Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior?

How do our emotional tears affect the way we are treated? We tested whether tears, paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression, elicited prosocial behavior among perceivers. Participants viewed a video clip depicting a confederate partner with or without tears displaying either a neutral or sad facial expression before making a behavioral decision in one of two economic games. In a Trust game (Experiment 1), participants who played the role of the investor were more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate trustee with tears (paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate trustee without tears. However, in a Dictator game (Experiment 2), participants who played the role of allocator were no more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate recipient with tears (paired with either a neutral or sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate recipient without tears. Taken together, these findings suggest that tears increase prosocial behavior by increasing trustworthiness as opposed to generally increasing other-regarding altruistic tendencies.