Published in the Journal Feminist Criminology in 2008.
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BIOBEHAVIORAL RESPONSES TO STRESS IN FEMALES: TEND-AND-BEFRIEND, NOT FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT
UCLA Research Study - Printed in Psychological Review - Vol. 107
Direct Link to Research Report: http://www.findem.com.au/resources/tendandbefriend.pdf
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http://www.sott.net/articles/show/151332-UCLA-Study-On-Friendship-Among-Women
09 Mar 2009
Flashback:
UCLA
Study On Friendship Among Women
Gale
Berkowitz
A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They
shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner
world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we
really are. By the way, they may do even more.
Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually
counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a
daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a
cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with
other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress
research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published,
scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger
a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast
as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of
Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's
an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the
planet by saber-toothed tigers.
Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than
just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone
oxytocin is release as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the
fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with
other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending,
studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress
and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men,
says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when
they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she
adds, seems to enhance it.
The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a
classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking
one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in
the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded,
says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their
own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of
the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two
of us knew instantly that we were onto something.
The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after
another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor
discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made
a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has
significant implications for our health.
It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin
encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the
"tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may
explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that
social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate,
and cholesterol. There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us
live longer.
In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends
increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those
who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more
than 60%.
Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from
Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely
they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely
they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant,
the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidants was as
detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight.
And that's not all. When the researchers looked at how well the women
functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of
this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante
were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments
or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so
fortunate. Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much
of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life,
why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles
researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The
Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers
Press, 1998). The following paragraph is, in my opinion, very, very true and
something all women should be aware of and NOT put our female friends on the
back burners.
Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is
let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push them
right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a
source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have
unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do
when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience...
* * * * *
Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R.,
& Updegraff, J. A. Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or
Flight" Psychol Rev, 107(3):41-429.
Biobehavioral
Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, not Fight-or-Flight.
(Full article in PDF)
Geary DC, Flinn MV. Sex differences in behavioral and hormonal response to social
threat: commentary on Taylor et al. Psychol Rev 2002
Oct;109(4):745-50; discussion 751-3
Cousino Klein L, Corwin EJ. Seeing the unexpected: how sex differences in stress responses
may provide a new perspective on the manifestation of psychiatric disorders.
Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2002 Dec;4(6):441-8.
UCLA Researchers Identify Key Biobehavioral Pattern Used By
Women To Manage Stress