Benefits of Affiliation Under Stress
Why would humans and some animals have a biologically-regulated affiliative system? Looking at affiliation from the standpoint of evolutionary theory makes it clear that there would be clear survival benefits of affiliative response to threat. Tending activities also reduce biological stress responses in both parents and offspring, thereby reducing stress-related threats to their health.
Likewise "befriending" leads to substantial mental and physical health benefits in times of stress. Social isolation is tied to a significantly enhanced risk of mortality, whereas social support is tied to a broad array of beneficial health outcomes, including reduced risk of illness and death.
Read more about this topic: Tend And Befriend
Famous quotes containing the words benefits of, benefits, affiliation and/or stress:
“Unfortunately, we cannot rely solely on employers seeing that it is in their self-interest to change the workplace. Since the benefits of family-friendly policies are long-term, they may not be immediately visible or quantifiable; companies tend to look for success in the bottom line. On a deeper level, we are asking those in power to change the rules by which they themselves succeeded and with which they identify.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“It is too late in the century for women who have received the benefits of co-education in schools and colleges, and who bear their full share in the world’s work, not to care who make the laws, who expound and who administer them.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“Women will not advance except by joining together in cooperative action.... Unlike other groups, women do not need to set affiliation and strength in opposition one against the other. We can readily integrate the two, search for more and better ways to use affiliation to enhance strength—and strength to enhance affiliation.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)