An organism will feel less stressed if they believe they have control over a situation
Control Rat studies have demonstrated a facet of psychological stress related to the lack of preditability. Give the rat the same series of shocks. This time, however, you study a rat that has been trained to press a lever to avoid electric shocks. Take away the lever, shock it, and the rat develops a massive stress-response. It’s as if the rat were thinking, “I can’t believe this. I know what to do about electric shocks; give me a damned lever and I could handle this. This isn’t fair.” Ulceration city (as well as higher glucocorticoid levels, poorer immune system function, and faster tumor growth). Give the trained rat a lever to press; even if it is disconnected from the shock mechanism, it still helps: down goes the stress-response. So long as the rat has been exposed to a higher rate of shocks previously, it will think that the lower rate now is due to its having control over the situation. This is an extraordinarily powerful variable in modulating the stress-response.
The identical style of experiment with humans yields similar results. Place two people in adjoining rooms, and expose both to intermittent noxious, loud noises; the person who has a button and believes that pressing it decreases the likelihood of more noise is less hypertensive. In one variant on this experiment, subjects with the button who did not bother to press it did just as well as those who actually pressed the button. Thus, the exercise of control is not critical; rather, it is the belief that you have it. An everyday example: airplanes are safer than cars, yet more of us are phobic about flying. Why? Because your average driver believes that they are a better-than-average driver, thus more in control. In an airplane, we have no control at all.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers 13. Why Is Psychological Stress Stressful? (p. 367). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Psychology / Neuropsychology Status:☀️