The Science of Emotions. Module 4

Transcription

1 The Science of Emotions Module 4

2 Fight or Flight The science of understanding emotions is undoubtedly a complex business and one that has fascinated scholars for centuries. Emotions and human behavioural responses are not stable but volatile, perpetually changing. The theory of fight or fight is a commonly recognized one [Fight or Flight theory was first described by Walter Cannon in 1932] and most of us know that we have an instinct to preserve life that manifests as fight or flight. However, not so many people realize that there s a default instinct that comes into play when fleeing and fighting are both impossible. This is termed the freeze, state. The freeze state involves a person being frozen and unable to move, though they are not truly paralyzed. There are many people who feel guilty because they failed to act in a crisis, or when presented with a threat, but they don t realize that they were frozen by instinct, not will.

3 Fight or Flight In Peter Levine s book Waking the Tiger ; he actually defines 5 stages in this process: Levine uses the word arrest for the first move, the defensive orienting response and reserves freeze for the paralyzed state. The stage of arrest can be observed in people or animals. Imagine it is late at night and you are sat reading quietly or watching television and you hear a strange noise, your response will most probably be to become very still and alert. You will look up from what you were doing and scan the environment for danger. If you see no danger and the noise goes away you ll probably just go back to what you were doing.

4 Fight or Flight In short according to Levine s theory the natural reaction to danger is to run [flight] If you can t run, you turn to fight. If fight makes is not an option because the threat/predator is larger/stronger than you then you freeze. This may result in the predator going away, in which case you survive. If your system concludes that you are going to die, you enter the fifth stage which is loss of the will to live, which Levine calls fold. However, a new theory in behavioural responses to threats, entitled, Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or- Flight has been conducted by researchers [Shelley E. Taylor, Laura Cousino Klein, Brian P. Lewis, Tara L. Gruenewald, Regan A. R. Gurung, and John A. Updegraff], at the University of California, Los Angeles This research hones in on difference in female and male response to stress.

5 Tend and Befriend Whilst undertaking a study on chemicals in the brain, Doctors Laura Cousin Klein and Shelley Taylor noticed a marked difference in the behavior of women in response to stress. When stressed the women tended to do the cleaning, buy themselves, get together, share a coffee, whereas the men 'holed up somewhere on their own'. More and more research is now uncovering the concept that 'women have a larger behavioural repertoire than just fight or flight. Indeed the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, and it is now suggested that this buffers the flight or fight response and encourages a female to tend children and gather with other women instead. This response is being called tend and befriend'.

6 Tend and Befriend It is too simplistic to say that women have this response and men don't, as we all generate oxytocin and both men and women can all behave in this way. However, the new research shows that women are more likely to adopt a tend and befriend pattern of behaviour and this is because of the historically different roles that men and women have held. The male fight-or-flight response is inherently different from the female tend-and-befriend response. The male stress response most likely evolved as a protective measure to ensure the survival of the male. If the male was likely to overcome the threat he would fight whereas if the threat was unlikely to be overcome the male would flee. However, females with the same stress response as the male model would be unable to defend themselves whilst caring for offspring and be unable to flee promptly since they would have to move their offspring away efficiently. Taylor et al. (2000) proposes the tend-and-befriend female stress response as an evolutionary solution to this problem that would have been selected for in natural selection. Females who retained the fight-or-flight response would have decreased chances of surviving and hence decreased likelihood of their offspring survival and reproduction. Whereas the formation of female networks that would ensure the care of offspring and aid in the defense if a threat were present would have been selected for in natural selection since it would increase the likelihood of survival. Animal experimental evidence as well as human models supports Taylor et al.'s (2000) hypotheses as a feasible evolutionary and biochemical mechanism to ensure female and offspring survival.

7 Reptilian and mammalian brain The fight or flight response is located in our reptilian brain, whereas the tend and befriend response is from the neomammalian brain. The development of mammals is intimately linked to the importance of family, the mutual aid and support which comes from group behaviour. Therefore tend and befriend is the more mature and responsible human response to fear and stress.

8 Reptilian and mammalian brain The fight or flight response is located in our reptilian brain, whereas the tend and befriend response is from the neomammalian brain. The development of mammals is intimately linked to the importance of family, the mutual aid and support which comes from group behaviour. Therefore tend and befriend is the more mature and responsible human response to fear and stress.

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