Social relationships and the management of stress

Two different types of social relationships exist in mammalian social syste ms. dominance relationships and social bondings. This article shows that bo th are crucial for the management of stress. The following general conclusi ons are derived: (1) In stable social systems, established dominance relati onships result in predictable behaviour. As a consequence, low positions in the hierarchy do not necessarily lead to enhanced endocrine stress respons es. Under conditions of instability, however, distinct increases in the act ivities of the pituitary-adrenocortical- and the sympathetic-adrenomedullar y systems are found; (2) The ability to establish and to respect dominance relationships is a prerequisite to build up stable social systems. Whether this ability is realized, however, depends on social experiences made durin g behavioural development. The time around puberty seems to be essential fo r the acquisition of those social skills needed to adapt to unfamiliar cons pecifics in a non-stressful and non-aggressive way, (3) Stress responses ca n be ameliorated by the presence of members of the same species. This pheno menon is called social support. In general, social support cannot be provid ed by any conspecific, but the ability to give social support is restricted to bonding partners. In most mammalian species mothers are important bondi ng partners for their infants. In some species bondings also occur between adult individuals; and (4) On a physiological level the bonding partner red uces the activities of the pituitary-adrenocortical- and the sympathetic-ad renomedullary systems. On a psychological level he/she can be regarded as a 'security-giving and arousal-reducing structure'. This is true irrespectiv e of whether the bonding partner is the mother. in the case of an infant. o r a male or a female in the case of an adult individual. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.