- published: 06 May 2016
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Crying (also called sobbing, weeping, wailing, whimpering, bawling, and blubbering) is shedding tears as a response to an emotional state in humans. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, without any irritation of the ocular structures". A related medical term is lacrimation, which also refers to non-emotional shedding of tears.
A neuronal connection between the lacrimal gland (tear duct) and the areas of the human brain involved with emotion has been established. Some scientists believe that only humans produce tears in response to emotional states while others disagree.Charles Darwin wrote in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals that the keepers of Indian elephants in the London Zoo told him that their charges shed tears in sorrow.
In many cultures, it is more socially acceptable for women and children to cry, and less socially acceptable for men to cry.
Tears produced during emotional crying have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tears. They contain significantly greater quantities of the hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, Leu-enkephalin and the elements potassium and manganese.
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. Fear is apparently a universal emotion; all persons, consciously or unconsciously, have fear in some sort. In short, fear is the ability to recognize danger leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it (also known as the fight-or-flight response) but in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) a freeze or paralysis response is possible."Fear is the basic condition ... the job that we're here to do is to learn how to live in a way that we're not terrified all the time."- Luc Sante "The Heroic Nerd", 2006. Some psychologists such as John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that fear belongs to a small set of basic or innate emotions. This set also includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any certain or immediate external threat.