VICTORIA (CUP) — Dry those eyes, ladies — it turns out crying does nothing to attract the opposite sex.

According to a new study performed by Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, tears of sadness may temporarily lower a man's testosterone level by sending a chemical signal when the man gets close enough to sniff them, even though there's no discernible odor. Researchers also found that emotional tears are chemically different from the reflex tears that form from an irritated eye.

While the power of female tears has historically been played on in real life and Hollywood, the study has raised a long-standing question in the biological world: Are tears simply cathartic, or do they achieve a physiological role in our survival?

While the results may not be unique to female tears, the study could not conclude if male-to-male tears had the same effect, since researchers found it difficult find male volunteers.

"It's hard to get men to volunteer to cry (in a lab)," Weizmann neurobiologist Noam Sobel, senior author of the study, told media.

When scientists found that mice can produce a type of tear that contains pheromones — an odorless molecule that triggers basic instincts in many animals — Sobel's team decided to test whether or not human tears could also convey those subliminal chemical messages by having women watch a sad movie in the lab and collect their tears in a vial. Researchers also trickled saline down the women's cheeks and collected those droplets, for comparison.

While healthy young men couldn't smell a difference between the natural tears and the fakes, a series of tests showed that there was a real response. The men were given women's photographs to rate. When they sniffed actual tears, they found the women less sexually attractive than when they sniffed saline. Not only that, to the surprise of researchers — and the dismay of many tissue-toting women — sniffing actual tears didn't make the men empathetic.

Saliva tests of testosterone levels found a dip in that hormone after the men sniffed tears, but not the salt water. And when they sniffed tears and watched a sad movie inside a brain-scanning MRI machine, the men showed less activity in the neural networks associated with sexual arousal.

While tear ducts do bear receptors for sex hormones, researchers are still questioning the evolutionary function of crying. Sobel, who is now working on discerning the active molecule in tears, says it could be a "chemosignal" to function as a sign of sexual disinterest, or a proxy for lowering aggression.

"(Crying) is a signal that allows its user to say, 'Now is not the right time.' I predict there are other signals that say, 'Now it is,'" Sobel said to media. "This is just one of many chemosignals."

Craig McGuigan, counselling coordinator at Vancouver Island University, says that tears are an adaptive response, making it easier for us to make sense of their myriad uses.

"There is a general conception that men respond with an amount of anxiety to someone who is being emotive, which comes from conditioning as well," said McGuigan. "Men are conditioned to suppress emotion in our society, so apart from anything sexual or attracting, there is a sense of helplessness that they feel — perhaps more commonly than women — when faced with someone who is crying."

McGuigan says that while it may be impossible to change deep-seated evolutionary responses, people still have control over how they react to them.

"When someone is crying there are a range of messages being sent there, and the anxiety itself can be repelling to some men," said McGuigan. "But I would pose that if men did something counter-intuitive and leaned into the experience, they would not only offer comfort to someone, they would find an opportunity for growth within themselves."

Sean Chester, 26, is a PhD student at the University of Victoria. While Chester wouldn't be so bold as to say seeing his girlfriend cry would turn him off, he did admit that "it certainly would ruin the mood."

"Your instinct is to make the girl stop crying, because you feel like it's your responsibility — even if it has nothing to do with you," Chester said.

While the context can change the reaction, physical contact and asking what's wrong are usually Chester's first response.

"If the study shows that men are turned off by tears, then that just proves it's in every guy's best interest to keep his girl happy and not crying," Chester offered. "That feeling (of attraction) will come back quickly, though."