May
19, 2000
AP
News
LOS ANGELES,
USA - Women react to stress
differently than men, turning to their children and seeking out friends instead
of using the "fight-or-flight" reflex, according to a
study out Friday.
The
University of California, Los Angeles study suggests that the "tend-and-befriend" pattern keeps stressed women
calmer.
Researchers say the response also may help explain why
women are less vulnerable to drug and alcohol abuse and
stress-related disorders such as hypertension than
men.
Researchers
cited several hundred previous studies on rodents, primates and humans to suggest a broad model of how women
deal with stress, although they admitted the hypothesis needs more
testing.
"Men
and women do have some reliably different responses to stress" said lead researcher Shelley E. Taylor, a UCLA
psychology professor. "I think we've really been missing the boat
on one of the most important responses."
Studies
have shown that females facing a predator, disaster or a particularly bad day at the office tend to respond by
caring for their offspring and seeking contact and support from
others, especially other females, the UCLA researchers said.
Such
tendencies may explain why, for example, women are more likely to telephone friends in a crisis, or why "women
ask for directions and men don't," Taylor said.
The
"tend-and-befriend" pattern may be linked to the hormone oxytocin, which is released during stress and has been
shown to make rats and humans calmer, less afraid and more social,
researchers said.
Men
secrete oxytocin, but male hormones seem to reduce its effect, while the female hormone estrogen amplifies it,
Taylor said.
The
concept is intriguing, said Dr. Jean Chen Shih, a professor of molecular
pharmacology and toxicology at the University
of Southern California.
Chen
said her own studies have found that male mice will fight an intruder placed in their cage but females will not.
"I'm
just thinking when I'm stressed, what do I do?" she added. "I think that I talk to my friends. When I have a
problem, I talk. In general, men don't."
Many
human and animal studies have shown that females are more social and less physically aggressive than males. However,
the "tend-and-befriend" pattern hasn't shown up
sharply in scientific literature because until government grant policies changed
in 1995, women were under represented in stress studies, Taylor said.
The
study is to be published late this year or early next year in the Psychological Review of the American Psychological
Association.
