornelius, 2001) (see Appendix) and the ACI
questionnaire (Farsi version) was translated by a professional translator from Iran. The ACI-
part A is limited to the following measures: 1) Crying Proneness (CP) was assessed by 54
items regarding the situations and emotions that may induce crying. 2) Estimated Crying
Frequency (ECF), Can you estimate how often you have cried in the last four weeks? 3)
Estimated Crying Tendency (ECT): How would you rate your general tendency to cry?
Participants were requested to rate their Crying Proneness using 54 items on a Likert-scale
(1= I never cry; 7= I always cry). Self-rating their general crying tendency used a 10-point
scale (1= I hardly ever cry; 10= I can cry very easily) and for crying frequency there were no
minimum or maximum scores (see Appendix). To measure the five basic personality factors,
the Five Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) (Hendriks, Hofstee and De Raad (1999) was
11
used. The questionnaire consists of 50 items (for example; 1. Am the life of the party, 2. Feel
little concern for others, 3. Am always prepared, 4. Get stressed out easily) and participants
responded using a five-point Likert scale (1= Inaccurate to 5= very Accurate). For further
details see Appendix. The FFPI questionnaire measures the following dimensions:
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Autonomy. A
Qualtrics system was used in the form of an online survey in which two questionnaires were
formed, both used in the study.
Design
This study used a between-subjects design. One of independent variable was gender with
two levels (female and male) and another independent variable was culture with three
levels (Arabic, Persian and Western). The dependent variables were crying measures (crying
frequency, tendency to cry and crying proneness and personality measures (Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Autonomy).
The measures used for culture and gender were Nominal. For crying proneness, crying
frequency, tendency to cry, Extraversion, agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional
Stability and Autonomy were measured using scales.
Procedure
Two questionnaires were presented separately to each participant. They completed the
questionnaires in two stages. The questionnaires were delivered in one of three ways: 1) by
post, with self-addressed envelopes and returned by post. 2) face to face to the participant,
and 3) via email which used Qualtrics system . In the first stage, participants completed the
Adult Crying inventory (ACI) questionnaire and in the second and final stage, participants
completed the Big Five Personality questionnaire, the time for each participant was
approximately 20 minutes for both questionnaires.
12
Result
Table 1. Means and Standard deviations are presented for cultures and crying.
Crying Culture Mean Male
S.D Male
Mean Female
S.D Female
Crying Proneness
Crying Frequency
Tendency to Cry
ArabsPersianWesternTotal
ArabsPersianWesternTotal
ArabsPersianWesternTotal
76.055.8374.2569.9
1.540.171.751.19
3.273.04.53.43
47.9246.8951.746.71
2.540.4081.712.04
3.232.373.692.99
166.678.6136.9131.05
12.05.223.956.307
5.85.336.255.92
69.2730.8954.5861.89
17.67.14.1710.35
2.692.342.552.50
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Table 2. Mean and standard deviations are presented for personality
Culture Extraversion Agreeablenes
s
Conscientiousness Emotional
Stability
Autonomy
Arabs
Mean
N
S.D
29.36
14
6.88
33.28
14
7.86
34.14
14
5.05
30.43
14
5.53
30.07
14
5.87
Persian
Mean
N
S.D
31.33
6
5.72
34.5
6
7.61
34.0
6
4.52
27.67
6
4.76
32.33
6
4.23
Western
Mean
N
S.D
34.22
23
7.65
41.26
23
7.05
34.91
23
5.76
31.26
23
9.55
39.17
23
4.61
Total
Mean
N
S.D
32.23
43
7.36
37.72
43
8.18
34.53
43
5.27
30.49
43
7.83
35.26
43
6.51
14
Table 3. Mean and standard deviations are presented for personality by gender.
Gender Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Emotional
Stability
Autonomy
Male
Mean
N
S.D
32.27
15
7.06
33.73
15
8.15
33.87
15
5.03
32.8
15
5.23
33.4
15
6.54
Female
Mean
S.D
32
28
7.64
39.86
28
7.49
34.89
28
5.47
29.25
28
8.76
36.25
28
6.39
Total
Mean
N
S.D
32.23
43
7.36
37.72
43
8.18
34.53
43
5.28
30.49
43
7.83
35.26
43
6.52
Table 1 and 2 and 3 are represented the summery of means and standard deviations for 3
cultures and three difference measure of crying and standard deviations for personality
aspects by gender.
