Does stress affect men differently than women? This is the question asked by researchers from the Universities of Vienna and Freiburg (Germany) and from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Italy. And the answer to this question is that, apparently, men tend to be more focused and less capable of empathy; just the opposite happens to women .
The researchers started from the initial hypothesis that people tend to be more egocentric when they are subjected to stress , so that the emotional load would be diminished and therefore their capacity for empathy. Thus, they carried out an experiment with a study group made up of half men and half women, who were subjected to conditions of moderate stress in three different situations. The curious thing about the experiment is that the hypothesis was only reaffirmed for men , since women presented a more empathic behavior.
The conclusions of the study that has been published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology , underline that stress not only affects our health, but also our social relationships, especially if we talk about the male gender. Stressed women tend to have a prosocial behavior or behavior, so they forget more about “I” and look more at others .
Why does it happen only to men? For the researchers it is not clear and could be due to various explanations, one of them to oxytocin. This hormone, connected with social behaviors, and known as the “love hormone”, has higher levels in women in stressful situations than in men.
