Under Threat, Women Bond, Men Withdraw
A new study suggests that stress boosts women's awareness of facial expressions and emotions—but has an antisocial influence in men
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... R_20100427
USC 的神经科学家做的试验,把志愿者放在 stress 条件下(手伸入冷水三分钟,导致应激作用的固醇类激素哗哗地流出来),然后让他们一边看愤怒表情照片,一边给他们做脑扫描。跟对照组(手伸入温水三分钟,没有激素释放)相比,under stress 的男试验者看到愤怒照片时,脑子里读他人表情的部位活动降低,管 empathy 的脑部位活动也降低;而女试验者正相反,她们脑子里表情读解和 empathy 部分活跃程度升高。
用特俗的 stereotypes 来解释,就是在压力情况下,男人一个人躲起来 shut down 感情,女人串门找闺蜜吐苦水寻求 bonding。有科学家提出假设(仅仅是假设而已):男性遇到威胁的时候,hard wired 要准备作战或者逃跑,而女人 hard wired 准备找人救助或者跟对方谈判。These conditions revealed a striking sex difference in the brain in the extent to which men and women process faces, and perform emotional assessments of others, under stress. The men under the influence of high cortisol levels showed less activity in a key face-processing region of the brain (the fusiform face area or FFA) than the unstressed men did, suggesting that stressful situations diminish the ability of men to evaluate facial expressions. By contrast, the brains of the women under strain worked harder on the faces: in these females, the FFA was more active than it was in women who did not experience the cortisol boost.
(这是做试验的科学家做出的结论哈,不保证绝对正确。一个人的 coping strategy 跟后天环境的影响肯定有相当的关联,不全是 nature, 多半也有 nurture 的因素。这个试验只能体现出具体当时的脑部活动,却不能证明这种性别差异是先天还是后天的因素影响。)