Sharing tears over a sad movie ‘can strengthen bonds between people’

Research has shown that crying together over a sad movie can strengthen bonds between people, even if they are strangers.

Previous research has shown that tissue exposure while watching tragic films can increase levels of feel-good hormones produced in the brain, known as endorphins.

New research published in the journal Royal Society Open Science suggests that sharing emotions with others – while watching a comedy or a sad film – can also help strengthen social bonds.

A team led by Victor Chung of PSL University in Paris recruited 112 people aged 18 to 35 and paired them.

Couples who did not know each other were asked to watch emotional videos, both together and separately.

The researchers monitored their physiological and emotional reactions, as well as how they felt about each other, after watching the video together.

The results showed that people felt more connected when they could see each other while watching the video and when they both felt strong emotions, regardless of whether they were positive or negative.

In a follow-up online experiment involving 50 people, participants were asked to watch clips from the French comedy “The Intouchables,” the documentary “Earthlings,” which depicts the suffering of animals in captivity, and a YouTube video designed to not evoke strong emotions.

The team wrote: “Our results supported the hypothesis that emotions serve a binding function, as they may explain how brief one-time interactions with strangers can facilitate the satisfaction of the need to belong to social groups.

“The current research may also explain why people seek out group activities that evoke strong and arousing emotions, even participating in sad wakes or attending dramatic works of fiction that evoke negative emotions.”