Depression News:

Depression May Blunt Emotional Responses Like Crying

People who are depressed are no more likely to cry than people who are not depressed, according to a study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Researchers at Stanford University found that long-term depression may actually diminish the likelihood of crying.

The study was developed to get a better idea of the emotional disturbances at the core of depression. The study compared 48 women and 23 men diagnosed with major depression with 24 women and 9 men with no psychiatric problems.

Each participant was shown a portion of a tear-jerking movie clip known to evoke strong emotion. They were monitored for how much they cried and how sad they looked. Bodily changes such as heart and breathing rates, palm sweatiness and whether body movement were also recorded.

Approximately one-fifth of the participants cried during the film, whether they were depressed or not, but the depressed participants did not cry any longer or harder than the non-depressed group. The depressed subjects reported feeling "less sad" than the non-depressed criers, and those who had been depressed the longest cried the least.

The study's findings are evidence that depression blunts emotional responses rather than exaggerates them, reported the researchers.

"It's as though crying is no longer able to coordinate the body and mind as it does for people who are not depressed," said James Gross, psychology associate and co-author of the study. "I think that has profound significance for how we as a society conceptualize and even treat depression."

Researchers speculate that the chronically depressed might cry less over time because crying often occurs when a person is distressed and wants help from other people. After being depressed for a long period of time, the crying behavior may dwindle away because it is no longer effective in bringing help from others.

Both depressed and non-depressed women cried far more often than men after watching the film. Only one man, who was not depressed, cried during the session.

"That's a bit of a mystery to us," said Gross. "We really think that crying… has a powerful biological basis. But the fact that men and women (reacted) in such different ways to me suggests that these biological processes take place in a larger cultural context."

In a related study to be published in the journal Psychophysiology, Stanford researchers looked at bodily changes that occurred after crying episodes and found that non-depressed people appeared to recover more quickly from the effects of crying that depressed people. Researchers believe that depressed people may not have the ability to right themselves once the crying response kicks in. A depressed person may become less flexible and get easily stuck in the emotional response.

Source: Depression Week of June 2, 2002