Sex differences in biobehavioral responses to threat: Reply to Geary and Flinn (2002).

Abstract

Early theories of stress obscured differences in how men and women respond to threat. The tend-andbefriend model attempted to partially redress that oversight by identifying biological and behavioral patterns of stress responses distinctive to females, responses that are markedly social. Although men’s behavior under stress may also be social, at least under certain circumstances, extending the tend-andbefriend model to men is premature and potentially flawed, from the vantage points of the underlying biology and the behavioral stress responses it may help to foster. D. C. Geary and M. V. Flinn (2002) have offered a commentary on our tend-and-befriend theory that provides intriguing extensions to the stress responses of men. We concur with some of their ideas and disagree with others. Nonetheless, we believe this debate will spark constructive attention to the limitations of previous models of stress for understanding the many ways in which both men and women respond socially and biologically to stress.