An Exploration of the Relationships among Depression, Anxiety, Crying and Post-Crying Mood Change

Crying, the emotional shedding of tears, is most often thought of in response to sad or negative emotional antecedents, and is commonly considered to be of some mental or physical benefit to a person. The present study aims to provide further clarification for the relationship between crying behaviors and mood change after crying moderated by depression and anxiety. Survey data was used to test the hypotheses that the severity of clinical factors would be positively associated with crying indices and that post-crying mood change would be negatively associated. All our research hypotheses were supported. To further explore these relationships, multiple regression analyses were also performed controlling for gender and education as covariates and depression and anxiety as predictors. Specific findings and explanations of results are discussed