Stress makes men socially

Positive social behavior of stressed men

23/05/2012

Men react to stress with positive social behavior, so the surprising results of a recent study by the research team led by Drs. Bernadette of Dawans and Professor dr. Markus Heinrichs from the University of Freiburg.

As the scientists report in the journal "Psychological Science", so far in men "the fight-or-flight response has generally been considered the prototypical stress response, both physiologically and in behavior." But her recent study has refuted this assumption, Write Dawans and colleagues. Like women, "even men showed social rapprochement as an immediate consequence of stress," Dr. Bernadette of Dawans. This behavior is explained by the "tend-and-befriend concept", which states that in stressful situations, a "tend" and a "friendship" ("befriend") behavior is what the University of Freiburg says.

Social behavior of stressed men experimented for the first time
According to a recent press release from the University of Freiburg, the research team has "experimented for the first time on the social behavior of men under stress." In addition to the Freiburg psychologists and neuroscientists, the economists Professor Dr. med. Ernst Fehr from the University of Zurich and Professor dr. Urs Fischbacher from the University of Konstanz and the psychologist Professor Dr. med. Clemens Kirschbaum from the Dresden University of Technology participated in the current study. In order to determine the social behavior of men in stress situations, the scientists developed a special standardized procedure and designed social interaction games, with which positive social behavior such as trust or sharing, as well as negative social behavior such as punishment, can be measured. At first, 34 volunteer men were exposed to a stressful situation where they had to solve demanding arithmetic tasks under time pressure and present a text in front of an audience. How stressed the subjects were by this procedure, the researchers controlled by the pulse and the content of stress hormones in the saliva.

Stressed men show positive social behavior
Immediately after passing through the stress situation, the men - as well as an equal-sized control group of non-stressed subjects - completed several interaction games to test their social behavior. The subjects played with a computer program asking if they trusted the game partner, how they would divide the earned reward sum between themselves and the partner, and whether they would punish in unfair behavior of the computer partner, even if this for themselves the loss the reward means. The results of the experiments show that "stress triggers a socially approaching behavior that acts as a potent stress-reduction strategy and also confirms the Tend-and-befriend hypothesis," the researchers write in the article "The Social Dimension of Stress Reactivity". Dawans and colleagues said the stressed subjects had significantly more positive social behaviors than those in the control group, but negative social behavior remained unaffected by the subjects' stress, which is surprising, especially since for almost a hundred years there has been a belief that men under stress become aggressive Behavior tend. In fact, in the context of the experiments "stress has no influence on the willingness to show antisocial behavior or to take anti-social risks". Dawans, Professor Heinrichs and colleagues.

Approach behavior in response to stress
The findings disprove previous theories on men's behavior under stress and suggest that men in threatening situations, like women, attach more importance to social bonding and mutual support "Apparently men also show social rapprochement as an immediate consequence of stress" stressed the Dr. Bernadette of Dawans. As part of the experiments, the confidence and the willingness to share in the stress situation increased, while the punishment of the game partner, which is synonymous with aggressive behavior, remained unaffected. (Fp)

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