On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Under stress, we fight or flee, or so scientists have long preached. But this response may really be just a guy thing. New evidence shows how, unlike men, women under stress “tend and befriend,” engaging in nurturing and social networking.
At the Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2010 annual meeting in Montreal, psychologist Mara Mather of the University of Southern California and her colleagues asked male and female volunteers to place their hand in ice water, which makes the stress hormone cortisol shoot up. Then they looked at angry or neutral faces while lying inside a brain scanner.
Men showed less activity in a key face-processing region of the brain than the unstressed men did, suggesting that their ability to evaluate facial expressions declined. In contrast, the region was more active in stressed women. Moreover, these women showed greater activity in the brain circuit that enables people to understand the emotions of others. The enhanced ability of stressed women to read faces and empathize could underlie the propensity to bond under trying circumstances, which may have evolved as a way to protect offspring.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
