Stress experienced by animals usually only involves immediate short-term crises
If i asked you to list off a series of things you find stressful, you may mention things such as traffic, deadlines, family relationships, money worries, etc. But what if I said, âYouâre thinking like a speciocentric human. Think like a zebra for a second.â Suddenly, new items might appear at the top of your listâserious physical injury, predators, starvation. The need for that prompting illustrates something criticalâyou and I are more likely to be stressed than a zebra is. For animals like zebras, the most upsetting things in life are acute physical crises. Whereas stress experienced by humans is generally psychological or social.
You are that zebra, a lion has just leapt out and ripped your stomach open, youâve managed to get away, and now you have to spend the next hour evading the lion as it continues to stalk you. Or, perhaps just as stressfully, you are that lion, half-starved, and you had better be able to sprint across the savanna at top speed and grab something to eat or you wonât survive. These are extremely stressful events, and they demand immediate physiological adaptations if you are going to live. Your bodyâs responses are brilliantly adapted for handling this sort of emergency.
An organism can also be plagued by chronic physical challenges. The locusts have eaten your crops, and for the next six months, you have to wander a dozen miles a day to get enough food. Drought, famine, parasites, that sort of unpleasantnessânot the sort of experience we have often, but central events in the lives of non-westernized humans and most other mammals. The bodyâs stress-responses are reasonably good at handling these sustained disasters.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Donât Get Ulcers Chapter 1. Why Donât Zebras Get Ulcers? (p. 16). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:đ´ Tags: Biology / Psychology / Evolutionary Psychology Status:âď¸