Trump 'needs to learn how to cry' from Obama: experts

Donald Trump has one big lesson to learn from outgoing US President Barack Obama -- he needs to learn to be cool about crying.

"If he could squeeze one tear out during his inauguration" on Friday, "people will turn around quite quickly their feelings towards him", British behavioural expert Judi James told AFP.

"Clearly he is going to go swanning out there with his alpha male feathers strutting, but if at the right moment he could squeeze out a tear it would have an amazing effect on people," said the author of "The Body Language Bible".

Showing his emotions certainly worked for Obama, James argued.

The president has wept at least 10 times on camera since he took office, most tellingly when tears poured down his cheeks last year when he talked about the toll gun violence was taking on America. He wiped away another few earlier this month when paying tribute to his wife Michelle and his teenage daughters in a farewell speech in Chicago.

And for Trump, "crying would be ideal" to allay the worries of a world fretting about what his presidency will hold, she said.

For her, Obama's tears helped show his sincerity, connected him with the public and undercut his reputation as an intellectual.

Crying specialist Lauren Bylsma said it was clear that Obama is a man that is comfortable expressing his emotions in public. Crying at the pain of others makes politicians particularly attractive, James added.

Whatever the case, psychologist Jean-Pierre Friedman said he could not imagine Trump ever blubbing publicly. "He's someone from another generation. Fifty years ago the attitude was 'men do not cry'. He's a hardened old cowboy."