Tara Sattar
A group of researchers at the University of Southern California wanted to find out what stress causes in humans and if they differ from men to women. The team, headed by Mara Mather, came up with a game where a group of men and women were required to inflate balloons. The bigger the balloons, the more cash. The contestants were allowed to walk away with the cash any minute but once the balloon popped, they would be out. Also, the number of times they needed to blow the balloons to inflate was unknown so it was completely random.
However, the results were interesting.
Men and women did behave differently; but not when they were relaxed. The contestants were asked to hold their hands in extreme cold water so their blood pressure and heart rate would increase. Under this situation, the women and men acted completely differently. The women under stress inflated the balloons but let them go earlier than the relaxed women. They inflated the balloons 18% lesser. It was as if they became more composed than relaxed women. But the men did the opposite. The stressed men pumped the balloons 50% more than regular.
A team at Radboud University headed by Ruud van den Bos has found out that men who are under stress almost become risk-hungry even when they are in the right condition. Cortisol, a hormone, has to do with this. Cortisol is a hormone that immediately responds to threat. Some of these chemicals react differently in men and women.
It has been seen that men and women react completely differently at times of stress. For example, your Boss calls you into the office urgently and you immediately start to panic. When you rush to the Boss’s office, he/she tells you that they are leaving the office for an emergency and wants you to take a certain responsibility.
During this point, two different things happen to men and women. The women start to worry about how well they can handle the responsibility and try to give their best from the core. But the men start to think about the imposition of responsibly without the pay.
There are two things that happen in the brain while acting on the decision. One, there are areas in the brain that identify the risky times.
The putamen and the anterior insula are the two different areas that control the actions; and they have completely differently in men and women. The putamen detects the right time and then orders the rest of the brain to act; meanwhile anterior insula is the one that warns of risks.
Somehow, both acted together and at a high level in men. The men were thinking “act now” and “it’s too risky” at the same time. It shows that men are highly emotional in risky times. In contrast, the women think, “let’s not rush” and “take it slow”. The women were rather calm and composed and weren’t willing to make hasty choices at the time of rush.