One is allowed to express few strong emotions in the modern office: enthusiasm, adulation and exultation are exceptions. Studies suggest that if you want to succeed, you should never, ever be seen crying... unless you are a man.

Office tears, traditionally, are kept for the ladies’ loo. A British Psychological Society report published last month says that women often feel better after a good cry and are surprised at how supportive colleagues can be. But the research, by Yasmine Yaghmour, an occupational psychologist at the University of Bedfordshire, adds that women still feel ashamed if they break down at work.

Women use an array of tactics to prevent tears. University of California researchers say that one strategy is to keep boxes of tissues out of sight in offices, because they are a visual cue that crying is OK. Kimberly Elsbach, who led the study, says that physical distraction is another tactic, such as walking around or looking out the window. “Another is to quickly change the subject or to inject humour into the conversation.”

Women’s fear of the harm public tears do to their prospects seems justified. A study at Penn State on gender and the perception of crying suggests that blubbing females are considered weak – or manipulative. By contrast, the study, led by Stephanie Shields, a psychology professor, reports that women and men react more favourably to men who get teary.

It seems that attitudes are shifting. Compared with the 1980s, when studies showed that men’s tears were looked at negatively, Shields’s research suggests that they are now seen as humanising. For women, it seems that the best advice remains that given by Martha Stewart in 2005 on The Apprentice, when she told a contestant: “Women in business don’t cry, my dear.”

For guys, however, the new motto should be: When the going gets tough, the tough get sobbing.

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