New research suggests women handle stress better than men.

Stress evokes very powerful reactions, but researchers recently revealed that stress-coping tactics are very different in men and women. A recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), published in the July 2000 edition of US journal, Psychological Review, claims that the clichéd ‘flight or fight’ response to stress applies only to men, not women. In the face of stress, women display a very different reaction, focusing on social relations – what the researchers termed a ‘tend and befriend’ response.

According to a report released by UCLA, the study ‘based its findings on analysis of hundreds of biological and behavioural studies of response to stress by thousands of humans and animal subjects’. It was revealed that rather than fleeing or becoming belligerent as was previously assumed, women seek social contact, especially with other women, and spend time nurturing their children, to cope with stress.

Stress, the difference

In a stressful situation, both sexes produce the hormone oxytocin. Shelley E. Taylor, the study’s main researcher, suggests that this hormone has a significant effect on the body and ‘Animals and people with high levels of oxytocin are calmer, more relaxed, more social and less anxious. In several species, oxytocin leads to maternal behaviour and to affiliation.’ But the manner in which this hormone reacts with the gender-specific hormones oestrogen and testosterone, the study suggests, marks an end to the similarities between male and female stress. The testosterone in men counteracts the calming effects of oxytocin, while women's oestrogen enhances it.

Although this gender-based difference is believed to be hormonal, it may have an evolutionary bent. As the traditional protector of children, a ‘fight or flight’ response would be unsafe for pregnant women, preventing them from shielding their children from impending danger. Women developed a distinctive response that allows them to build relationships and form unions that benefit them and their offspring, taking advantage of the safety of a group.

Taylor stresses, ‘I hope women don’t find it offensive. But the fact is they have their own response to stress, and it’s different from men’s. That we’ve been largely oblivious to this ever since the “fight or flight” concept was first introduced in the 1930s is astonishing’.

She also admitted that her research could be open to misinterpretation by some wanting to restrict women to specific roles. ‘We’re trying very hard not to have people say, “Aha! We always thought that women should be at home taking care of their children.” In humans, any carer can provide that kind of nurturing behaviour. It doesn’t have to be the mother.’ She emphasised that the study is not meant ‘to say anything about what women should do’.

By facing stressful situations coolly, women may keep their bodies healthier. Taylor also speculates that the ‘tend and befriend’ response may hold clues as to why, on average, women live longer than men.