Tend and befriend

Tend-and-befriend is a behavior exhibited by some animals, including humans, in response to threat. It refers to protection of offspring (tending) and seeking out their social group for mutual defense (befriending). In evolutionary psychology, tend-and-befriend is theorized as having evolved as the typical female response to stress. The tend-and-befriend theoretical model was originally developed by Shelley E. Taylor and her research team at the University of California, Los Angeles and first described in a Psychological Review article published in the year 2000. According to the Polyvagal theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, the "Social Nervous System" is an affiliative neurocircuitry that prompts affiliation, particularly in response to stress. This system is described as regulating social approach behavior. A biological basis for this regulation appears to be oxytocin. Oxytocin has been tied to a broad array of social relationships and activities, including peer bonding, sexual activity, and affiliative preferences. Oxytocin is released in humans in response to a broad array of stressors, especially those that may trigger affiliative needs. Oxytocin promotes affiliative behavior, including maternal tending and social contact with peers. Thus, affiliation under stress serves tending needs, including protective responses towards offspring. Affiliation may also take the form of befriending, namely seeking social contact for one's own protection, the protection of offspring, and the protection of the social group. These social responses to threat reduce biological stress responses, including lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) stress activity, such as cortisol responses. Women are more likely to respond to stress through tending and befriending than men. Paralleling this behavioral sex difference, estrogen enhances the effects of oxytocin, whereas androgens inhibit oxytocin release. Female stress responses that increased offspring survival would have led to higher fitness and thus were more likely to be passed on through natural selection.