Generic
Long term effects of stress -> Degrade the individual
A list of the long term effects of stress (cortisol):
* Immune deficiency
* Cognitive impairment
* Inhibition of growth
* Delayed sexual maturity
* Damages to hippocampus
* Psychological maladjustment
* Depression
* High blood pressure
* Abnormal heartbeat (arrhythmia)
* Hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis)
* Heart disease
* Heart attack
* Heartburn, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome
* Upset stomach -- cramps, constipation, and diarrhea
* Weight gain or loss
* Changes in sex drive
* Fertility problems
* Flare-ups of asthma or arthritis
* Skin problems such as acne, eczema, and psoriasis
Let's name a few examples of long term stress: a divorce, the death of a loved one, the loss of job, etc.
Herbert, Tracy Bennett, and Sheldon Cohen. "Stress and immunity in humans: a meta-analytic review." Psychosomatic medicine 55.4 (1993): 364-379.
Maier, Steven F., Linda R. Watkins, and Monika Fleshner. "Psychoneuroimmunology: The interface between behavior, brain, and immunity." American Psychologist 49.12 (1994): 1004.
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.
McGaugh, Quervain de DJ Roozendaal B. "Stress and glucocorticoids impair retrieval of long-term spatial memory." (1998).
Buwalda, Bauke, Maarten H.p. Kole, Alexa H. Veenema, Mark Huininga, Sietse F. De Boer, S. Mechiel Korte, and Jaap M. Koolhaas. "Long-term Effects of Social Stress on Brain and Behavior: A Focus on Hippocampal Functioning." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 29.1 (2005): 83-97. Web.
Lupien, Sonia J., Bruce S. Mcewen, Megan R. Gunnar, and Christine Heim. "Effects of Stress throughout the Lifespan on the Brain, Behaviour and Cognition." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10.6 (2009): 434-45. Web.
Turner, R. Jay, and Donald A. Lloyd. "Stress Burden and the Lifetime Incidence of Psychiatric Disorder inYoung Adults: Racial and Ethnic Contrasts." Archives of general psychiatry 61.5 (2004): 481-488.
Orth-Gomer, K. The Journal of the American Medical Association; 2000.
Orth-Gomér, Kristina, et al. "Stress reduction prolongs life in women with coronary disease the Stockholm Women’s Intervention Trial for Coronary Heart Disease (SWITCHD)." Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes 2.1 (2009): 25-32.
Peterson, Michael, and John F. Wilson. "Work Stress in America." (2004): 91.
Emotions -> Bias to maximize positive outcomes
Emotions are an evolutionary device to focus attention on immediate problems.
They are used to evaluate the best outcome in an array made of pieces of information that aren't always coherent.
It would be too costly to compute (think about) them all.
Emotions are a mean to maximize positive outcomes, they are a fast shortcut to good generic rules.
Ketelaar, Timothy, and Peter M. Todd. "Framing our thoughts: Ecological rationality as evolutionary psychology’s answer to the frame problem." Conceptual challenges in evolutionary psychology. Springer Netherlands, 2001. 179-211.
Campbell, Anne. "Aggression." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 628-52. Web.
Oxytocin -> Addiction effect
The "love hormone", oxytocin, acts on the brain reward system.
It enables long-lasting relationships due to its drug-like effect and addiction.
It also increases stress in situations related to partners and loved ones.
Carter, C. Sue. "Neuroendocrine Perspectives On Social Attachment And Love." Psychoneuroendocrinology 23.8 (1998): 779-818. Web.
Reynaud, Michel, Laurent Karila, Lisa Blecha, and Amine Benyamina. "Is Love Passion an Addictive Disorder?" The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 36.5 (2010): 261-67. Web.
Bisagno, Verónica, and Jean Lud Cadet. "Stress, Sex, and Addiction." Behavioural Pharmacology (2014): 1. Web.
