Buzz
Every year, countless viewers willingly spend their money on films designed to pull at their heartstrings.
Certain plays and novels have earned a reputation for evoking tears (let's not even mention Where the Red Fern Grows), but movies seem to have a unique ability to tap into our emotions. We consulted experts to uncover how these tear-jerking films work their magic and why audiences are so drawn to them.
DISTINGUISHING FICTION FROM REALITY
In the 19th century, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested that great fiction depends on a “willing suspension of disbelief.” In other words, when watching a play, the audience must balance two conflicting thoughts: I know the actors are pretending, but I’ll pretend it’s real anyway. Coleridge believed that this unspoken agreement between the performers and their audience makes the acting seem convincing—and leaves the audience open to emotional vulnerability.
Dr. Jeffrey Zacks, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of the book Flicker: Your Brain on Movies, argues that Coleridge had it all wrong.
“You know it’s just a movie. But large parts of your brain don’t process that distinction,” Zacks explains. “This makes sense because our brains evolved long before movies existed, and our sensory systems are designed to handle real-world problems. Our brains weren’t built to watch films: Films evolved to exploit the brains we already have.”
As Zacks explains to Mytour, films tap into the algorithms already embedded in our brains. When our nervous system encounters something in a movie that appears real, our brain reacts accordingly. This is why “jump scares” in horror films are so effective: You’re experiencing a natural, uncontrollable biological reaction.
UNCONSCIOUSLY WE ROLL ALONG
These instinctive reactions happen constantly in the theater—just observe the audience’s expressions. According to Zacks, when a character shows emotion, like frowning, smiling, or laughing, the audience often unknowingly mirrors these actions. When a character cries, your own facial muscles may mimic their sorrow, causing a buildup of pressure around your eyes and triggering your tear ducts.
This involuntary mimicry—what Zacks refers to as the “mirror rule”—is an ancient survival instinct. Long ago, if you saw a group of cavemen running, you didn’t pause to investigate; instead, the instinct to run yourself kicked in automatically, and you’d analyze the situation later, as explained by Dr. Tanya Chartrand and her colleagues in a chapter of The New Unconscious [PDF].
Because the face is the most prominent part of the body, it’s particularly sensitive to this automatic mimicry response. Chartrand, a professor of marketing, psychology, and neuroscience at Duke University, notes that this reaction is an everyday part of life. If you smile at a baby, the baby often smiles back; if you yawn in front of a friend, your friend is likely to yawn too; sit at a job interview and scratch your forehead, and your interviewer may start scratching theirs.
This effect even occurs on a subconscious level, undetectable to the naked eye. In a study published in Psychological Science, researchers showed test subjects images of neutral faces, with a happy or sad face flashing briefly just before. The test subjects didn’t consciously register the happy or sad faces, but their brains did, as revealed by the involuntary twitching of their facial muscles.
Clever filmmakers have been exploiting this evolutionary quirk for over a century. As psychologist Hugo Münsterberg observed in his 1916 book The Photoplay, widely considered the first work of film criticism: “Our imitation of the emotions we see expressed brings vividness and emotional depth to our understanding of the [movie’s] action. We sympathize with the character’s pain, and that pain becomes our own.”
SUPERNORMAL STIMULI
Just because your face mirrors an expression you see on the screen doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily experience that exact emotion. However, it certainly increases the likelihood. “Functional MRI studies show that circuits in the emotional brain can be activated by watching emotional expressions on the screen,” Zacks explains.
Movies often have a knack for triggering heightened emotional reactions. The reason for this can be best understood through the behavior of herring gulls.
In 1947, biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen was observing the feeding behavior of nesting herring gull chicks, which solicit food by pecking at the parent’s beak. Tinbergen conducted an experiment, offering the chicks models that looked progressively less like their parents. To his surprise, Tinbergen found that the more unrealistic the model, the more exaggerated the chicks’ pecking became.
Tinbergen termed this reaction a supernormal stimulus. In simple terms, exaggerated stimuli can provoke exaggerated responses.
The cinema is crafted to overwhelm your senses. Nothing in your evolutionary makeup has prepared you for the sight of 30-foot-tall faces. The dialogue, colors, framing, camera angles, and editing all work together to intensify these stimuli, amplifying your subconscious reactions.
“The combination of stimulus features that a movie presents can often be much more consistent, much stronger, and much more powerful than what we typically experience in the normal range,” Zacks tells Mytour.
With the cinematic environment setting your body up to react emotionally, all it takes is for the actors to deliver that perfect moment.
THE SECRETS TO A “GOOD CRY”
When you ask someone why they choose to watch a sad film, they’ll often say it lifts their spirits. This concept, known as the tragedy paradox, has puzzled philosophers from Aristotle to David Hume: Why would anyone purposely seek out something painful to feel better?
Evidence suggests that a “good cry” can have therapeutic effects. A 2008 review published in Current Directions in Psychological Science cited a study analyzing 3000 crying episodes and found that 60 to 70 percent of people reported feeling better after crying [PDF]. (One third experienced no mood improvement, and 10 percent felt worse.)
“When you ask people if they feel better after crying, most will say yes,” explains Dr. Lauren Bylsma, a crying expert and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. “However, if you ask about a specific crying episode—especially soon after it—many people say they didn’t feel better after crying.” The further removed we are from a crying experience, the more likely we are to deceive ourselves about its emotional benefits. A 2015 study in Motivation and Emotion found that it took 90 minutes for participants’ moods to improve after watching emotionally charged movie clips.
Crying tends to be most therapeutic when the person is surrounded by a supportive network, according to Bylsma. It also appears to have more benefits when it leads people to reflect on the reasons behind their emotions. A 2012 study supports this idea: Researchers at Ohio State University had 361 college students watch an edited version of Atonement and found that those who found the film the saddest also felt the happiest afterward, as the movie prompted them to reflect on their personal relationships.
Interestingly, the study found that downward comparisons—such as thinking “at least my life isn’t as bad as that” —did not enhance a viewer’s enjoyment. “Tragedies don’t increase life satisfaction by making viewers focus more on themselves,” said Dr. Silvia Knoblock-Westerwick, lead author of the study, told Ohio State News. “They resonate with people because they help them appreciate their own relationships more.”
For those keeping score, here’s the formula for crying at the movies (and feeling good about it): Choose a deeply emotional film with lots of close-up shots. Watch it in a controlled environment, on a large screen that amplifies the stimuli, and gather a few supportive friends. Finally, connect with the characters, and don’t forget the popcorn.
