Have you ever wondered why your spouse gets weepy over a TV commercial that leaves you dry-eyed? Or why you are apt to burst into tears at a distant cousin’s funeral while your partner stays stoic?
The answer could be that you each cry different types of tears.
The New York Times’s Well section partnered with Ad Vingerhoets, one of the world’s top experts on tears, to create a quiz based on his research, which measured how likely people were to cry in various situations.
The quiz is not meant to be diagnostic. In other words, one type of tears is not better than another. But answering these questions may offer fun insights into what drives our tendency to get teary-eyed.
Are you a Compassionate, Societal, Sentimental or Attachment crier? Or maybe you are not a crier at all. Let’s dive right into this salty puddle!