Have you ever wondered why you feel like crying during a well-executed AT&T advertisement, even when you know you’re being emotionally manipulated? Do you think you cry more often because you were socialized growing up to feel that emotions mattered and women are more naturally care-givers? Sure, society certainly plays a role in how we develop, but perhaps more importantly, women are, biologically wired to cry more.
We have higher levels of the hormone, prolactin, which controls, among other things, the development of tear glands. That means that we are 4 times more likely to cry than men. And our tear glands are even constructed differently from men. According to Dr. William Frey, who studies tears, when men cry 73 percent of the time tears do not fall down their cheeks they get misty-eyed. Tears, on the other hand, almost always flow down women’s cheeks.
Are there times at work when you’ve cried and you wish you had not?
