Having social support is shown to lower the stress-response in primates
An additional way we can interact with another organism to minimize the impact of a stressor on us is considerably more encouraging for the future of our planet than is displacement aggression. Rats only occasionally use it, but primates are great at it. Put a primate through something unpleasant: it gets a stress-response. Put it through the same stressor while in a room full of other primates and… it depends. If hose primates are strangers, the stress-response gets worse. But if they are friends, the stress-response is decreased. Social support networks—it helps to have a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, an ear to listen to you, someone to cradle you and to tell you it will be okay.
The same is seen with primates in the wild. The social life of a male baboon can be pretty stressful—you get beaten up as a victim of displaced aggression; you carefully search for some tuber to eat and clean it off, only to have it stolen by someone of higher rank; and so on. Glucocorticoid levels are elevated among low-ranking baboons and among the entire group if the dominance hierarchy is unstable, or if a new aggressive male has just joined the troop. But if you are a male baboon with a lot of friends, you are likely to have lower glucocorticoid concentrations than males of the same general rank who lack these outlets. And what counts as friends? You play with kids, have frequent nonsexual grooming bouts with females (and social grooming in nonhuman primates lowers blood pressure).
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers 13. Why Is Psychological Stress Stressful? (p. 364). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Psychology / Neuropsychology Status:☀️