Men and women respond to stress in different ways

Men and women respond differently to stress ScienceBlog.com

Defensiveness is a trait characterised by avoidance, denial or repression of information perceived as threatening. In women, a strong defensive reaction to judgment from others or a threat to self-esteem will result in high blood pressure and heart rate. Contrarily, older men with low defensive reactions have a higher cardiovascular rates.

A study was conducted on 81 healthy working men and 118 women. According to Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif a Université de Montréal professor and Montreal Heart Institute researcher, the physiological response to stress in women and older men is linked to this desire of maintaining self-esteem and securing social bonds.

"The sense of belonging is a basic human need," says D'Antono. "Our findings suggest that socialising is innate and that belonging to a group contributed to the survival of our ancestors. Today, it is possible that most people view social exclusion as a threat to their existence. A strong defensive reaction is useful to maintain one's self-esteem faced with this potential threat."

As part of the experiment, participants completed four tasks of varying stress levels.

• The first task involved reading a neutral text on Antarctica's geography before a person of the same sex.
• The second and third tasks involved role-playing in which participants followed a script where they were sometimes agreeable and sometimes aggressive.
• The final task involved a non-scripted debate on abortion.

Heart rate and blood pressure were measured during each of these tasks as was the level of cortisol in saliva. Results showed that women and older men had elevated cardiovascular, autonomic and endocrine responses to stress, all potentially damaging to their health.

However. the research team cautions that more studies are needed to evaluate the long-term effects of defensiveness and its association to stress response patterns in disease development.

The Delusion and Flawed psychology of climate change denial

A poll published in Britain on November 14, found that only 41 percent of respondents accepted as 'an established fact' that human activity was largely responsible for current global warming.

The majority said the link was 'not proven', that green propaganda was to blame or the world was not heating up at all.

Hacked email disclosure
Last week, a private exchange of emails among climate scientists stoked a firestorm of skepticism after it was hacked and posted on the Web.

The memos expressed frustration at the scientists' inability to explain what they described as a temporary slowdown in warming, and discussed ways to counter the campaigns of climate naysayers.

Experts see several explanations for the eagerness with which so many dismiss climate change as overblown or a hoax.

Clinging to Comfortable Lifestyles
"There is the individual reluctance to give up our comfortable lifestyles -- to travel less, consume less," said Anthony Grayling, a philosophy professor at the University of London and a best-selling author in Britain.

While deeply anchored in the West, this resistance also extends to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil where a burgeoning middle class is only today tasting the fruits of a lifestyle they have waited so long and worked so hard to obtain.

Identity Crisis
For Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox University in Galesburg, Illinois, the reality of climate change impinges on core aspects of our identity.

"We are told a thousand times a day, notably through advertising, that the way to a happy, successful and meaningful life is through consumption," he said.

"But now scientists and environmentalists come along and say part of the problem is that we are consuming too much or in the wrong way."

Humanity's Delusions
Yet there may also be a darker explanation. It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash.

"It's a paradox: when it comes to disasters, people do not allow themselves to believe what they know," explained Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a professor of social philosophy at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

"Because everybody is in denial -- or would like to be in denial -- and would prefer to not shoulder too much of the responsibility for dealing with the problem, you have a kind of disconnect here," Grayling said.

Even scientists are having trouble coping. They are reluctantly puting aside their growing sense of alarm, while at the same time, launching public appeals for action, .