Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight
Taylor and colleagues argue that the standard account of the human stress response, fight or flight, was built largely on male subjects and describes only part of what happens. Their proposal is that women's behavioural response to stress is better characterised as tend and befriend. Tending is the protective, nurturing activity directed at offspring and self that reduces distress and increases safety; befriending is the building and maintenance of social ties that make that protection possible. They argue the physiological machinery underneath draws on the attachment and caregiving system rather than on a separate stress system, with oxytocin, female reproductive hormones and the body's own opioid mechanisms at its centre. The claim is not that women do not show fight or flight physiologically, but that the behaviour on top of it differs. It is a theoretical paper proposing a framework and assembling animal and human evidence for it rather than a single experiment, and the framework has been argued with since, including in a published commentary this vault also cites.
Taylor and colleagues argue that the standard account of the human stress response, fight or flight, was built largely on male subjects and describes only part of what happens. Their proposal is that women's behavioural response to stress is better characterised as tend and befriend. Tending is the protective, nurturing activity directed at offspring and self that reduces distress and increases safety; befriending is the building and maintenance of social ties that make that protection possible. They argue the physiological machinery underneath draws on the attachment and caregiving system rather than on a separate stress system, with oxytocin, female reproductive hormones and the body's own opioid mechanisms at its centre. The claim is not that women do not show fight or flight physiologically, but that the behaviour on top of it differs. It is a theoretical paper proposing a framework and assembling animal and human evidence for it rather than a single experiment, and the framework has been argued with since, including in a published commentary this vault also cites.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). “Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight.” Psychological Review, 107(3), 411-429. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.411
Where we use it
- Cliques Are a Stress Response, Why We Belong
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.411
DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.411