WISELIWISELI

How does the brain respond to

social competition?Linda Denise Oakley, RN, PhD

UW School of Nursing

April 14, 2005

What the research really What the research really says:says:

• In socially competitive work environments, social bias against females gives important performance advantages to their male competitors. Competitive academic women who are unaware of social defeat as an expression of this bias methods and lack effective support face stress related female health disparities, particularly depression.

Social ResearchSocial Research

• Male advantages gained through social bias against females are use it or loose it perks. The less aware advantaged male can use social defeat methods to compete with females; to internalize his social advantages as personal entitlements and privileges; to externalize his advantages as higher social status

Social CompetitionSocial Competition

• Interpersonal interaction that takes place when when one carries out actions directed at achieving defines goals by confronting others motivated by the same goal (Salvador, 2005)

Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Social Defeat, Depression Social Defeat, Depression

• Allostasis is adaptive and produces biological stability with the brain doing much of the work and the energy costs being charged to closely linked neurotransmitter, adrenal, and immune stress response systems

• Allostatic load is the cumulative wear and tear of allostasis on these systems

• (Korte, Koolhass, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005)

Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Social Defeat, DepressionSocial Defeat, Depression

• Cortisol, a stress hormone released by the adrenal cortex, can be measured in response to human competition and has been shown to be closely associated with the symptoms of depression, a illness with two-fold gender disparities (Bartolomucci, Palanza, Sacerdote, Panerai, Sgoifo, Dantzer, et al., 2005)

• Social defeat is a unique stress response to competition under the conditions of disadvantagement (Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005)

Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Allostatic Load, Cortisol, Social Defeat, DepressionSocial Defeat, Depression

• In animal studies with aggressive and cooperative animals, social defeat experiences in which an unaware animal was repeatedly subjected to defeat by a larger, more aggressive animal led to persistent immobility or conditioned fear response. Researchers reversed this with antidepressants, housing with colony mates, housing in enriched environment, new information learning experiences, and voluntary exercises (Buwalda, Kole, Veenema, Huininga, DeBoer, Korte, & Koolhass, 2005).

Innate Neurobiology Innate Neurobiology

• Cooperative animals found to have better developed hippocampus

• They build better social environment maps

• This results in higher levels of anxiety

• But also less immobilization and

• Better performance

EvidenceEvidence

• Capacity to regulate negative emotions by taking actions to decrease duration of negative emotion ultimately determines the biological impact of social stress and females may have innate neurobiological advantage (Davidson, 2003, Taylor, Klein, Lewis, Gruenewald, Gurung, & Updegraff, 2000)