Personality and crying

There is ample evidence showing wide inter-individual differences in crying frequency and crying proneness. For example, Frey et al. (1983) reported substantial differences in crying frequency, in particular, among women. Other studies, such as those by Williams and Morris (1996) and Vingerhoets and Becht (1997; see also Chapter 6, this volume), also revealed sizeable differences in crying frequency among individuals. Moreover, exposing individuals to an emotional movie shows in rather large inter-individual differences in the kind of scenes that evoke crying as well as in its amount and intensity. Even the most powerful scenes evoked a crying response in no more than approximately one-third of the participating women (see Chapter 5, this volume).