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Asked by sh4rin to Louise, Michaela, Sian, Steve, Yvette on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
Question: If when you hurt yourself the reflex action is to pull away from that pain. But why do we produce tears?
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Sian Harding answered on 16 Jun 2010:
Normal tears are eye lubrication, but stress tears contain stress hormones – it may be partly a way of getting rid of them.
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Louise Johnson answered on 16 Jun 2010:
Like a lot of good questions, the answer is that nobody knows! Humans are the only animals that make tears in response to distress – other mammals only use tears to wash grit out of their eyes.
The only suggestion I’ve seen is that it might be a way to show helplessness, so that whoever you’re fighting doesn’t see you as a threat and stops hitting you! But that doesn’t explain why humans should be the only ones who do this, or why we ever cry when we’re alone. You might well be able to come up with a better explanation yourself – any thoughts?
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Steven Kiddle answered on 16 Jun 2010:
We produce tears to keep our eyes wet. Sometimes we also produce tears when our eyes are irritated (to wash away the problem) or when we are happy, sad or in pain. In response to pain i think it may a way of getting attention from others.
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Michaela Livingstone answered on 16 Jun 2010:
Tears are produced to keep the eye clean – they basically wash the eye so that it doesn’t get dirt stuck in it or get infected by bacteria. In terms of why we cry when we’re hurt, it must be something the brain tells the eyes to do, but I don’t know exactly what purpose it serves to cry when in pain.
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Yvette Wilson answered on 17 Jun 2010:
I’ve had to look this up and so far found out that Darwin was also fascinated by this and wrote a book called ‘The expression of emotion in man an animals’ – so you’re in good company in thinking about it. The general theories that I’ve found so far are along the lines that crying is interpreted by others as an ‘honest’ signal of distress (as opposed to being manipulative) and it might have evolved because a baby’s cry makes us want to care for it. I’m not sure how we can test if these theories are true though.
I will try to come back to this once I’ve answered some more questions 🙂 keep thinking!
Comments
sh4rin commented on :
these are really good answers! personally, im not too sure as to what i think why we produce tears when we are hurt. because although tears are there to keep our eyes moisturised they still come when we feel emotional pain and physical pain. and then it leads off from there – why do we produce tears when we get hit and when someone breaks our hearts? the tears situation has always been mind boggling to me!
Steve commented on :
But in all of those situations we are showing to our friends and family that we need to be comforted. So crying may be a great way to get attention, the fact that its hard to do without extreme emotion means you are unlikely to be ‘crying wolf’. This was a great question!