Tend and Befriend 5 The theory of tend and befriend was initiated in 1998 when the members of our laboratory group went to hear a prominent animal stress researcher present his work 5. Friedman, H.S., & Silver, R.C. of “tend and befriend.” Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. studies like the one conducted by Taylor et al. Basically, "...tend' refers to tending to your offspring and 'befriend' refers to seeking out social support during times of stress." Tend and Befriend Women tend to nurture and men to withdraw when life gets hard. [1] Oxytocin administration to rats and prairie voles increased social contact and social grooming behaviors, reduced stress, and lowered aggression. These hormones also contribute to the instinct to either fight or flee when a dangerous situation comes up. Psychlopedia defines the Tend-and-Befriend Model (or bonding response)  as the: "Stress response model saying that females are biologically predisposed to respond to the threat by nurturing and protecting offspring and seeking social support and attention.". Dealing with stressful situations ineffectively can lead to chronic stress, which is not good for your physical or mental health. Die Tend-and-befriend-Reaktion – sich Kümmern und Anschließen – ist ein Verhaltensmerkmal von Tieren und Menschen in Stress- und Bedrohungssituationen, bei dem diese versuchen sich zu schützen, indem sie sich einer Gruppe anschließen bzw. You might have heard the saying tend-and-befriend in passing and wondered what it meant. This study investigates the “tend-and-befriend” hypothesis proposed in 2000 by Taylor and colleagues, which posits that women utilize an alternative stress response to fight-or-flight, ensuring the survival of themselves and their offspring (tend) through the formation of groups (befriend). For Additional Help & Support With Your Concerns, Get The Support You Need From One Of Our Counselors, The information on this page is not intended to be a substitution for diagnosis, treatment, or informed professional advice. Ultimately, this theory helps explain why women are usually the primary caregivers for their children and why females are known for leaning on each other for support. Consistent with this result, rates of violence and crime are higher among males and females under conditions of resource scarcity. That's the theory that when faced with a threat, the human body unconsciously prepares to either flee from it or destroy it. (1999). By Nancy K. Dess published September 1, 2000 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016 These responses have a scientific, physical component to them, and they're instinctual, meaning we don't even realize it's happening. [1] During threatening situations, group members can be a source of support and protection for women and their children. Fight-or-flight and tend-and-befriend are evolutionary responses that developed over time to help us survive in dangerous situations. What To Do When You Recognize Passive Behavior In Yourself Or Others, Behaviors, Emotions And Feelings: How They Work Together, Systematic Desensitization: Definition And Process. Believe it or not, researchers believe this could be part of the reason why women tend to live longer than men. [26] Negative gossip also increases with resource scarcity and higher resource value. The presence of friends and allies can help deter malicious gossip, due to an alliance's greater ability to retaliate, compared to a single individual's ability. 107, No. Although social support downregulates these physiological stress responses in both men and women, women are more likely to seek social contact during stress. For more information, please read our. It refers to protection of offspring (tending) and seeking out … ... Tend-and-befriend. This site requires anonymous cookies and third party services to function properly. Taylor's "tend or befriend" research deepens the understanding of how human beings handle stress, as some people very clearly do not fight or flee in response to stressful situations. This page was last edited on 10 February 2021, at 15:53. Among all primates and most mammals, endocrinological and neural processes lead females to nurture infants, including unrelated infants, after being exposed long enough to infant signals. The word 'tend' refers to tending to your offspring, and 'befriend' refers to seeking out social support during times of stress. the theory that an emotion arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion. Informational warfare is the strategic competitive tactics taking the form of indirect, verbal aggression directed towards rivals. The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend-and-befriend pattern Isolation can be incredibly difficult for women for this reason, especially when raising children, so if you're feeling stressed, remember to take time to reach out to friends and family for support. [7] In contrast, fathers who experienced stressful workdays were more likely to withdraw from their families or were more interpersonally conflictual that evening at home. These social responses to threat reduce biological stress responses, including lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) stress activity, such as cortisol responses. Tending involves quieting and caring for offspring during stressful times, and befriending involves engaging the social network for help in responding to stress. Just like the fight-or-flight response, researchers discovered that women's hormones have a big impact on their responses to stress. Seeking out social support, talking, and tending to their offspring often helps women feel less stressed. [2] This system is described as regulating social approach behavior. [11] Allomothers are usually a child's aunts, uncles, fathers, grandmothers, siblings, and other women in the community. The fight-or-flight response was first talked about and studied by Walter Cannon in the 1900s. Women create, maintain, and use social networks—especially friendships with other women—to manage stressful conditions. The tend and befriend instinct contrasts with the fight or flight instinct, and was originally outlined by psychologist Shelley Taylor. [19] In the United States, for example, this difference is almost 6 years. Tend and befriend is built on the brain’s attachment and affiliation circuitry and leads us to care for others and strengthen social ties. You're probably wondering why people have studied the stress response and come up with all these different theories to explain it. It refers to protection of offspring and seeking out the social group for mutual defense that was theorized as having evolved as the typical female response to stress, just as … A biological basis for this regulation appears to be oxytocin. Women befriend others not only for protection, but also to form alliances to compete with outgroup members for resources, such as food, mates, and social and cultural resources (e.g. under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend) Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. The tend-and-befriend theoretical model was originally developed by Dr. Shelley E. Taylor and her research team at the University of California, Los Angeles and first described in a Psychological Review article published in the year 2000. Tend and befriend can show us a new way of relating to ourselves. Humans are born helpless and altricial, mature slowly, and depend on parental investment well into their young