Advances in Stress & Coping
(and Why Women do it better)
Regan A. R. Gurung, PhD
gurungr@uwgb.edu
www.uwgb.edu/gurungr
Using the National Standards to Promote Excellence in Teaching:
An Institute for High School Psychology Teachers on Biopsychology
July 22-27, 2007
NATIONAL STANDARDS
CONTENT STANDARD 2:
Physiological reactions to stress
2.1 List and explain possible physiological reactions
to stress.
4.1 Identify and explain cognitive strategies to deal
with stress and promote health.
4.2 Identify and explain behavioral strategies to
deal with stress and promote health.
A Stress(ful) Brain Exercise
• 1. List sequence of Aff.,Beh., Cog (start>end).
• 2. List corresponding brain structures.
• 3. Indicate points of “STRESS”
Ways You Can Use This Session
• Showing Psychological Science As Dynamic &
Multifaceted
• Myth Busting: Evolution & Sex Differences
The Agenda
• Evolutionary Basics
• Problems with Past Stress Theories
• A Hot New Stress Theory
Evolutionary Theory Basics
Living organisms show variability.
Behaviors that aid survival are selected for.
Early Threats >> Today’s physiology/behaviors.
But: Long time period for change.
“In the distant future . .
. psychology will be
based on a new
foundation, that of the
necessary acquirement
of each mental power
and capacity by
gradation.”
--Charles Darwin, 1859
Increases in brain size
during evolution
ardipithecus
Australopithecus
homo
habilis
homo
erectus
Neandertal
modern
human
brain size:
300 ccs
brain size:
310-530 ccs
brain size:
580-752
ccs
brain
size:
775-1225
ccs
brain size:
1200-1450
ccs
brain
size:
1350
ccs
Milestones in the Origins of
Modern Humans
Darwin Was Deeply
Troubled by Facts that Could not Be
Explained by Natural Selection
• Hence, need to explain the tremendous importance
of the theory of sexual selection
Intersexual Selection:
Preferential Mate Choice
Core Tenets of Evolution
• All psychological mechanisms, at some
basic level, originate from evolutionary
processes
• Evolved psychological mechanisms are
hardwired in the brain.
Problems With Past Stress Theories
1. Sexist:
Primarily male animals (83%).
Studies either male OR female.
2. Incomplete evolutionary analysis..
Early Stressors
The Problem
• Incomplete Evolutionary analyses.
Suggests few sex differences due to common threats.
Fight/Flight seems to fit major threats.
• BUT>>>>
Men and women faced different challenges.
WHAT ABOUT BABIES?
Females > Greater investment = primary caregivers.
Solution:
Women Developed Additional
Stress Responses
Protect, calm and quiet the child.
Marshall resources to help.
Tend-and-Befriend
(Taylor, Lewis, Gruenwald, Gurung, Klein, & Updegraff, 2000; 2002)
In times of stress
• Women TEND:
Quieting and caring for offspring.
Get infant out of harm’s way.
•
BEFRIEND:
–
and
Create social networks to provide
resources and protection for self
infant.
Tend-and-Befriend
1. Strong Neurochemical Evidence.
Fight-or-Flight (testosterone)
Tend-and-Befriend (oxytocin).
2. Strong Behavioral Evidence.
3. Cross species communality.
Neuroendocrine Basis
• OXYTOCIN (Women > Men)
Released during stress.
Calms SAM and HPA systems,  cortisol & adrenalin.
Counteracts the Fight-or-Flight response.
• TESTOSTERONE (Men > Women)
Released during stress, associated with aggression.
Suppresses effects of Oxytocin.
Fuels the F or F response
T&B: Neuroendocrine Evidence
• Oxytocin injections increase maternal behavior.
• Higher levels make women more social.
• When blocked-No change in men’s social behavior.
Women spent less time with friends (Jamner, et al.,
1998).
Tending: Behavioral Examples
• Tending rat pups > stress reduction
Monkeys, Sheep.
• Breastfeeding mothers are calmer.
• Touch soothes mother and infant.
Tending: A Behavioral Example
Working Parents Study (Repetti, 1997).
Behavior after a busy day.
• MEN :
Want to be left alone.
Fight with kids and wives.
“Don’t bother dad, stay out of his way.”
• WOMEN:
Spent more time with kids.
More physical contact.
Befriending: Behavioral Examples
STUDENT QUESTION:
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU ARE STRESSED?
• WOMEN say:
They talk to their friends.
Share their problems.
Talk on the phone.
Ask directions when lost.
• MEN say:
They put their worries behind them.
Befriending Females is Critical
• Female rats caged together lived 40% longer.
• Under stress female prairie voles turn to female
‘friends’.
• Female primates defend against males.
Robin Dunbar on Baboons
“The male’s attempt to ride herd on his females
often backfire. The victim’s grooming partners
come to her aid, stand shoulder-to shoulder, and
outface the male with outraged threats and
furious barks of their own….
The male invariably ends up being
chased around the mountainside
by irate females in an impressive
display of sisterly solidarity.”
Befriending Women is Critical
Loneliness.
 Time with women =  loneliness.
Time with men = no effect.
Lab Stress.
Men with more supportive wives =  stress in lab.
No effect on women.
Befriending Women is Critical
Affiliation studies.
Men chose to wait alone.
Women chose to wait with other women.
Befriending as Protection against men.
Women waited alone versus with a man (pain study above).
Do Males Tend-and-Befriend ?
Tending.
Minimal cross-species communality.
No direct neurocircuitry.
Befriending.
Groups for defense and aggression.
Larger, task-specific.
 status and power  intimate bonding.
Tend-and-Befriend Summary
• Women have additional stress responses.
– Tend to Infants/others & Befriend other Females.
• Neuroendocrine, Behavioral, Cross-Species.
• Oxytocin