Abstract
This article describes a research project in which a qualitative research was carried out consisting of 24 semi-structured interviews and a subsequent data analysis using the MAXQDA software in order to investigate a particular dimorphic emotional expression: tears of joy (TOJ). The working hypothesis is that TOJ are not only an atypical expression due to a “super joy,” or that they are only an attempt by the organism to self-regulate the excess of joyful emotion through the expression of the opposite emotion (sadness), but that it is an emotional experience in its own right—not entirely overlapping with joy—with a specific adaptive function. Through the interviews, conducted in a cross-cultural context (mainly in India and Japan), we explored the following possibility: what if the adaptive function of crying for joy were to signal, to those experiencing it, the meaning of their life; the most important direction given to their existence? The material collected provided positive support for this interpretation.
Highlights
The emotions we experience and express have an adaptive function
The different emotional investment in the interviews between Indian and Japanese participants can be seen through the different richness of the codes attributed during the qualitative analysis: the interviews of the Indian participants have an average of 34.9 codes attributed to each interview; in the case of the Japanese participants the average number of codes per interview is 13.5
Another interesting finding is that almost all Japanese interviewees, all those from a predominantly mountainous prefecture bordering Tokyo, initially confused the interviewer’s description of tears of joy (TOJ) with a different type of emotional experience that they claimed they had experienced many times: feeling sadness inside and showing joy externally
Summary
The emotions we experience and express have an adaptive function. They allow us to live better in the surrounding environment and respond to specific circumstances (e.g., fleeing from danger in response to feeling fear). They are the result of a process, of a largely unconscious process of self-regulation, which modulates their nature, intensity and manifestations. We make conscious attempts to modify our emotions in order to align them with our goals and interests by asking ourselves whether it is useful to feel fear when facing a certain difficulty. Emotional regulations mean that one is able to modulate their form or mitigate their urgency.
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