adult lives, and often even later. [17] "Befriending" may lead to substantial mental and physical health benefits in times of stress. (Eds.) That's why it's important to learn to handle stress healthily. [25] Therefore, women respond to threats by tending and befriending, and female aggression is often indirect and covert in nature to avoid retaliation and physical injury. [11] When mothers give birth, they often have multiple dependent children in their care, who rely on adults for food and shelter for eighteen or more years. [25] Infants' primary attachment is to their mother, and maternal death increased the chances of childhood mortality in foraging societies by fivefold, compared to threefold in the cases of paternal death. [23] When experimentally primed with a mating motive or status competition motive, men were more willing to become directly aggressive towards another man, whereas women were more likely to indirectly aggress against another woman in an aggression-provoking situation. The “tend and befriend” theory builds on the observation that human beings affiliate in response to stress. Today, it is still a useful response that ensures that women have the social support that they need to get through times of stress. Interestingly, "...the adaptive value of fighting or fleeing may be lower for females, who often have dependent young and so risk more in terms of reproductive success if injured or dislocated. Tend-and-Befriend Response. Research shows that online counseling is as effective as in-person sessions and can help individuals cope with anxiety and depression. Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. 3), this pattern of behavior makes for a significant contrast to the "fight or flight" paradigm that has dominated stress response theory for the last 50 years. (2007). The survival of young children depended more on maternal than paternal care, which underscores the importance of maternal safety, survival, and risk aversion. This response is the body's way of protecting women who might be pregnant or taking care of young children since fighting or running from a stressful situation might not be easy for a mother or pregnant woman to do. Furthermore, physical contact between mothers and their offspring following a threatening event decreased HPA activity and sympathetic nervous system arousal. These hormones cause a physical reaction in the body, which leads to things like sweating, dry mouth, and dilated pupils. When faced with stress, females often respond by tending to offspring, which in turn reduces stress levels. (2005). Men typically exhibit the fight-or-flight response, but thanks to the hormone oxytocin, women feel a reduction in stress when they exhibit tend-and-befriend behavior. social exclusion, gossip, rumors, denigration). To continue using BetterHelp, you must consent to our Privacy Policy. And men, like my father, tend to deal with stress by fighting or fleeing. [21] Although the befriending stress response may be especially activated for women under conditions of resource scarcity,[1] resource scarcity also entails more intense competition for these resources. If speaking with a certified therapist from the convenience of your home is appealing, consider BetterHelp. Some Feel Video Games Do Not Cause Violence, But What Are The Facts? Connecting with a counselor is so convenient and doesn’t require missing work or sitting in traffic. I look forward to continuing to work with him to regain part of my life and self back.”, “Heather helped me with numerous problems that I didn’t have the tools to deal with. Also, as society continues to change and shift, it's possible that these stress responses will continue to change themselves. (2000) argue that female social groups also provide protection from male aggression. In humans, oxytocin promotes mother-infant attachments, romantic pair bonds, and friendships. Social isolation is associated with significantly enhanced risk of mortality, whereas social support is tied to positive health outcomes, including reduced risk of illness and death.[18]. [4] Thus, affiliation under stress serves tending needs, including protective responses towards offspring. Tend-and-Befriend Response Definition In times of stress, humans and many animal species tend and befriend. It's possible that females without children might lean more toward the fight-or-flight response when they're feeling threatened. Burkart, Hrdy, and Van Schaik (2009) argue that cooperative breeding in humans may have led to the evolution of psychological adaptations for greater prosociality, enhanced social cognition, and cognitive abilities for cooperative purposes, including willingness to share mental states and shared intentionality. same workplace) than when the friend was from a nonrelevant social environment. Males, on the other hand, choose to wait by themselves." . However, consistent with informational warfare theory, the content of gossip is relevant to the context in which competition is occurring. [15] However, a review of female aggression noted that "The fact that OT [oxytocin] enhances, rather than diminishes, attention to potential threat in the environment casts doubt on the popular ‘tend-and-befriend’ hypothesis which is based on the presumed anxiolytic effect of OT". Lower variance in reproductive success and higher costs of physical aggression may explain the lower rates of physical aggression among human females compared to males. Tend-and-Befriend Response Definition In times of stress, humans and many animal species tend and befriend. That study was published in 1959. These hormones work to counteract the kinds of feelings and physical reactions associated with the flight-or-flight response. It refers to protection of offspring (tending) and seeking out their social group for mutual defense (befriending). Women form friendships and alliances in part to compete for limited resources, and also in part to protect themselves from relational and reputational harm. [12] Women and adolescent girls report more sources of social support and are more likely to turn to same-sex peers for support than men or boys are. However, when women were given a choice to either wait alone or to affiliate with an unfamiliar man before a stressful laboratory challenge, they chose to wait alone. Of course, it wasn't until decades later that studies like the one conducted by Taylor et al. Oxytocin promotes affiliative behavior, including maternal tending and social contact with peers. It wasn't until studies on human behavior started to include more women that their different stress responses became apparent. The tend-and-befriend response is characterized as an oxytocin mediated stress response cascade. The tend and befriend theory is part of evolutionary psychology, which understands modern psychological behavior through the lens of humankind’s evolutionary history as social animals. In addition, people are more likely to spread negative information about potential rivals but more likely to pass on positive information about family members and friends. Think of something that you fear. [1][14], Human and animal studies (reviewed in Taylor et al., 2000) suggest that oxytocin is the neuroendocrine mechanism underlying the female "befriend" stress response. To make this all a little simpler, according to “ Tend and Befriend Theory ,” people often respond to stress by tending to offspring and affiliating with others.

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