The Meme That Swept Online and Captivated Office Workers... The Surprising Impact of Tears [Experiment Note]

There is a book titled "Don't Let Your Mood Become Your Attitude." It offers the message that even when you are angry or feel wronged, you must manage your emotions and not be swayed by them if you want to live wisely. This title resonates with many office workers. Online, clever memes such as "Don’t Let Your Mood Turn Into Your Attitude," "Mood Turns Into Attitude," "Mood Becomes Attitude," and just "Attitude" have become popular, humorously illustrating how hard it is to hide our emotions.

The viral online meme "Don’t Let Your Mood Turn Into Your Attitude." Instagram

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However, bottling up your emotions does not always lead to good results. A recent study by a research team at the University of Pennsylvania, published in the international journal Evolution and Human Behavior, took a different angle on this familiar belief.

Previous research has mainly focused on how people who express their emotions are evaluated. In contrast, there has been relatively little attention paid to how such expressions affect the reputation of the person on the receiving end.

The researchers compared the social consequences of remaining calm and suppressing emotions during conflict versus behaviors like crying or shouting. The study asked more than 3,000 American adults to evaluate the responses of individuals in over six different types of interpersonal conflict situations, including with colleagues, team members, roommates, same-gender friends, romantic partners, and neighbors.

The results showed that individuals who suppressed their emotions and responded calmly received the most positive evaluations. They were seen as calm, mature, and trustworthy. In contrast, those who showed anger and shouted experienced the greatest deterioration in reputation.

The pattern was different when someone cried during a conflict. The person who cried did suffer some damage to their own reputation, but third-party observers tended to evaluate the other party in the conflict even more negatively. In other words, maintaining composure is advantageous for protecting your own image, but its impact on the other party is limited, while crying, though it comes at a personal cost, places an even greater reputational burden on the opponent. This shows that emotional expression not only reflects an individual's response but also affects how others are evaluated and how they feel.

Photo is not related to specific content of the article. Pexels

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The research team explained, "This shows that composure and tears have opposite trade-offs. Tears can diminish the reputation of the other party in interpersonal conflict, but at the same time, they also negatively affect your own reputation. On the other hand, maintaining composure helps protect your own reputation, but is less effective at weakening the opponent."

They added, "The saying 'Living well is the best revenge' is only half true in this context. Staying calm during conflict can enhance your own social evaluation, but by itself, it may not be enough to completely bring down your opponent."

However, the researchers also noted some limitations. The initial experiments were based on hypothetical scenarios, so the emotional intensity may have been lower than in real-life conflicts, and the fact that all participants were American means that potential cultural differences were not reflected. They added that it would be necessary to verify the effects of emotional expression in more realistic settings in the future.

Newborns, who cannot speak or act, can only express their pain and needs through crying. Crying is the first instinctive tool humans use to survive. However, as we grow, we are taught that controlling our emotions is a sign of competence, and as we get older, we become more accustomed to wiping away our tears in private.

This study suggests that tears during conflict can become a variable affecting the social reputation of the other party. If "not letting your mood become your attitude" is a shield to protect yourself, then at times, unhidden tears can also be a way to put pressure on the other party to take responsibility. However, if crying is used simply to avoid a situation, it can end up damaging the reputation of everyone involved, so caution is advised.

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