Stress -> Short term -> Help face challenges
In short unpredictable events, stress (cortisol) enhances mental activities.
This helps cope with challenges.
Meanwhile, other mental processes are inhibited to favor focusing on the current situation and reducing "noise".
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.
Wingfield, J. C. "Endocrine Responses to Unpredictable Environmental Events: Stress or Anti-Stress Hormones?" Integrative and Comparative Biology 42.3 (2002): 600-09. Web.
Conception
first born -> prefer stability but stressed
later born -> prefer variety but relaxed
First born are more likely to stay in long term relationships and defer gratification; they prefer stability but are overall more anxious.
Later born are more likely to strive for variety and excitement; they also have a more relaxed life.
This is related to anxiety felt from the parents' expectations, which highly affects self-esteem.
However, those studies have been conducted erroneously by being done by assessments within the same family. Outside the family individual personalities traits may vary. Those differences may only be looked at as adaptations to the family environment.
Weiss, Jonathan H. "Birth Order and Physiological Stress Response." Child Development 41.2 (1970): 461. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.
Jefferson, Tyrone, Jeffrey H. Herbst, and Robert R. Mccrae. "Associations between Birth Order and Personality Traits: Evidence from Self-Reports and Observer Ratings." Journal of Research in Personality 32.4 (1998): 498-509. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.
By {"isAjaxInProgress_B000APGAUE":"0" "No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality Paperback – June 17, 2007." No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality: Judith Rich Harris: 9780393329711: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.
"Judith Rich Harris: Why Do People Believe That Birth Order Has Important Effects on Personality?" Judith Rich Harris: Why Do People Believe That Birth Order Has Important Effects on Personality? N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.
Stress early in life -> Mental disorders
Stress in early development is related to mental disorder and reduction of fetal brain development.
Weinstock, Marta. "The Potential Influence of Maternal Stress Hormones on Development and Mental Health of the Offspring." Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 19.4 (2005): 296-308. Web.
Childhood
Father behaviour -> mirror of children behaviour
The way a father interacts with his children directly influences their later reproductive strategies:
If absent from home it correlates for boys with a higher chance of criminality, stress, "Macho" behavior, criminality, and delinquency.
For girls, it correlates with them seeking quantity over quality.
That is also related to father willful absence.
Having a step-father doesn't change this behavior.
On the opposite, if the absence wasn't willful, for instance the death of the father, it doesn't correlate with similar behavior.
This is an example of genetic behavioral influence.
Geary, David C. "Evolution of Paternal Investment." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 1-18. Web.
Hertwig, Ralph, Jennifer Nerissa Davis, and Frank J. Sulloway. "Parental Investment: How an Equity Motive Can Produce Inequality." Heuristics (2011): 670-92. Web.
Ermisch, John, and Marco Francesconi. "Family Matters: Impacts of Family Background on Educational Attainments." Economica 68.270 (2001): 137-56. Web.
The environment shapes future behaviour
Low resource & risky environments are correlated with:
* Less attentive and conflicted parenting.
* Children that have a tendency to form unstable relationship later in life.
The opposite applies as well:
* Secure and positive individuals have fewer conflicts, more satisfying and longer relationships.
Those two world views are passed down to children through stress, environment, and knowledge (interaction with the world).
MacDonald, Kevin. "Warmth as a developmental construct: An evolutionary analysis." Child Development 63.4 (1992): 753-773.
Geary, David C. "Evolution of Paternal Investment." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 1-18. Web.
Children living with anyone other than parents -> More stress
Children living with step-parents have a higher level of cortisol than
children living with any other kind of relatives
This is interesting, this happens even in the case of a children living with a remarried mother.
Consequently, living with the grandparents is less stressful than living with a remarried mother.
Flinn, Mark V., and Barry G. England. "Childhood stress: endocrine and immune responses to psychosocial events." Social & cultural lives of immune systems (2003): 107-147.
