CRYING ACROSS COUNTRIES
2012
All healthy newborns cry, expressing hunger, pain, or other forms of
distress. However, when growing up, crying behavior changes in
important ways. Does culture affect this development, or do adults in
various cultures cry for the same reasons and in the same situations?
In other words, can adult crying best be seen as a universal phenomenon,
or are there important differences among cultural populations? An early
attempt to study cultural differences in crying behavior was reported by
Borgquist (1906). He collected descriptions of crying episodes from
missionaries and ethnologists in various regions of the world, and found
the same crying inducing situations as in the reports of two hundred
American colleagues who described their own experiences. However, he
also noted cultural differences in the frequency of crying: "Tears are more
frequently shed among the lower races of mankind than among civilized
people" (p. 180). As evidence, Borgquist mentioned the many references
to crying in writings about Latin races, Negroes, Indians, Japanese,
Samoans, Sandwich Islanders and Maoris. Further he wrote: "Among
civilized races there are [also] wide differences," and mentioned the
English, who according to Darwin, shed tears much less freely than
people from the continent. "Racial variations [in crying] are partly due to
custom and, in part, to other causes" (p. 155). To Borgquist's credit it
may be added that he emphasized the need for more research before
definite conclusions could be reached.
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