Culture
Descriptive Statistics indicated that Persians (group 1), (means=69.46, S.D=38.24) obtained a
lower score than Arabs (group 2), (means=119.14, S.D=73.87) and Westerners (control
group), (mean=126.45, S.D=73.87) in regards to crying proneness. There was a similar score
15
for crying frequency in Persian culture (means=3.2, S.D=6.57) and Western culture
(mean=3.58, S.D=3.93) but there was higher score for Arabs (mean=6.52, S.D=13.08). There
was not much differences in the scores for; Arabs (mean=4.47, S.D=3.18), Persians
(mean=4.4, S.D=2.55) and Westerners (mean=5.9, S.D=2.75) tendency to cry. A one-way
between-groups multivariate analysis of variance was performed to investigate the effect of
culture on crying. Preliminary assumptions testing (Pillai’s Trace, Wilks’s Lambda, Hotelling’s
Trace and Roy’s Larges Root tests) indicated no serious violations. The results showed that
cultural had a significant effect on crying proneness (F (2, 54) =4.58, p=.014). But culture had
no significant effect on crying frequency (F (2, 54) =1.39, p= 0.26), or on tendency to cry on
crying frequency. Cultural also had no significant effect (F (2, 54) = 5.32, p= 0.49) on tendency
to cry. A Post-Hoc pair wise comparison using the Bonferroni test showed that, for crying
proneness, the significant differences were between Arabian and Persian cultures (p=0.02)
and between Persion and Western cultures (p=0.005). There was no significant difference
(p=1.00) between Arabian and Western cultures. Persian culture was significantly different
from the others in crying proneness.
Gender:
The result of the Descriptive Statistic of the three cultures was higher crying proneness
score for females (mean=131.05, S.D=61.89) than males (mean=69.9, S.D=46.71). For crying
frequency, there was higher score for females (mean=6.3, S.D=10.35) than males
(mean=1.19, S.D=2.04) and for tendency to cry there was a higher score for females
(mean=5.92, S.D=2.5) than for males (mean=3.42, S.D=2.99). A one-way between-groups
multivariate analysis of variance was performed to investigate the effect of gender on
crying. Preliminary assumptions testing (Pillai’s Trace, Wilks’s Lambda, Hotelling’s Trace and
Roy’s Larges Root tests) indicated no serious violations. The results indicated that gender
had a significant effect crying proneness (F (1, 54) = 14.56, p=0.0001) a significant effect on
crying frequency (F (1, 54=5.94, p=0.18) and significant effect on tendency to cry (F (1, 54) = 7.55,
p=0.008).
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Gender and Culture:
The interaction between gender and culture was not significant for crying proneness (F (2, 54)
=1.78, P=0.17), crying frequency (F (2, 54) =1.1, p=0.34) and tendency to cry (F (2, 54) =0.84,
p=0.92).
Personality:
The Descriptive Statistic for personality showed; Extraversion (mean=32.23, N=43,
S.D=7.36), Agreeableness (mean=37.72, N=43, S.D=8.81), Conscientiousness (mean=34.53,
N=43 S.D=5.27), Emotional Stability (mean=30.48, N=43, 7.83) and Autonomy (mean=35.25,
N=43, S.D=6.51). The Pearson’s correlation Coefficient indicated that there was a significant,
moderate, a negative, correlation between Extraversion (r=-0.46, N=43, p=0.002) and
tendency to cry. An increase in Extraversion tended to be associated with a decrease in
tendency to cry. The correlation between Extraversion and crying frequency was not
significant (r=-0.16, N=43, p=0.29), and nor was the correlation between Extraversion and
crying proneness (r=-0.24, N=43, p=0.11).
The Pearson’s correlation Coefficient indicated that there was a significant moderate
negative correlation between Emotional Stability and tendency to cry (r=-0.34, N=43,
p=0.02). An increase in Emotional Stability tended to be associated with a decrease in
tendency to cry. There was a significant weak positive correlation between Agreeableness
and tendency to cry (r=0.31, N=43, p=0.04). As Agreeableness increases the tendency to cry
also tended to be increased. The correlation between Emotional Stability and crying
frequency was not significant (r=-0.17, N=43, p=0.26) and nor was the correlation between
Emotional Stability and crying proneness (r=-0.25, N=43, p=0.106). The correlation between
Agreeableness and crying Frequency (r=0.82, N=43, p=0.60) was not highly significant and
nor was the correlation between Agreeableness and crying proneness (r=0.25, N=43,
p=0.105). The correlation between Conscientiousness and crying proneness also did not
show a huge significance (r=0.16, N=43, p=0.3) and nor did the correlation between
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Conscientiousness and tendency to cry (r=0.001, N=43, p=0.1) and nor was the correlation
between Conscientiousness and crying frequency (r=0.17, N=43, p=0.27). The correlation
between Autonomy and crying proneness was not highly significant either (r=-0.015, N=43,
p=0.92) and nor was the correlation between Autonomy and tendency to cry (r=-0.03, N=43,
p=0.86) the correlation between Autonomy and crying frequency also did not have a great
significance either. (r=-0.17, N=43, p=0.26).
Discussion
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