Unstable household in childhood -> Chronic stress -> Blunt Adults
Household factors to raise stress (cortisol):
* Children living in houses with quarreling and fight have abnormal peaks and fluctuations of cortisol.
* When the father leaves the house and returns the cortisol level of the children raises and falls back upon return.
* Traumatic events increase cortisol by 100% to 2K% compared to normal raise, which varies between 10% to 100%.
Chronic stress has long-lasting risks on children:
* It blunts the responses to normal and useful stress.
* The chronically stressed children have a bellow average cortisol level during "normal" situation and appear socially "tougher".
Long, B. L., G. Ungpakorn, and G. A. Harrison. "Home–school differences in stress hormone levels in a group of Oxford primary schoolchildren." Journal of biosocial science 25.01 (1993): 73-78.
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.
Olive, M. Foster. Child abuse and stress disorders. Infobase Publishing, 2007.
Father supports mother -> Mother calm -> Children less stressed
Factors that reduce stress in children:
* Affectionate interactions
* Support from parents
* Availability of parents
* Maternal care: it affects the child the most - A mother living in a stable and supportive household makes the child more relaxed.
* Paternal care: indirectly provides benefits to the child by supporting the mother.
Belsky, Jay, Laurence Steinberg, and Patricia Draper. "Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization." Child development 62.4 (1991): 647-670.
Flinn, Mark V., and Barry G. England. "Social economics of childhood glucocorticoid stress response and health." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 102.1 (1997): 33-53.
Lamb, Michael E., et al. "A biosocial perspective on paternal behavior and involvement." Parenting across the life span: Biosocial dimensions (1987): 111-142.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "The madness of hunger: sickness, delirium, and human needs." Culture, medicine and psychiatry 12.4 (1988): 429-458.
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.
See on person fear -> Build bias for own fears
Seeing another person express fear in face of a situation creates a bias in the individual. The next time there's an encounter it's more probably that it'll induce fear and/or avoidance.
Post traumatic stress disorder: A constant stress and fear that emerges from any cue or recurrent events that resemble a past traumatic event.
"The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a Prototypical Stimulus for an Evolved Module of Fear." The Malicious Serpent: Evolved Adaptations for Responding to Snakes. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Dec. 2016.
Hope, Debra A., and Carroll E. Izard. Perspectives on Anxiety, Panic, and Fear. Lincoln, Neb.: U of Nebraska, 1996. Print.
Childhood stress -> Neglect or over-concern from mother
When a child lack support from his mother or is restricted and unable to explore the world he becomes more stressful.(neglect or over-concern)
Stress affects the development of consolidated memories, and thus affects how experiences are built in the brain.
Cassidy, Jude. "Child-Mother Attachment and the Self in Six-Year-Olds." Child Development 59.1 (1988): 121. Web.
"Maternal Deprivation." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Dec. 2016.
Adolescent
Status -> Difference between life and death -> Responds with stress
Because of the importance of status, changes in it directly affect the individual's physiology by the medium of hormones.
Changes in status can mean the difference between life or death.
The body responds to it with stress: cortisol and adrenaline.
The short term effects are to mobilize energy taken from the fat storage and to make the heart beat fast, pumping blood throughout the body.
The long term effects are to alter the fat storage mechanism, create a hormonal imbalance, sleep disturbance, and altered mood.
McEwen, Bruce S., and John C. Wingfield. "What’s in a name? Integrating homeostasis, allostasis and stress." Hormones and behavior 57.2 (2010): 105.
Goymann, Wolfgang, and John C. Wingfield. "Allostatic load, social status and stress hormones: the costs of social status matter." Animal Behaviour 67.3 (2004): 591-602.
Cummins, Denise. "Dominance, Status, and Social Hierarchies." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 676-97. Web.
Status <-> Stress
A change in status might induce stress or it might not in some cases.
The opposite is also true: Stress can lower someone's status, and being relaxed can rise someone's status.
How an individual reacts in a particular situation reflects their social status and their quality of life.
For example:
Competitive games and contests psychologically feel like real contests between rivals:
They include the fight for status in the hierarchy and thus induce stress.
Poverty is highly correlated with stress because of its effect on status. Persons "relatively deprived" have a higher cortisol level.
Kapuku, Gaston K., Frank A. Treiber, and Harry C. Davis. "Relationships among socioeconomic status, stress induced changes in cortisol, and blood pressure in African American males." Annals of Behavioral Medicine 24.4 (2002): 320-325.
Lupien, Sonia J., et al. "Can poverty get under your skin? Basal cortisol levels and cognitive function in children from low and high socioeconomic status." Development and psychopathology 13.03 (2001): 653-676.
Cummins, Denise. "Dominance, Status, and Social Hierarchies." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 676-97. Web.
Loss or difference in status -> Strong conflicted feelings between individuals
A loss of status or facing someone with better status induces many feelings:
* A deep sense of shame
It is characterized by the avoidance of eye contact, lower chin, avoiding social encounter, etc.
* Rage and depression, or submissive behavior
Used to appease others and avoid future humiliation.
* Envy
Due to a loss or inequality in status.
This specific emotion can trigger destructive behavior, especially if the subject field is one that the individual is deeply involved.
The degree to which someone is satisfied with one-self has also an effect on status, the so-called self-esteem.
People prefer others that make them feel good about themselves.
By consequence, the ones that are targets of envy make others feel bad: The discomfort they entice triggers others to attack their status.
For example using: gossip, malicious acts, etc.
Wicker, Frank W., Glen C. Payne, and Randall D. Morgan. "Participant descriptions of guilt and shame." Motivation and emotion 7.1 (1983): 25-39.
Gilbert, Paul. "Changes: Rank, status and mood." On the move: The psychology of change and transition (1990): 33-52.
Forrest, Marvin S., and Jack E. Hokanson. "Depression and autonomic arousal reduction accompanying self-punitive behavior." Journal of Abnormal Psychology 84.4 (1975): 346.
Feather, Norman T. "Human values and their relation to justice." Journal of Social Issues 50.4 (1994): 129-151.
Positive illusion -> People see themselves better than they are
Positive illusion: The inner bias to overstate oneself.
It can be used to appease one own mind or to gain trust from others.
Taylor, Shelley E., and Jonathon D. Brown. "Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health." Psychological bulletin 103.2 (1988): 193.
Alicke, Mark D. "Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives." Journal of Personality and social Psychology 49.6 (1985): 1621.
Weinstein, Neil D. "Why it won't happen to me: perceptions of risk factors and susceptibility." Health psychology 3.5 (1984): 431.
Rudski, J. M. "Illusion of control relative to chance outcomes." Psychological reports 87.1 (2000): 85-92.
Sedikides, Constantine, Lowell Gaertner, and Yoshiyasu Toguchi. "Pancultural self-enhancement." Journal of personality and social psychology 84.1 (2003): 60.
Adulthood
Female -> Miscarriage correlated with danger
Female have an "auto-abortion" mechanism to avoid the wasteful investment in offspring that would die young.
The chance of miscarriage raises because of stress, mood swing, or bad mother of child health conditions.
It is both to keep the mother from bringing and weak child into the world and to keep her from investing too much in her child when the surrounding environment is too dangerous.
@newscientist. "Stressed Mothers May Risk Early Miscarriage." New Scientist. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Dec. 2016.
Larsen, Elisabeth Clare, Ole Bjarne Christiansen, Astrid Marie Kolte, and Nick Macklon. "New Insights into Mechanisms behind Miscarriage." BMC Medicine 11.1 (2013): n. pag. Web.
"Pregnant Monkeys Miscarry to Avoid Infanticide." LiveScience. Purch, n.d. Web. 24 Dec. 2016.
Women -> Developed an auto-abortion mechanism to choose healthy children
Women from the moment of conception invest highly in their children.
Because of this they can differentiate between healthy fetus and non-healthy ones.
Only 60% of fertilized eggs implants in the uterus, 20% of those are miscarried. Furthermore, if a fetus doesn't secrete enough HCG (hormone) it won't survive the development phase.
The environment also plays a role in early miscarriage. For instance, danger and stress are correlated with an increase in miscarriage.
Those are natural "abortion" and investment redirection mechanism. There are priorities and the body knows it.
Campbell, Anne. "Aggression." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 628-52. Web.
Giudice, Marco Del. "Fetal Programming by Maternal Stress: Insights from a Conflict Perspective." Psychoneuroendocrinology 37.10 (2012): 1614-629. Web.
Haig, David. "Genetic Conflicts in Human Pregnancy." The Quarterly Review of Biology 68.4 (1993): 495-532. Web.
Father behaviour -> mirror of children behaviour
The way a father interacts with his children directly influences their later reproductive strategies:
If absent from home it correlates for boys with a higher chance of criminality, stress, "Macho" behavior, criminality, and delinquency.
For girls, it correlates with them seeking quantity over quality.
That is also related to father willful absence.
Having a step-father doesn't change this behavior.
On the opposite, if the absence wasn't willful, for instance the death of the father, it doesn't correlate with similar behavior.
This is an example of genetic behavioral influence.
Geary, David C. "Evolution of Paternal Investment." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 1-18. Web.
Hertwig, Ralph, Jennifer Nerissa Davis, and Frank J. Sulloway. "Parental Investment: How an Equity Motive Can Produce Inequality." Heuristics (2011): 670-92. Web.
Ermisch, John, and Marco Francesconi. "Family Matters: Impacts of Family Background on Educational Attainments." Economica 68.270 (2001): 137-56. Web.
The environment shapes future behaviour
Low resource & risky environments are correlated with:
* Less attentive and conflicted parenting.
* Children that have a tendency to form unstable relationship later in life.
The opposite applies as well:
* Secure and positive individuals have fewer conflicts, more satisfying and longer relationships.
Those two world views are passed down to children through stress, environment, and knowledge (interaction with the world).
MacDonald, Kevin. "Warmth as a developmental construct: An evolutionary analysis." Child Development 63.4 (1992): 753-773.
Geary, David C. "Evolution of Paternal Investment." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 1-18. Web.
Social bound -> Attachment -> Pressure
Social bounds and cooperation are created through attachment.
Attachment provides security and relief.
Paradoxically it also creates pressure on their subjects, stress directed towards the loved ones, the ones they care about.
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.
Kobak, Roger, Jude Cassidy, Karlen Lyons-Ruth, and Yair Ziv. "Attachment, Stress, and Psychopathology: A Developmental Pathways Model." Developmental Psychopathology (2015): 333-69. Web.
Father supports mother -> Mother calm -> Children less stressed
Factors that reduce stress in children:
* Affectionate interactions
* Support from parents
* Availability of parents
* Maternal care: it affects the child the most - A mother living in a stable and supportive household makes the child more relaxed.
* Paternal care: indirectly provides benefits to the child by supporting the mother.
Belsky, Jay, Laurence Steinberg, and Patricia Draper. "Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization." Child development 62.4 (1991): 647-670.
Flinn, Mark V., and Barry G. England. "Social economics of childhood glucocorticoid stress response and health." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 102.1 (1997): 33-53.
Lamb, Michael E., et al. "A biosocial perspective on paternal behavior and involvement." Parenting across the life span: Biosocial dimensions (1987): 111-142.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. "The madness of hunger: sickness, delirium, and human needs." Culture, medicine and psychiatry 12.4 (1988): 429-458.
Flinn, Mark V., Carol V. Ward, and Robert J. Noone. "Hormones and the Human Family." The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2015): 552-80. Web.